House hunting trade offs

blushingbride_08 · May 2013

If you own a home what are some trade offs that you made and now regret. My mil is stil complaining about not getting the floors in her kitchen the way she wanted and now it is too inconvenient for her to get it done.

2chatter · May 2013

I bought a house with an open floor plan (two living areas, but they are essentially seperated by a french door and the foyer and a wall with a cut out up top.) It means that while there is this feeling of open space, there is no feeling of space when I would like to relax for a minute away from the bigger kids. There is no "away from" in this house.

The trade off was being walking distance from my parents' house. Still not worth it.

I also wish I would have gone for four, not three, bedrooms. I just never imagined I would still be in my starter home OR that I would have three kids!

MomtobeNJ · May 2013

We are house hunting right now. Our trade offs will include a longer commute (20 min to 40 min) for a bigger house, more property and lower taxes.

We are also willing to buy something that needs some updates and can eventually be made bigger with an addition down the road, if it's in a good neighborhood. I don't want a "fixer-upper" but I know everything might not be completely modernized. And that's fine with me. We can make improvements little by little.

*sparky* · May 2013

Our house was custom built. When we were designing, I wanted to add three feet to the depth, which would make our FR and kitchen much bigger. DH thought we had enough space (and he is much tighter with $) so we did not make the house any bigger. I really wish we had, because it is something we cannot change now and the FR feels a little too narrow to me.

DaisyJanie · May 2013

We are in the process of having a new house built. I'm very happy with the choices we made, mostly - ideal neighborhood, a decent price, lots of additional space. I'm a little worried we will wish it was bigger in couple years, though. It's twice the size of our current house so I know it'll be plenty big when we move in, I just worry that once we have our planned second child it'll be a lot tighter. And I go back and forth about whether 2-story is going to be annoying with 2 small children.

As for options, I think we got everything we really wanted. We didn't get a fireplace, which we sort of wanted, but we don't really need it here in SC and it was like $3500 extra.

christinak22 · May 2013

My DH had three things on his list that he had to have: a fireplace, a master bath and a second story. We got the fireplace and master bath, even though I didn't think we needed either. I LOVE having a master bath! It gives a sense of privacy and serenity, even though it's nothing too special.

If you have a dog, a fenced-in yard is a lifesaver, but that's easy enough to do after you've moved in.

I do wish we would have looked around and been more careful and picky in general. I wish we would have had two or three inspectors look at the house instead of just the one the realtor referred us to because there were some things he should have caught that we should have had the previous owners fix before we signed. We wanted to close during that $8000 tax credit, though, so we were in a bit of a hurry. If you can, take your time.

itsmevkb · May 2013

I enjoy city living and have some issues with cookie cutter suburbs so we made a choice to buy in the city, but along with that comes higher taxes and crappy public schools. I don't know that I really regret that trade-off but sometimes I wish we didn't have to send the kids to private school.

We did buy a fixer-upper and I regret not having the hardwood floors refinished. We just ran out of time and now I know I'll never have them done because where would I put all the furniture? I also regret getting talked into a two sided sink. I hate them, I know I hate them, I know I love a big kitchen sink I can soak a large frying pan in and yet I bought the stupid two sided sink. Why?

Lots of people told me I'd regret painting all of our rooms actual colors. They said I would get sick of the colors, the colors would go out of style, etc. and then I'd have to repaint and although I agree that I probably won't be repainting anytime soon so at some point the colors may end up dated, I am still 100% happy with the choice to not paint every room in my house some shade of beige.

Kissty · May 2013

I wish our kitchen and baths were already updated. We started looking when I became pregnant. It took us about four months of solid, active looking. We would find something we liked on the internet and that evening (when people were getting home from work) we would drive the nighborhood if we weren't already familar with it. We ruled out alot of houses doing that. Think about the size of the driveway, that was a big factor for us. 2 vehichles and DH gets called out at odd hours sometimes. We didn't want to be constantly moving cars. We had planned on updating our kitchen (counters) when we got our bonuses at work along with our tax refund. Needless to say, still not done. If you buy something that needs work, updated or just general sprucing up do that Before you move in. It's alot easier and it won't get put off until after you move. I really want my kitchen/breakfast area painted because I have hated the color since day 1. Don't settle. If you aren't 100% in love with it keep looking until you find the one. Also, if possible, buy something that you can grow into, instead of soemthing that is just right. Circumstances changes quickly. Happy house hunting!

aeh72 · May 2013

The only major trade-off we made that I now regret was buying a house with a not so great backyard. It's big but pretty sloped so it won't be good for DS for playing, kicking a ball around, etc. and it has very limited flat area for things like a playset. We bought the house before we had DS and thought the rest of the house is so great, we can live with the backyard. I really think we would have thought differently if we'd had DS at the time.

Our house also has plenty of "decor" related items that we'd like to change - paint colors, removing wall paper, switching out some carpeted areas for hardwoods. Almost three years in we've made very little progress on doing those updates, but that still is not a trade off I regret. The "bones" of our house are really good so we'll get to that stuff eventually.

jf198400 · May 2013

We got most of what we needed 3bed, 1.5bath, fenced in yard. We wanted either a basement or garage for storage and didn't get either. We could have gotten a very similar house in the same neighborhood with a basement but we liked the lot of our house better. We knew it was just our starter home so we were okay with not getting everything on our list.

kmh2201 · May 2013

I would have preferred to have a true laundry room, and two years ago when we bought our house, it had pretty much all of our needs and wants, except for the laundry room. Our laundry is in a closet right off of the master suite on the main floor, so it's convenient, but can be noisy. Plus, there is no where to hang clean laundry or keep laundry baskets. We couldn't pass up the house because it literally did have the rest of what we needed and wanted, but I would love a true laundry room.

FemShep · May 2013

We're closing on our next house next month, and we're trading off a longer commute (10 mins longer in each direction for both DH and me) for more space. With two kids and a dog, we really want a single-family home with a yard. We would also love a more "urban" neighborhood where we can walk to stores and restaurants, but sadly that's not going to happen with our budget.

We would love to live in Cambridge MA-but buying a house of similar size and finishes would literally be 2-3x the price. So we're settling for a house further out, not really walkable to stuff, so that we can get the space we need at a cost we can afford.

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