Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
When we were looking for our own place I think we looked at about six places over a few different outings.
I have had clients who looked for two years! And we came by it honestly. They weren’t being overly picky, what they needed was just very specific and hard to find.
And I have had clients who loved every single house we looked and I had to keep reminding them of their goals and why some of them might not be the best fit.
Its not just the HOUSE that determines how long the decision might take, it could be the whole deal; financing necessary and how you'll swing the down payment as well. I am not including waiting for a lender decision in this time. The financial reality for every house is unique. There have been other houses I really wanted but simply couldn't make the numbers work, no matter how long I tried to make it so. Would those count in this time frame of yours? The longer and fussier the "must have" list is, the longer it could take to decide on one, regardless how many choices you have.
The first house I put an offer on and ended up buying was one of only three on the market in that location. Toured all three in one afternoon and decided before getting back in the car. The decision was sort of a no-brainer.
The second house I put an offer on took two weeks of web browsing to find (watching that market for new listings and comparing against the previous ones), but one day to decide on. Again, pretty straightforward.
The third house I put an offer on took a month of web watching/browsing to find (again, watching that market), three days to decide on.
The fourth house I offered on took three months to find (same deal...watching that market), a week to decide on. See? I'm getting more cautious or pickier the older I get.
Last edited by Parnassia; 01-17-2020 at 05:47 PM..
This last house? We started looking in early October and put an offer in on our current home in early January. We lived 4+ hours away and our business keeps us home for long stretches sometimes, so we'd have to look when we could find the time during our infrequent times that we were available. Our RE agent was wonderful and worked with us when we could get to the area we were looking in. Then we started in one county and moved more and more east until we were 5 counties away from where we originally were looking. Again, our RE agent was wonderful and didn't blink an eye at driving 1.5 hours from her home to show us houses much further way from where we were originally looking. So we probably looked at 12+ homes over that time, one of them (included in the 12+ looks) 4 times before we finally decided it was overpriced and had a ton of work that needed to be done in order for us to consider it. The house we bought we saw one time and never saw again until our final walk through on the day of closing. We knew this was the one. In two weeks we'll have owned it for a year and we still love it.
I'm house hunting and I've found one house I really wanted in 3 months. How long does it usually take most people to find homes they really want?
When I was house-hunting both as part of a married couple and later as a single woman, it took us/me months to find the houses that fit budget, needs, and the most important of wants.
In both cases, though, part of the reason that it took as much time as it did was that there were houses that needed to be sold before the next ones could be purchased. There were several houses that went to other buyers due to contingencies.
You're lucky in that you don't have to worry about such things because you're currently a renter. At worst, you might have to break a lease, which, if the house that you wish to purchase is the house in which you can see yourself living for at least five years, is well worth the cost.
P.S. Neither time did a realtor find the homes that were eventually purchased. For us and later, just me--especially with my current (and hopefully, forever home), the realtor was more of a "gatekeeper" than a "scout ant." My mother is actually the one who discovered my house online. It was originally well above my top price point; as soon as it dropped within my range, my mother advised me to go and look at it in person, which I did first with a friend (no realtor. House was unoccupied so we could do a outdoor walk-around) and later with my realtor. I made an offer on the house the night of my second visit contingent upon the sale of my last house and a proper inspection.
From the listing of my last house to the closing on my current house, it took about eight months.
Last edited by Formerly Known As Twenty; 01-17-2020 at 08:25 PM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
