if you're going to buy a site then buy one that's getting traffic at least (one that's generating consistent income would be even better, but that will probably cost you a fortune because you're actually buying a business, not just a site).
If you have money to throw away definitely buy an established website, otherwise build your own so you can get first-hand experience on what it takes to build a site. It will really help you down the road...
And, contrary to what you might think, building a site is actually easy. Just...
1) buy hosting + domain name (preferably buy the domain name from a different registrar than your hosting provider, it's safer this way)
2) if purchased elsewhere, add the domain name to your hosting account and update the nameservers to point to your hosting account (if you've purchased the domain through the same company that provides hosting the nameservers are most likely updated already, so skip this step)
3) install Wordpress on your domain
4) install a free theme from the WP repository
5) install the necessary / desired plugins (this will probably consume most of your time in the beginning until you learn which plugins are needed for which objectives you're having in mind with your site)
6) design your site the way you want it to look like (designing, in this case, simply means using the various drag & drop elements that the theme provides you with, so you can get the site looking the way you want)
7) publish content
There! You've built your 1st site
... When I first did these things around 2009 (my 1st time dealing with hosting, domains and WP) it took me a week of research and toying with the various options of everything (cpanel, WP plugins, etc)... but with more and more practice and setting up new domains and installing / removing WP and the plugins I got to setting up a website, per se, in just a few hours.
The problem (and which still takes most of my time today) is pre-planning the site (because google forces me to have a well structured site, otherwise I wouldn't spend too much time on it), and researching and creating the content. These 2 things take up 99% of the process of building a site, but had I already had a template and the content ready I'd have a website up and running in less than 10 hours...
just wondering what I need to take note when deciding which vendor to buy from.
nothing to worry about with any vendor. Most site vendors have beautiful images of the sites they're selling, so if you like how the site looks like then you can safely buy it if no SEO is involved in the purchase. If other benefits (SEO, domain name, content, etc.) are bundled up with the site then that's where important questions will need to be answered before buying. But otherwise buy the site that you like most and which fits within your budget... Although, if you had a bit of experience with Wordpress (or whatever site builder that the vendor used to create the site) you might want to ask what theme he used and whether or not future updates are free (or if there's support at least) because Wordpress updates a lot and WP themes need to be updated as well, or else your site will become prone to hacking...
So yeah, I guess these are the 2 main things you need to ask the vendor: are the theme's updates free forever, or do you have to pay for them, and also what's the support like in case you're having problems with the theme
