How do I tell in 15 minutes whether a house deserves a second look?

You can't judge a house in 15 minutes, but you can tell whether it earns a longer visit. Most of that work happens at your kitchen table before you leave.

By Jake Goodson and Tony Le · Published October 19, 2026 · Updated October 19, 2026

In 15 minutes you can't judge a house, but you can tell whether it earns a longer visit, and most of that is reading the paperwork first so the 15 minutes goes to what paper can't show. Below is the order The Houselab Team works from.

Say it's Saturday. You've got a few showings lined up, and the first one gets a quarter of an hour before you have to drive across the river for the next. The house had as long as it wanted to get ready for you. You get fifteen minutes, so spend them on the things nobody could tidy up.

Before you go: ten minutes at the kitchen table

Most of what tells you whether a house is worth a second look is already written down, and you can read it before you park.

The Home Energy Score. If the house is advertised inside Portland's jurisdiction, the city requires a Home Energy Score and report in every advertisement, so it should be right there on the listing. The score runs from 1 to 10 and comes from someone looking at the house itself, not from the owner's utility bills. The city's own page says a low score "does not mean it is poorly built." Read the report's list of options for cutting energy use and cost. It's a short list of what the evaluator thought could be better, and you'll be standing in those rooms in an hour.

The seller's disclosure. Oregon's seller disclosure form works as a reading list. These are the parts worth reading before a showing:

  • —roof leaks and repairs (question 5.A)
  • —moisture, water getting in and mildew odors, especially in the basement (5.G)
  • —for a house built before 1974, whether it's bolted to its foundation (section 8)
  • —settling, soil, standing water or drainage on the property or nearby (9.A)
  • —material damage from a flood or landslide (9.C), a designated floodplain (9.D), and a slide or geologic hazard zone (9.E)

The form also asks about remodeling permits, underground and fuel tanks, lead paint and asbestos. Keep one line from it in your head the whole time: the answers are given "ON THE BASIS OF SELLER'S ACTUAL KNOWLEDGE." The form tells you what the seller knows, which can be a lot less than what's there. If you don't have the disclosure yet, ask the listing agent for it.

PortlandMaps. Look the address up on portlandmaps.com and read the "Jurisdiction" field. That's how you know whether the house is inside the City of Portland, because a Portland mailing address doesn't settle it. The same site shows the permit history for the address, the zoning and any overlays, and the hazard areas the city maps.

The permits. If the listing says the kitchen was redone or the basement was finished, count the permits against that list. We start on PortlandMaps: type in the address, open the Permits tab and read what's there. It goes back to 2000, so for anything older, ask the seller what was done. If the listing mentions work and there's no permit for it, ask the listing agent about that before you ask about anything else. For a permit you already know about, the city's DevHub site shows the inspection results. A permit that goes more than 180 days without an approved inspection expires. The city is clear that "Consultations do not count as approved inspections."

Lead. For most housing built before 1978, the seller has to disclose any known lead-based paint information before the contract, give you the EPA pamphlet and a warning statement, and allow you a 10-day period to test. If the house is older than 1978, expect that paperwork and read it.

Oil tanks. Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality says a buyer who buys knowing there's a tank, with no determination about leaks, "becomes responsible for any leaks discovered in the future." If the disclosure mentions a tank, ask for the dated pump-out receipts, and keep DEQ's other line in mind: "a tank that has only been emptied of oil has not been 'decommissioned'."

The 15 minutes, in order

Everything here is something you can see from where you're standing. Don't open panels, lift rugs or move the seller's things. It's their house until it's yours, so look first and ask after.

Here's the clock we run: the first two minutes outside, a minute at the door, five minutes in the rooms with water in them, two at the panel, three for light and sound, and the last two back at the thing you liked.

One thing we do that buyers usually don't is read the house's plan before we read its finishes. Where does the front door send your eye? Do the rooms follow one idea, or did someone change their mind halfway through? A wall that doesn't line up with the beam above it, or a window pattern that stops for no reason, usually means a remodel, and that's the cue to go back to the permits.

  1. Outside, before you go in. Stand on the sidewalk and look at the roofline, the gutters and where the downspouts go. Then look at the ground and ask yourself where the water goes when it rains. The disclosure asks the seller about roof leaks and about drainage (5.A and 9.A), so you're checking the same two things with your own eyes.
  1. The door and the first breath. Notice what you smell in the first few seconds, before your nose gets used to the place. A smell can mean a lot of things and we won't guess from here. The disclosure does ask about mildew odors (5.G), though, and if your nose and the form disagree, that's a question for the agent.
  1. The rooms with water in them. Head for the kitchen, the bathrooms, the laundry and the basement. Look at the ceiling under a bathroom, the floor around the tub and the lowest corner of the basement. You're not diagnosing anything. You're picking out what you'd want an inspector to look at first.
  1. The panel and any cable you can see. If the electrical panel is in plain view, look at it and take a picture of the label. In an unfinished basement, attic or garage you can sometimes see the cable itself, and that matters most in a house built between 1965 and the mid 1970s. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says cable installed in those years may contain aluminum branch wiring, while homes built before 1965 are unlikely to, and the markings are printed on the cable jacket every few feet. It also says failing aluminum connections seldom give warning signs that are easy to spot. The ones it lists are face plates that are hot to the touch, flickering lights, dead circuits and a burning-plastic smell, which makes them good questions for the agent and not things to go testing in someone else's house.
  1. Light and sound. Stand in the main room for a minute and stop talking. Where's the light coming from at this hour? What can you hear from the street, from next door, from the furnace? This is the part no paperwork shows you, and it's the part you'd live in every day.
  1. A second look at the thing you liked. Something grabbed you in the first minute. Go back to it and look again, slower, now that you've seen the rest of the house. For most people it's the staged room, where the rug, the lamp and the couch are doing most of the work. Take them out in your head. Where does the light land, and does the room still work?

The one thing that ends a showing early for us is active water: a damp ceiling stain, a wet floor, or a smell that gets stronger as you go down to the basement. We say thanks, we leave, and we read the disclosure and the permits at the kitchen table before anyone decides to come back.

If this sounds like an inspector's checklist, it's closer to what an appraiser does. Fannie Mae's appraisal standard grades condition from C1 to C6. C3 is "well maintained, limited normal wear, some updated components," C5 is obvious deferred maintenance with significant repairs needed while the house is still livable, and appraisers have to report deferred maintenance when they see it. In your 15 minutes you're reading the same things, just without the clipboard.

What to ask the agent on the way out

  1. Which work on the house had permits, and did each one close with an approved inspection?
  2. Has the seller's disclosure been delivered, and can I have a copy now?
  3. How old is the roof?
  4. Is there, or was there ever, an oil tank, and is there paperwork for it?
  5. What's excluded from the sale?

What 15 minutes can't do

Fifteen minutes is enough to decide whether to come back. It isn't enough to decide anything bigger than that. A home inspection and an oil tank check are separate jobs, and it's worth asking your inspector whether a sewer scope is part of the inspection or priced on its own. We went through what each one looks at in How to read a 1920s Craftsman before you bid. The disclosure only covers what the seller knows, and nothing you see in a quarter of an hour shows you the inside of a wall.

Five photos worth taking

By the fourth house of the day they start to blur into one house. These five keep them apart:

  1. The label on the electrical panel, if it's in plain view
  2. The label on the water heater
  3. The roofline, from the street
  4. The worst corner of the basement
  5. The street, from the front door

After the visit

  1. Write down the three things you noticed first, before the next house paints over them.
  2. Ask for the seller's disclosure if you don't have it yet.
  3. Check what the agent told you against the paper: the permits on PortlandMaps, the roof age against the disclosure.
  4. If you're still interested, go back for a longer look, at a different hour of the day.
  5. Order the inspection if you're going to make an offer, ask whether a sewer scope is included, and decide whether to add an oil tank check.

If you're weighing a house against the neighborhood it sits in, we wrote about that in Should I choose the neighborhood or the house in Portland?, and if one of the houses on your list is brand new, read Should I buy new construction or an older house in Portland?. More on how we work with buyers is on our buying page, and the neighborhood guides and FAQ cover the rest.

Quick FAQ

What should I look for at a showing?
Start outside with the roofline, the gutters and where water goes, then notice the smell when you walk in, then the rooms with water in them, the electrical panel and any cable you can see, and the light and sound. Read the Home Energy Score and the seller's disclosure before you go, so your time inside goes to what the paperwork can't show.

What do you check first when you walk into a house?
The smell, in the first few seconds, before you get used to it. Oregon's seller disclosure asks about mildew odors, so if what you notice doesn't match the form, ask the agent. Before you even reach the door, look at the roofline and where the water goes off the lot.

Is 15 minutes enough to decide on a house?
It's enough to decide whether to come back for a longer look. A home inspection and an oil tank check are separate jobs, so ask your inspector whether a sewer scope is included, and remember the seller's disclosure only covers what the seller knows.

Can I tell at a showing if a house has aluminum wiring?
Sometimes. The Consumer Product Safety Commission says cable installed from 1965 to the mid 1970s may contain aluminum branch wiring, and the markings are printed on the cable jacket every few feet, so you can sometimes read them in an unfinished basement, attic or garage. Don't open anything in a house you don't own. Ask the agent, and ask your inspector.

What should I read before a showing?
The Home Energy Score and its report, the seller's disclosure (roof, moisture, foundation bolting on a house built before 1974, drainage, and flood or landslide zones), the Jurisdiction field on PortlandMaps, and the permit record for any work the listing mentions.

Going to see a house this weekend?

Send us the listing before you go and we'll tell you what we'd look at first. Get in touch!

The Houselab Team @ Like Kind Realty

Sources

All retrieved October 19, 2026.

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