XP: ?'s regarding house hunting.

mrscerruti2be · June 2009

For those that own a home, townhouse, condo etc.

It seems the more I look, the more confused I get. I would love a detached house. I love the idea of a huge yard so that I can entertain. However, most houses in our price range are lacking the square footage iniside. The townhouses seem to have all of the ammenties we are looking for. Updates, more square footage, but small yards.

I seem to "like" a lot of places, but I am wondering if I am being to picky. So.....

1. When you walked into your house, condo or townhouse for the first time did you immediately fall in love?

2. Did you just like it, but saw all of it's potential?

3. Was there a place you loved more, but your offer wasn't accepted? How many places did you put an offer on?

4. Did you just get a feeling that this was the right house for you and did not continue to look?

5. How long did you look before purchasing "the one?"

Thanks in advance ladies.

Carolee · June 2009

1. When you walked into your house, condo or townhouse for the first time did you immediately fall in love? When we saw "our house", it was actually the same model as ours, in construction. We bought new, and there were no models of our floor plan available to see. We really had to look for the potential, since we saw only drywall and the frame.

2. Did you just like it, but saw all of it's potential? Yes, but more than anything, we loved the area.

3. Was there a place you loved more, but your offer wasn't accepted? How many places did you put an offer on? We offered on 3 other houses. The first house we offered on we loved, and it was just down the block from where we currently live. It ended up being cheaper and way less of a hassle for us to buy new than used. (We were looking at foreclosures and short sales that were selling for more than what we paid for a new, semi-custom home.)

4. Did you just get a feeling that this was the right house for you and did not continue to look? Yes...we had originally wanted to purchase in this area and when we found out we could, we knew this was it.

5. How long did you look before purchasing "the one?" We looked for about 6 months.

tiki_t · June 2009

I use to rent in a townhome. Keep in mind that some condo/townhome communities have community spaces where you can throw a BBQ, etc. Where I rented had a common lawn area between homes where a lot of people would let their kids play, throw parties, have soccer games, etc. That could be a pro or a con based on how private of a person you are.

1. No. Did not immediately fall in love. But after looking so much you have a sense of your needs and what will fit it. You also have a sense of what is a good deal for the money. We bought a fixer upper. Even though it isn't my dream home, I've made it to my taste. So you have to look at floor plan, flow, and if it fits your idea of comfortable living. Most importantly, you need to make sure you like the neighborhood. You can change your house all that you want but you can't change it's location.

With condos/townhomes, you have to be extra careful about researching the rules. Where I lived, the front yards were required to be landscaped and the landscaping plans had to be approved by the board. It was fine because I was renting and it was my landlord's problem but I personally would hate having someone dictate what I can or can't do to my own place.

2. Saw it's potential.

3. Yes. Our first real estate agent was too busy trying to be a mother.. which we already had and didn't need another one.. to move on it. In retrospect, I'm glad we fired her and didn't get that house. We ended up with something 10x better. Even though this place lacked the charm of the first one, the location is much better.

4. You should always keep looking until your offer is accepted.

5. 8 months.

SweetieP · June 2009

These answers are for our current house:

1) With every house we looked at, we either liked it or hated it. Most we just 'sort of liked' and we never loved any of them. And we looked at 60+ houses in a 3 day period.

2) Yes....our current house is the best of what we saw...in the neighborhood we wanted to be in. They always say choose the neighborhood and then the house. You can always make changes to your house but not your neighbors/neighborhood.

3) There was a house we liked better but it was just out of our price range so we didn't even place an offer (this was at the height of the housing market)

4) We found it and it was probably the 2nd house of the 3rd day...so we looked the rest of the day and then came back to get a 2nd look.

5) our situation was a bit different since my hubs was getting transferred and we moved out of the area.

alyssa7 · June 2009

1. When you walked into your house, condo or townhouse for the first time did you immediately fall in love? Yes. We were first looking in the SJ area and the prices there a are a little higher than Morgan Hill. When we saw our house in Morgan Hill we fell in love - it was nice, updated and 1500-2000 sq ft larger than the SJ homes. It was hard not to love it.

2. Did you just like it, but saw all of it's potential? There are rooms I want to update so yes, I realized parts had potential. One of the things I loved best was the spacious floor plan.

3. Was there a place you loved more, but your offer wasn't accepted? How many places did you put an offer on? This was the only house we put an offer on. We found other houses, but our townhouse had not sold yet so we didn't put an offer out.

4. Did you just get a feeling that this was the right house for you and did not continue to look? I loved the house but my only concern was that they wouldn't accept our offer.

5. How long did you look before purchasing "the one?" We started looking when we put our townhouse on the market, so 9 months.

Mrs.K&C · June 2009

1. Actually, yeah. I was pretty sure it was "the one" when I saw it online. There were a lot of other factors, too (my BFF's live basically next door to us...two of them).

2. It was a foreclosure so it certainly wasn't move in ready and we had to look at it's potential. But I loved the layout.

3. Nope. We offered on only that house. (Very unusual to get the first house we bid on).

4. Yup. We saw a couple more houses that day but we weren't into it at that point.

5. We looked online for a couple years. Seriously for a good year. When we were ready financially, we met with the realtor and our house is the second house we looked at.

Kellina71 · June 2009

1. When you walked into your house, condo or townhouse for the first time did you immediately fall in love? Yes- with both houses we have owned, we fell in love right away. (We just recently moved from our 1st home to our 2nd home).

2. Did you just like it, but saw all of it's potential? N/A

3. Was there a place you loved more, but your offer wasn't accepted? How many places did you put an offer on? When we purchased our 1st home we had put an offer on another house a week or two earlier that we did not get. We ended up loving the house we bought even more. This time around I fell in love w/ another home, but we were not ready to put an offer on it when it got snagged. We actually love the home we ended up w/ more anyway. The home we ended up w/ was the 1st that we put an offer on this year. Somehow it worked out perfectly both times for us.

4. Did you just get a feeling that this was the right house for you and did not continue to look? We continued to look at Open Houses the days that we saw the homes we bought, but since our offers were accepted a few days alter, we stopped looking then.

5. How long did you look before purchasing "the one?" Seriously looking... as in going to Open Houses every weekend and looking online everyday- we looked for about 2 months before our 1st purchase and about 4 months for this recent purchase.

Good luck! The search is exciting and nerve-wracking, and tough w/ a toddler... but SO worth it- especially in this market! I hear condos and townhouses don't have as great of a resale, so keep that in mind. Especially if you will want to purchase a bigger home eventually. If there is anyway you can swing a Single Fam home now (even w/ family help)- I think it is SO worth it in this market!

tmp-195892875001867 · June 2009

Disclaimer: we were looking in SF in 2006/2007 when the market was pretty hot. There were slim pickings for our price range, so we knew we there would be some compromises concerning space, parking, yard, etc. We couldn't really have a must have list - we just had to take it place by place and rate the pros/cons.

1. When you walked into your house, condo or townhouse for the first time did you immediately fall in love? We were pretty jaded...we had been looking for over a year at thousands of places. But I saw the potential. I just had to sell it to DH. It was the only place that took our offer at the asking...one place we bid $100K+over asking and still didn't get it. it was cute but in a neighborhood we weren't too familiar with, so we familiarized ourselves.

2. Did you just like it, but saw all of it's potential? It had a lot of pluses - yard, garage, cul de sac, move-in ready though it needed a facelift, a 2nd bathroom and 3rd bedroom. The downside was that it wasn't in the "heart" of the city.

3. Was there a place you loved more, but your offer wasn't accepted? How many places did you put an offer on? This was out 10th offer. There were a couple of places I liked more, but looking back, we got the perfect one for our needs. There are a few we thank god didn't work out. But to me there is "the one that got away."

4. Did you just get a feeling that this was the right house for you and did not continue to look? Sometimes ones felt right, but we always talked about them after and were really honest with each other. Sometimes you get caught up in the excitement that you overlook potentially important things. I can't tell you how many times I called DH a buzzkill for vetoing a place I liked. I was the dreamer and he was the reaslist so we had a lot of hashing to do.

5. How long did you look before purchasing "the one?" It took over a year, 4 agents, and 10 offers. But I now love my house!

Our place is pretty small and we have a small yard. Part of me likes having a smallerish place because then we keep our belongings in check. I think a yard would be important to me if I lived in the EB because I would want to be out there everyday! But don't get a place that you think you will grow out of too quickly. That was our problem with so many - it was like what happens when we have a second kid? Where will all of our stuff go?

I work in the plumbing business so if the bathroom(s) needed an overhaul, that wasn't a dealbreaker. One of our big concerns was being close to a freeway for DH since he commutes to Fremont.

After seeing a bunch, I think you know what you like and where you are willing to compromise. Good luck!!

joeysbabe · June 2009

1. When you walked into your house, condo or townhouse for the first time did you immediately fall in love? No, it was new construction and we only had seen the floorplan on paper. We walked it to cement floors, no kitchen and a mess. We did walk through a model of our house a week or so after going into escrow and *liked* it, but wasn't sure. Now that I have lived here from 4+ years I think it has been a good house.

2. Did you just like it, but saw all of it's potential? I liked it...could live with it. It didn't have a few of our wants, but had a few extras that we wished for (3-car garage).

3. Was there a place you loved more, but your offer wasn't accepted? How many places did you put an offer on? Yes, but we had decided to buy new...hindsight I would have rather bought used with the backyard in already.

4. Did you just get a feeling that this was the right house for you and did not continue to look? We didn't look, more because we were done looking at the point.

5. How long did you look before purchasing "the one? 1 year

IMO house hunting is emotionally draining and stressful. I would say buy the dwelling that you want to live in. You spend more time indoors and you only may only entertain a few times per month. We have a backyard that is unfinished and have managed to survive. However our home is a size that is comfortable (1800 sq feet) and has all the living features we wanted.

My.ABC.Life · June 2009

1. When you walked into your house, condo or townhouse for the first time did you immediately fall in love? The house we own... I had to take a second look at before I loved it. It was our 2nd pick... our first offer was rejected. Now, I love the house.

2. Did you just like it, but saw all of it's potential? I thought it was... eh. My mind was on the other house.

3. Was there a place you loved more, but your offer wasn't accepted? How many places did you put an offer on? We only put an offer on one other place, and it was rejected (we came in too low).

4. Did you just get a feeling that this was the right house for you and did not continue to look? I was CRUSHED after our first rejection. Our RE agent encouraged us to get back on the horse... and I'm so glad she did.

5. How long did you look before purchasing "the one?" We made another offer less than a week later.

My advice... think less about the house... and more about what you want out of it. How you picture yourself living in it. Sometimes, seeing more houses, can give you a better idea of what you like and don't like. For example... if you know you don't want to live in a certain city... but you think you could get more sq ft and more land... look... juuuust in case. You neeever know!

Gannon · June 2009

Hi there,

I thought I'd put my two cents in, as a Realtor and all.

When I was searching for my own house (about 2+ yrs ago), I knew when we turned onto the street that I wanted the house. If it was in livable condition, I was going to put an offer in. The house wasn't brand new or even extensively updated but I loved the location and street. The size is a little smaller than I wanted but I gave that up for the location. I'm glad I did b/c the other neighborhoods I had been looking at with more Square footage has dropped at a much higher rate than the neighborhood I bought in.

Its all a balance between how much house you want and need, where its located and how much it costs. More than anything, location will protect your investment. Also, generally speaking, a single family home will appreciate at a greater rate than a condo or townhome.

Once you evaluate what you need, what you want to spend and where you want to be, it will all become a little clearer. It takes a little time and all that you can do is go out and look around, it will slowly come into focus.

I know it can be frustrating in the mean time, but its well worth it. You'll know when drive up and walk in the door: this one fits

Good luck! Feel free to send me a note if you have any questions about the process etc.

Bests, Baidra

Lesley423 · June 2009

1. When you walked into your house, condo or townhouse for the first time did you immediately fall in love? We loved our house immediately.

2. Did you just like it, but saw all of it's potential? We liked what had been done to it (updates) but we also so potential to make it even better.

3. Was there a place you loved more, but your offer wasn't accepted? How many places did you put an offer on? This ended up being our favorite house we put an offer in on. We had already written 5 offers that didn't work out.

4. Did you just get a feeling that this was the right house for you and did not continue to look? Yes but only because we had been looking for 6+ months and the day we saw this house we were only looking at 2 houses that day. We heard back in 2 days that our offer was accepted. If we wouldn't have heard back on our offer by the next weekend and other houses came on the market that were worth looking at, we would have gone to see them.

5. How long did you look before purchasing "the one?" Started looking in March, our offer was accepted on this house in October.

linnychanel · June 2009

1. When you walked into your house, condo or townhouse for the first time did you immediately fall in love? I liked it. Not a lot were in the price range we were comfortable with. It had sooooo much more then the single family homes in the same price range. We were getting so much bang for our buck with the townhouse.

2. Did you just like it, but saw all of it's potential? I liked it enough

3. Was there a place you loved more, but your offer wasn't accepted? How many places did you put an offer on? 3, both were at least $150K more then the house we got. Both of them were single family homes though

4. Did you just get a feeling that this was the right house for you and did not continue to look? we just went with it

5. How long did you look before purchasing "the one?" 3 months

We have major major major buyers remorse with our place. I can get into more detail (complain about it) if your interested ; )

Want a personalized experience?

XP: ?'s regarding house hunting.

Re: XP: ?'s regarding house hunting.

Choose Another Board

Search Boards