What the photos will never tell you
This is where your time is best spent, because it is the information that only exists in the room:
- Light and orientation. Which way the living space and the yard face. In Calgary that decides whether a back deck is usable in the evening and whether a driveway holds ice all winter. Which way should the backyard face →
- Sound. Stand still and stop talking. Traffic, a train, a flight path, the neighbour's furnace, footsteps upstairs in a condo.
- Smell. Damp, smoke, pets, or an air freshener working unusually hard.
- Flow and scale. Wide-angle photos flatter everything. Walk the route you would actually walk with groceries, or with a stroller, or up from the garage.
- The approach. Park a little away and walk up. The street, the neighbours' upkeep and the parking situation are all part of what you are buying.
Open a few things. Closets, the electrical panel, the furnace room, a window that faces the neighbour. Sellers do not mind, and the rooms nobody staged are the honest ones.
What to leave for the inspector
You are not there to assess the furnace, the roof or the foundation, and a confident guess at a showing is worth nothing. Note what you notice, then let a licensed inspector price it properly during your condition period. What you are deciding at a showing is whether this home is worth an offer at all.
Take notes you can still read next week
By the fourth home they blend. Photograph anything that puzzled you, write one sentence on what you liked and one on what you would have to live with, and send both to your REALTOR®. That second sentence is what sharpens the next search.