How to avoid buying a money pit

The house you want to buy looks great. You could afford the mortgage, the neighborhood is amazing and your agent thinks it's a steal. But could the house be a money pit?

According to Brian Kearney, a Boston-area contractor and owner of Neponset Valley Construction, homebuyers who focus on superficial design features often miss critical warning signs that a house may be a money pit.

Instead, "you want to make sure that the house you find is structurally stable," Kearney says.

But how do you do that? We asked contractors throughout the U.S. to put themselves in the buyer's shoes.