Six Ways to Include Pets in Your Home Purchase

Full Video Transcript Below

 [00:00:00] Good morning, everyone. Alice Lema here, broker John L. Scott, Southern Oregon. Again, with another edition of our weekly podcast. Today, we're going to talk about buying a house for your pets, how to buy a pet friendly home. I've got six ways to include your pets health, safety, and recreation in your home purchase.

[00:00:25] And you know, a lot of people are doing this so super exciting to be bringing you some of these ideas. We do this podcast every week. If you like it, please give us a thumbs up, share it. Love for you to subscribe to the channel. This is an educational series. Want to know how, how you like it and if it's helping. So give us some comments.

[00:00:44] So here we go. Six ways to include your pet in your home purchase. First of all, let's start outside. The obvious is the yard enclosure, if you have domestic animals, whether they be cats, dogs, maybe you domesticated a goat. We have many goats, we have many pigs stuff like that.

[00:01:01] You know, look at the size of your animal. Look at the actual yard and examine the enclosure. If you're on acreage, then make a little enclosure and you want to kind of pull the plants away from the fence or whatever retaining wall is there down at the ground and kind of look behind it and see if there's any holes.

[00:01:20] Those can be patched with wire other materials. And you can create a more secure environment. Also look at the height of the fence and what material it's made out of, because depending on what kind of a pet it may or may not be appropriate. Okay. So first of all, the yard enclosure.

[00:01:39] Second of all, plants, now outdoor plants like azaleas, some ferns, some ivies , some flowers can be poisonous to some animals. Additionally, some indoor plants can be poisonous to some animals. So do your homework. But actually if you're a good pet parent, you probably already know what that list is. But if you're going to go house hunting, this is your first time buying a home, then get one of the apps that has the plant ID on it. Those are great. I have that on my phone at all times. And you can take a picture of it and it'll tell you what the plant is. And sometimes it'll mention if it has any poisonous qualities to animals. If not, you can go back later and Google all those and find out. So be aware of plants you have indoor and out. That's number two.

[00:02:30] Number three is water hazards. Now this can be little indentations in your yard or your patio where water collects. Again it depends on the size of the animal. It can also be water features. It can be naturally occurring ponds, creeks. It can be something down the street. So if fluffy or Fido gets out and wanders down to the neighbor's swimming pool or the Creek down at the park, you just want to be aware of the surroundings and identify where all the water is. And if it will be a hazard or not even if it's not in your yard. So number three is a water hazards.

[00:03:09] Number four is the neighborhood pet friendly? So in my family, some of my members of my family have dogs and they have a lot of them and they're big and have these big barks. They're not normally barking, but when they do bark, it rattles like it rattles the walls.

[00:03:28] So when we're house hunting for somebody like that, we kind of look around the neighborhood. We see if anybody else has dogs. Are they big dogs? Are they walking their dogs? Because if you're going into a super silent, quiet kind of non dog friendly neighborhood, then you're going to stand out like a sore thumb. And in some municipalities, the neighbors are allowed to call the police if your dog barks.

[00:03:52] If you're going to be out in the country and you have horses or something like that, again, it depends on what kind of animal you have, but you're, you're looking at the area to see how tolerant and friendly they are of the kind of pets or animals that you have.

[00:04:08] You also want to check the traffic because even if you're out kind of out of town a little bit, if it's one of the thoroughfares that again, if somebody gets out or you have chickens or whatever, again, it's pet specific you want to just be aware of not only how much traffic, but what time of day.

[00:04:25] Okay. So that's super important. And there are some neighborhood apps now that you can jump on and just say, you know, introduce yourself, say, Hey, I'm thinking. You know, buying a house in this area, is it friendly to this kind of pet or blah, blah, blah. Okay. So make sure you check that that's number four.

[00:04:44] Now going inside your dwelling, what about stairs level changes? Big vents climate control, things like that. What's going on inside the house. If you have a pet that is elderly or handicapped, then it's going to matter a lot. If there's level changes or stairs. And if you do get a home like that, you just want to have a plan to accommodate that pet's capabilities.

[00:05:12] If you have a bird, then you definitely want to look at the vents and little pockets that they might get stuck in and things like that. And temperature control, maybe you have snakes. Well, you know, snakes and lizards and things usually give them a temperature controlled environment. But you just want to be aware if they get out, what's it like for them? Oh, outside their area. So the interior of the home, the environment, is it going to be appropriate for your animal? Does it have stairs is of level changes? How big are the vents? How, how accurate is the heating system? How good is the heating system and the cooling system? So just general climate control. So that's number five is the interior environment for your particular.

[00:05:59] And then lastly what about dedicated rooms? So I see a lot of folks doing this now, especially if they have rescue animals that are a little bit traumatized or maybe the've cats that have been declawed or something like that. Or maybe they just want to give their pet or bird their own room. And that is just killer. That's fabulous. So number six is maybe you want to make the decision to just get a room. For your pet, and if it's going to be for a cat, then does it have room for all the climbing things? Can you put up little walkways? If it's for a bird again, you want to look and make sure that you can secure the spaces that the corners are open, that there's no vents and things like that where they can get stuck.

[00:06:44] And if it's for snakes and amphibians, then you know, we're going to talk about climate control and things like that. So yeah, so that's number one. That is our six ways to include your pet in your home purchase.

[00:06:57] I'm Alice Lema, broker John L. Scott here in Southern Oregon. I want to be your agent. I'm going to be around all weekend. I'm a great buyer's agent. I'm a great listing agent. Give me a call. Give me a text. My number is (541)301-7980. I work Medford, Ashland, Grants Pass,Klamath on occasion. So give me a call, give me a text. Let me know how I can help you. I work with a lot of investors. I work with tenants buying and selling.

[00:07:25] I do it all. It's just my bag. I'm kind of a real estate geek. So anyway, have a beautiful Southern Oregon weekend. Stay hydrated. Stay safe. Wear your mask, because now we've got our mask mandate back. And we'll talk to you again next week. Bye now.