Potential owners should take their first tour of a house to get an idea of what it looks like and to see if it matches their needs. Although you will know whether a potential home is suitable for your needs, such as the number of bedrooms and the availability of outdoor space available, you may not know all the details of the home.

Curbed spoke to a home inspector and an architect who specialize in home renovations to learn what to look for when you walk through a house or host an open house. These guidelines will help you make an informed assessment about the condition of a house.

Take a look at the floors

You can tell if the plumbing is not up to standard by looking at the pipes. You should look for floors that have unusual sagging and dipping close to the bathroom. “It’s a sign that plumbers may have done some interesting plumbing underneath the floor,” says Michael Ingui, of the firm Baxt Ingui Architects. The structure might need to be reworked if it has sagging floors elsewhere in the house.

You will see cracks in the wall.

Unsurprisingly, cracks in walls are not easy to spot. “A crack in a brick wall means there’s movement,” which is the sign of serious structural problems, says David Briggs, founder of the New York firm Loci Architecture. While small cracks in drywall are not to be worried about, larger cracks and ones that have discoloration could indicate structural problems or leaks.

Attention to fresh paint

It’s not important to worry about a bad job or 15 layers of paint. If the home looks old or hasn’t been updated in a while, or if you see sheetrock or paint in the basement or cellar ceilings, be aware. “This is likely to mean that they have fixed something before they put the house up for sale. Ingui suggests that they may be covering up something. He says that location is important because it’s where termites and carpenter ant damage are most likely to occur. Ask why there were any cover-ups.

This post was written by Josh Dotoli! Josh is the owner of https://joshdotoligroup.com/ which is a laser-focused real estate team at Compass comprised of industry experts selling Fort Lauderdale’s best neighborhoods. This dynamic group is one of the top-selling real estate teams in South Florida with over $94 million in sales in the past 12 months alone.