Before Regret:Know what to check, ask and verify before you buy a home.

Before Regret is a free property research tool for US home buyers. Search any US residential address and get the checks that actually matter for a home of its age and county, the exact questions to ask the seller, and a clear list of what to verify before you sign.

Every report is free.

No sign-up. No credit card.

Built on public records from
  • USGS
  • US Census Bureau
  • FEMA
  • EPA
  • NOAA

Look behind the listing photos

What a Listing Won’t Tell You

Listings are written to sell the home. This report is written to tell you what to check, what to ask, and what nobody has verified yet.

  1. 1How old is the roof?Read the clues on a showing, then confirm the date with the permit or the invoice.Read more
  2. 2Which direction should a house face?Free tool · No sign-upSee how much direct sun each room gets through the year, for the way the house faces.Read more
  3. 3What is inside the walls?Houses built before 1956 can still have knob-and-tube wiring behind the plaster.Read more
  4. 4What are the water pipes made of?Copper, PEX, galvanized or polybutylene: a magnet and a coin tell most of them apart.Read more
  5. 5Which electrical panel is it?The brand is on the label inside the door. A few from 1950–1989 get a closer look.Read more
  6. 6Is the pipe from the street lead?Your water utility keeps a public record of the service line, by address.Read more
  7. 7Is the sewer line cast iron?Houses built before 1974 may have cast iron sewer lines. A camera scope shows their condition.Read more
  8. 8Is that crack a problem?When a foundation crack calls for a structural engineer, and when it does not.Read more
  9. 9Was the deck permitted?Look up a property’s permit history by address, in any US county.Read more

Three steps

How Before Regret Works

  1. 1

    Enter any US residential address

    Any single-family home, condo, townhouse, or multi-family parcel, across all 50 states.

  2. 2

    We validate and check what we can

    Your address is validated against the US Census geocoder, and we pull the live Census profile of its neighborhood. Everything else is era- and county-specific research, flagged for you to confirm at the source.

  3. 3

    Get Report

    Exactly what to verify in person and what to ask the seller — ready before your inspection deadline.

Independence statement. Before Regret isn't here to criticize builders, agents, or sellers — we believe transparency leads to better conversations and more confident decisions.

Your report

What’s in your report

One address, one clear page: what to ask, what to inspect, what to look at on the day, and what still has to be checked at the source.

A lived-in kitchen with white cabinets, a butcher-block counter and a window over the sink in warm morning light

What to ask the seller

The exact wording to use, why each question matters for this property, and what a reassuring answer sounds like.

What to inspect first

Which inspections are worth paying for on a home of this age and county, and roughly what each costs to check versus to fix.

What to look at during the visit

A checklist of what to arrange and look at before your walkthrough, that you can tick off on your phone.

The neighborhood, in numbers

How old the typical nearby home is, plus median owner costs and home values for the census tract, pulled live from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Records to look up yourself

Flood zone, permit history and code-enforcement records, each linked straight to the office that holds it.

The year it was built

What your home’s age tells you

Every era of American building left its own materials behind the walls. Move the slider to the year a house was built and see what is worth checking.

An unfinished basement with the electrical panel on a plywood board, a small window, and water stains along the bottom of the concrete foundation wall
Built in
1962
5 of 9 era checks apply
Knob-and-tube wiring
Galvanized water pipes
Cast iron sewer line
Lead paint disclosure
Asbestos materials
Electrical panel brand
Aluminum branch wiring
Polybutylene supply pipes
Synthetic stucco (EIFS)
before 1970
Check the water supply pipe material
Read the guide
before 1974
Scope the sewer line
Read the guide
before 1978
Confirm you received the federal lead-paint disclosure
EPA guidance
before 1986
Test for asbestos only if you plan to renovate
Read the guide
1950–1989
Record the electrical panel brand
Read the guide
Free tools · No sign-up

Two things you can use before you buy

Viewing checklist

Tell us roughly when the house was built and what it sits on, and get a short list of things worth checking while you are standing there.

Open the checklist

Sunlight by room

Pick a county and the way a window faces, and see when direct sun actually reaches that room — including the mornings you will never see at a midday viewing.

Check a room
A tree-lined American street of older homes -- a brick colonial, a craftsman bungalow with a deep porch, and clapboard houses -- in late afternoon sun

Public records, by address

Look it up before you sign

Permits, violations and landmark records are public, but every county keeps them somewhere different. Our county guides show exactly where to search and what the result means.

How to look up any address

Tap a highlighted state to see its county guides (22 counties in all).

A block of older brick row houses with stoops, wrought-iron railings, window boxes and a street tree

Original research

The numbers behind the house

We analyse public federal data and publish every figure, free, with the data files beside it.

All research
26.6%

of 2,578,413 federal flood insurance claims were paid on homes rated outside the high-risk flood zone.

Source: FEMA NFIP claimsOutside the Zone
17,049

dams in the US are classed as high hazard potential, and 16.4% of them carry a poor or unsatisfactory condition rating.

Source: US Army Corps of Engineers, National Inventory of DamsHigh-Hazard Dams by County
−3.2%

change in single-family home permits this year through July 2026. House permits fell in 285 of 567 large counties.

Source: US Census Bureau, Building Permits SurveyPermit Pulse

Free for Home Buyers

No sign-up, no card, no subscription. Check every house you’re considering.

Every Report

Free, no sign-up

$0
  • What to ask the seller
  • What to inspect first, for its age and county
  • Earthquake risk for the exact address
  • Opens as a link you can come back to

Explore the guide library

Pulling the paper trail

Can You Make a Seller Pay for an Unpermitted Deck?

Found an unpermitted deck after closing? What Texas and Washington disclosure laws ask sellers, when a seller can be liable, and what to gather first.

Read guide Worried it won’t be insurable

Can You Insure a House With Polybutylene Pipes? Repipe Cost

Polybutylene supply lines make a policy harder to bind. What underwriters weigh, what a repipe costs, and how to get a written answer before closing.

Read guide Buying an older home

How to Choose an EIFS Inspector: Questions to Ask

Hiring an EIFS inspector before your deadline? The questions that separate a real moisture survey from a quick scan, and the red flags to listen for.

Read guide Your report says something odd

What Does “Open Ground” Mean on a Home Inspection?

An open ground means a three-prong outlet has no grounding path: a shock risk that also leaves surge protectors doing nothing. Who can fix it, and how.

Read guide Original research

Oldest Housing Stock: Where Homes Predate 1950

Explore US counties with the oldest housing stock. See where over half of homes were built before 1950, and why age matters for property research.

Read guide
Browse all 93 guides

Frequently Asked Questions

How this differs from a home inspection, and how we stay independent.

What is Before Regret?

Before Regret is free property research for US home buyers. Enter any US address and you get the questions to ask the seller, what to inspect first for that home's age and county, and the earthquake risk for that exact address, with anything we haven't independently verified labeled as such.

Why is it called Before Regret?

Because the time to check a house is before you sign, while you can still ask, negotiate or walk away. Many of the things people come to regret about a home, like a bedroom that gets no winter sun, a renovation nobody got a permit for, or a problem the inspection was never asked to look at, can be checked beforehand. Before Regret exists for that window.

Is Before Regret a substitute for a licensed home inspection?
No. A physical home inspection evaluates the current physical and mechanical condition of a property — testing outlets, inspecting shingles, running plumbing. Before Regret combines live-checked data (like the Census profile of the neighborhood), cited public research on what matters for a home's era and region, and a plain-language summary. The two complement each other: Before Regret tells you exactly what to point your inspector at.
How does Before Regret compare to real estate listing sites?
Listing portals are built to help you find and fall in love with a home — seller photos, agent copy, MLS data. Before Regret is built the other way around: it starts from what a careful buyer or their inspector would actually want confirmed before signing, and is explicit about which parts come from a live source versus still on you to check.
Does a Before Regret report constitute legal, financial, or engineering advice?
No. Before Regret is a research assistant tool. Reports do not constitute formal legal title searches, legal opinions, structural engineering evaluations, or licensed financial appraisals. Every recommendation routes to a licensed professional as the next step — the report itself is never a substitute for one.
How quickly is the report generated?
Usually within a minute of confirming the address. Your report opens at its own link, so you can come back to it, share it, or save it as a PDF.
Does a report cost anything?
No. Every report is free. You don't need an account or a credit card, and there is nothing to subscribe to.
A deep green front door with brass hardware on a weathered wooden porch, lit by late afternoon sun

Researching a home you're about to tour?

Run the address before your walkthrough — it takes 60 seconds and you'll know exactly what to look for.