What to Do in the First 30 Days After Buying a House

Closing day is exhausting. There’s a lot of signing, a lot of waiting, and then suddenly—keys. Most new homeowners spend the first week focused on moving boxes. That’s understandable. But a few tasks have real deadlines, and missing them costs money. Others are things you’ll wish you’d done before you needed to.

The average American moves 11.7 times in their lifetime—US Census data. For most people, buying a house is a rare event. The first 30 days set up habits and systems that determine how expensive or smooth the next several years are going to be.

Here’s what actually needs to happen, in roughly the order it should happen.

Day One: The Lock Problem

Before anything else gets unpacked, the locks get changed. This isn’t paranoia—it’s basic sense. The previous owners had keys. They gave copies to neighbors, contractors, dog walkers, house sitters, family members. Nobody tracked all of those copies down at closing.

Rekeying locks—having a locksmith reset the existing lock cylinders to work with new keys—costs $80 to $200 for a typical house. The Master Locksmiths Association recommends rekeying over full lock replacement unless the hardware is old or damaged. It achieves the same result for less money. Smart locks with code access eliminate the key tracking problem entirely—entry-level models run $100 to $250 installed.

While the locksmith is there or immediately after: find the deadbolts on every exterior door and confirm they work. Check that every window lock engages properly. A first-floor window that won’t latch is a security issue before it’s a draft issue.

Day One: Find Everything That Shuts Things Off

Three locations matter before any emergency occurs. The main water shutoff. The electrical panel. The gas shutoff if the house has gas appliances.

The main water shutoff is usually in the basement, utility room, or near the water heater. Turning it off stops all water flow to the house—essential when a pipe bursts or a toilet valve fails. If there isn’t one found within 10 minutes of looking, ask the previous owner, the realtor, or call a plumber. Not knowing this location is a problem.

The electrical panel is typically in the basement, garage, utility room, or a hallway closet. Open it. Look at the labels on the breakers. If none are labeled, label them—plug something into each outlet, switch breakers until it goes off, mark the breaker. This takes an afternoon and saves significant time later.

Gas shutoffs are behind gas appliances—stove, dryer, water heater, furnace—and at the meter outside. The American Gas Association recommends knowing the location of both the individual appliance shutoffs and the main meter shutoff. In a gas smell situation, the meter shutoff ends the flow to the entire house. Call the gas company immediately in that situation—don’t turn it back on yourself.

Week One: The Homestead Exemption Deadline

Most states offer a homestead exemption—a reduction in the assessed value of a primary residence for property tax purposes. The National Conference of State Legislatures tracks these by state. The exemption is not automatic. It requires filing. And most states have a deadline—typically 30 to 60 days from the date of purchase or from January 1 of the tax year, depending on the state.

Missing the deadline means paying the full assessed tax rate for the entire year. On a $400,000 home, a homestead exemption that reduces the assessed value by $50,000 saves several hundred dollars annually depending on the local tax rate. That’s money left on the table for missing a filing.

Find the county assessor’s website, search for homestead exemption, and file the form. It typically requires the deed, proof of primary residency, and a Social Security number. The county clerk’s office can answer questions about local deadlines.

Week One: Read the Home Inspection Report

The home inspection report got read once—quickly, during the purchase process—and then mostly forgotten. Week one is the right time to read it again, slowly, with the house available to walk through.

A standard home inspection covers the roof, foundation, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, insulation, and windows. The American Society of Home Inspectors defines a home inspection as a visual examination of the accessible areas of a property. That means some things don’t show up until they’re opened or used.

Go through each flagged item and sort it into three groups: things that need attention now, things to watch over the next year, and things that are noted but not urgent. Most inspection reports have far more items in the watch category than the urgent one. Knowing the difference prevents panic repairs and helps with budgeting.

Items that typically need early attention: any electrical issues flagged, anything involving water intrusion or drainage, HVAC filters and servicing, and any structural concerns. Items that can wait: cosmetic issues, minor caulking, weatherstripping.

Week One: Document Everything

Walk through every room and photograph the current condition. Walls, floors, ceilings, fixtures, appliances. Date the photos. Store them somewhere that survives a phone replacement—cloud storage, a shared drive, email to yourself.

This documentation matters for insurance claims. The Insurance Information Institute recommends a home inventory—a record of the home’s contents and condition—as the primary tool for resolving claims after a fire, flood, or theft. Most homeowners create it after a claim, when it’s too late. Creating it in week one establishes the baseline.

While photographing: note the model and serial numbers of major appliances. Write them somewhere accessible—a note on your phone, a document in cloud storage. Warranty lookups and repair calls require these numbers. Hunting for them after an appliance breaks is harder than writing them down now.

Month One: Set Up the Maintenance Fund

The 1% rule: set aside roughly 1% of the home’s purchase price per year for maintenance and repairs. On a $350,000 home, that’s $3,500 per year—about $290 per month. HomeAdvisor’s True Cost of Homeownership report puts average annual maintenance costs for a single-family home at $3,192. Older homes and homes in harsh climates run higher.

The fund isn’t for renovations or upgrades. It’s for the water heater that fails at year nine, the roof that needs patching after a storm, the furnace that stops working in January. These aren’t surprises—they’re scheduled maintenance that hasn’t happened yet. Having the money already set aside removes the emergency from what is otherwise a predictable expense.

Open a dedicated savings account for this fund. Don’t mix it with the emergency fund or daily spending. A separate account with automatic monthly transfers makes the habit automatic.

Month One: Mail, Address Updates, and Neighbors

Forward mail through USPS—the online form takes five minutes and costs $1.10 to verify identity. Set a reminder to check what’s still arriving at the old address after two weeks. Senders who don’t get the forwarding benefit include government agencies, financial institutions that use third-party mailers, and any sender that marks mail as non-forwardable.

Update the address directly at: the IRS (via Form 8822), the Social Security Administration, the DMV, every bank and credit card issuer, insurance companies, and the voter registration office. USPS mail forwarding handles most commercial mail automatically. Government and financial senders typically need a direct update.

Meet the neighbors within the first two weeks. Not for social obligation—for information. A neighbor who has lived on the street for 10 years knows which side of the house gets ice in winter, whether the basement floods when it rains hard, which contractors did decent work nearby, and what the neighborhood’s actual character is at different times of year. That information isn’t on Zillow.

First 30 Days—Task Reference

Bottom Line

The first month sets the foundation for everything that comes after. Change the locks before the boxes get unpacked. Find the shutoffs before they matter. File the homestead exemption before the deadline passes. Read the inspection report with the house in front of you. Document the condition before anything changes. Start the maintenance fund before the first repair arrives. These aren’t exciting tasks. They’re the ones that prevent expensive problems—and most of them take less than a day total.