You'll be extremely lucky to view a property with no cracks whatsoever, 90% of the time these will look worse than they actually are, but it's well worth paying attention to them, subsidence cracks will be more obvious and will start from the base of the property, not only will it show from the outside of the property, it will also be obvious from the inside. It's always possible that the ground below has reached a point where it is no longer sinking and in this scenario it's as easy as stitching the brickwork back together and repointing with mortar.The best way of finding out if the ground has settled is to fix a small piece of glass (100mm x 50mmm approx) over the crack using a bulding adhesive and then montitoring for 6 months to see if the glass splits, if there is still movement after 6 months then this could require underpinning...
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Also have a look for chimneys, if you see a chimney on the roof, check to see if the rest of it is still in place , to do this check the rooms below, you should see the chimney coming down through the ceiling, be aware on certain properties these can also run down the outside of the property, or in rare cases between the properties...
Make sure this continues down into the room below
If the chimney stack has been removed below, this will be another reason for structeral cracks. A lot of people remove these themselves and pay no attention to the structeral supports that
are needed, It is well worth sticking your head in the loft to see if there are supports
