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We already had an acre lot that we'd bought years ago, about 2 miles from our home, so I was just looking
for a floorplan I'd like...I thought I was really picky because I wanted so much...for our buget..then I came
across this floorplan and they had a new home for sale in our area. I liked the layout but could see what I would
have different, like tile instead of vinyl...I was looking for a 3 car garage, garage to house access, master bath
with separate shower, walk in master closet, fireplace, basement, ranch style, 3 bds, 2 baths, large kitchen, laundry
room on main floor...anyway, 8 years later I still love it.
I've come to realize I lack patience. So far, we have put offers on two homes. Both of which were too expensive and we had to back out. The hardest part is getting our money's worth out of a home. There are tons for sale in my area, but majority of them are dumps. I'm hoping "the home" becomes available soon because I don't know if I can wait much longer!
Our last house sold in a week, way faster than we anticipated, and we only had a short time to find a new one. We hadn't even settled on a specific city yet but we had a target area so we looked at about dozen homes in our price range and picked one. Our wants were simple and most homes met the criteria but there was always something I didn't like. Ironically the house we bought had the same "problem" as one of the other houses I had rejected but it didn't bother me because it hit the mark on things I didn't even realize I wanted...like being in a cul-de-sac and having a flat backyard and being in a neighborhood of single story homes with tree lined streets. It really was more of a gut thing than a head thing. A few years later we remodeled and took care of the "problem". It's still not perfect, and after 22 years I sometimes get the urge to live somewhere else just for a change of scenery, but it was a good choice.
Sometimes you need a push to do something, like having to get out of another house fast! If we hadn't been under the gun who knows how long it would have taken.
I've come to realize I lack patience. So far, we have put offers on two homes. Both of which were too expensive and we had to back out. The hardest part is getting our money's worth out of a home. There are tons for sale in my area, but majority of them are dumps. I'm hoping "the home" becomes available soon because I don't know if I can wait much longer!
I have never, ever -- in about 10 personal homes -- bought a house and have been wildly in love with it or even terribly excited about it. Each house has made sense from the compelling perspective at the time....school district, amount of bedrooms/baths needed, work commute, etc. and always budget. The likes and desires were, of course, important but the final decision had to be the reason for the search and my budget. You can make many cosmetic changes to a house but you cannot change the location, school district or neighborhood. So keep your head on the target!
We were looking for new construction, prayed about it & left it in God's Hands. When we saw 1 model home I declared this is my dream house but it was a bit over budgeted, so we continued to hunt, found another house we wanted to build & settled on it. The builder promised us a certain lot we wanted & we were suppose to have 1st pickings when the area opened up, but they lied, we weren't 1st & had to settle on another lot, well that angered us much. Then I had a revelation that God had thrown a monkey wrench into the picture, the previous builder had my dream house & that's the house God wanted us to have. We found a great lot (even though there was a $3000.00 premium on it), built it & God saw to it that we paid the house off in 10 yrs. God is so good!!!!!!!!!
Anyway, were having such a hard time deciding whether or not it's "THE" house for us. How did you know?
We were shopping for a home here in NoVA because it was considerably closer to our then-current work places than our Maryland home. We lived in a townhouse and, being just two, thought that would be fine again.
Anyway, we found THE townhouse after moving further and further away from city center due to price constraints (our workplaces were way into the suburbs, but we started near the city in our house search and moved that search outwards as we found nothing). The townhouse appealed to us because it had nooks and crannies inside as well as large arched windows overlooking a pond/minilake. It was bright inside and was a step above the house we were coming from.
That was a Saturday - we felt we had to discuss it so went home, thinking we'd found THE house.
On Sunday morning, we went back to get it under contract and were devastated to find the other couple touring it at the same we had already had returned and contracted it!
Totally dejected we started on our way home. About one mile from there was a sign off the side of the road mentioning a closeout on single family homes. Because we had nothing else to do we decided to see what was there though the prices advertised were significantly above our target.
The person inside the sales "office" (a remaining model home) wasn't the regular agent - she showed us the two models, neither of which we liked, then mentioned there was a completed house down the street and handed us the keys. We drove down there, walked in the front door, and were awestruck - it was wide open in design, bright with light from the gajillion windows as well as two dormer windows. It had interesting interior design and we were hooked. Going back to the office we mentioned we liked it but the price was above our range and the non-agent replied the equiivalent of "You can offer $40,000 less and they'll probably take it" (timeframe was lousy housing sales - 1990-ish). So we did. That night the real agent called us up and said they would lose money at that price but we could pay about $10,000 more and they would pay $10,000 in closing costs - to us that was the same so we said "Ok!" - after all was said and done the settlement papers showed us that the company would indeed have lost money on the house since it had been completed for a year without being sold and the mortgage was almost at our offer price.
But the REAL bottomline? The single family house's final cost was below the cost of the townhouse we missed out on.
I want to thank everyone again for sharing their experiences and advice. I can truthfully say you were right!
A couple of days ago our agent called saying he found a home that has great bones. I hesitated but agreed to check it out. It wasn't in our favorite neighborhood but thought "what could it hurt to look?". I'm SO glad I did! The street is quiet and family oriented. It is a little outdated but nothing some paint and floors can't fix. It meets our requirements and more! Plus, it's in our price range! We knew it was meant to be when we had that "gut feeling". We had the inspection yesterday, and everything went well! I'm trying not to get our hopes up because there's still time for the deal to go sour but its just so exciting! Haha
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You need to adjust
