Property experts regularly press home the importance of commissioning building and pest inspections to prevent buyer’s remorse.

But while these common checks and balances offer crucial insurance against major structural problems and infestations, they do nothing to insulate a purchaser against a raft of more subtle problems that are harder to detect.

Experts agree there are a number of property flaws that are often only discovered once you have moved in — in other words, when it is too late.

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Trams and trains are convenient, but loud. Photo: Shutterstock

What on earth is that sound?

It’s great living close to a station, but the fast movement of a freight train at night seems much louder when there is no ambient daytime din to drown it out.

There is a big difference between being a street away and a few hundred metres from the local station, according to property lecturer at the University of South Australia, Peter Koulizos.

“Try and be at least a few hundred metres away as you may still hear train brakes squealing and the occasional horn, but the benefit of living near a station far outweighs that,” he says.

Furthermore, CBD commuters are less likely to take the parking spots outside your home if you are good few streets back.

Buyer’s agent Josh Masters regularly purchases homes for clients in the inner-west of Sydney where airplane noise is frequent, and says flight paths can vary wildly from one part of a suburb to the next, depending on the direction of the wind.

“Aircraft noise is strange in that you can be one street away in a different direction and not really hear it,” he notes.

He recommends buyers do their homework on the common flight paths across their city; he uses a Google Maps service that shows the flight paths across Sydney’s suburbs.

Who knows, Kramer could be your new neighbour.

Neighbours be gone

Open for inspections rarely give buyers a good sense of what the neighbours are like, but they have the potential to make our days – and nights — a living hell.

Mr Koulizos recommends visiting the property on foot and having a good look around the area, at various times of the day.

“You might also want to look at the bins on bin morning and if the street is full of overflowing bins with liquor bottles then that tells you something,” he says.

“Walk around the surrounding streets and take note of what you hear; are people playing AC/DC or are they listening to classical music?

“Are you smelling anything from the factory nearby?

“You need to focus on smelling and hearing, rather than just seeing.”

Mr Masters says buyers need to check whether neighbours have lodged plans to demolish their homes to build apartments or townhouses, which could potentially affect a purchaser’s view.

“Make sure you read any development applications that are posted outside the front of the neighbour’s house or check with council for development plans next door to you,” Mr Masters says.

Dysfunctional body corporates

Of course, for purchasers who are buying into a unit complex, the problem neighbour will be hard to avoid at body corporate — also known as owners’ corporation — meetings.

Mr Masters says it is difficult to ascertain how “healthy” a body corporate is from the outside, so buyers should obtain information on the finances, long-term levies, resolutions and “personalities” of the group. It is a good idea to request 12 months of minutes from meetings as well as the body corporate’s constitution.

“I would look at the minutes of the meetings and see if you can find evidence of rifts among people,” Mr Masters says.

“While a healthy body corporate is sometimes evident in the way the gardens and external buildings are maintained, you need to look deeper at any future financial spending.

“I have heard of people being stung $50,000 to $100,000 after they moved in because there was a body corporate levy to repair something as huge as concrete cancer.

“You need to get as much information on the body corporate as possible.”