We spent years talking about owning a home and 21 months earnestly saving for one, but I guess I didn’t ever realize the work involved in actually buying a home. In fact, after the very first week of house-hunting, I asked my husband sarcastically, “Can you just find us a house and then surprise me?”
It’s not that I didn’t care, I was just beginning to realize the magnitude of time and effort house-hunting involves. My life is already quite full as it is, how was I supposed to carve out a number of extra hours each week for poring over online house listings and Google maps, driving around looking at homes, discussing the pros and cons of potential homes with my husband, scheduling viewings (and babysitters for those viewings!), and then actually going and walking through different homes?
It felt like I was practically taking on another full-time job!
(As a side note, I now have tremendous respect for those of you who are somehow managing to look for a new home and sell your current home at the same time — wow!)
We slowly have found our “groove” when it comes to house-hunting. And we’ve found that it’s helped tremendously for us to stop trying to look at every possibility out there and narrow down the search field. Here’s some criteria we’ve decided to use:
1) Location — We picked three locations we’re interested in. If a home is not in one of those three areas, we’re not even looking at it at this point.
2) Features — We picked three features which were most important to us: a good-sized kitchen, three bedrooms on one floor and a Master bathroom. When we look at a listing online, we first look to see if the home has these three things. If not, we don’t even bother looking further. (Our “most important features” might seem silly to some, but we’ve live in enough different rentals to know what works best for us!)
3) Pictures — A picture speaks a thousand words–especially when it comes to a potential home to buy. If the online pictures don’t “wow” us, we don’t pursue the house. I mean, if it looks ugly and ill-suited for our family online, I can’t imagine that it’s going to look ten times better in person.
If a house meets the above criteria and is in our price-range, than we’ll look at it. Otherwise, we pass it up. By following this method, we’re looking at fewer homes, for sure. But we’re saving a lot of time since we’re only looking at homes which are really good possibilities.
Just for fun: If you were to choose three non-negotiables you must have in a home you’d buy, what would they be? I’d love to hear!
Coming next time: A Good Realtor is Priceless
Other posts in this series
- Our Journey Towards Saving 100% Down For Our First Home: Part 1
- Saving 100% Down for A Home: Part 2
- Saving 100% Down for a Home: Part 3
- Saving 100% Down for A Home: Part 4
- Saving 100% Down for A Home: Part 5
- House-Hunting: It's Hard Work!
- House-Hunting: A Realtor is Priceless
- House-Hunting: Patience Pays Off!
- House-Hunting: Could this be THE house?
- A Dream Come True: Paying Cash for Our First Home
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My husband and I close on our new house in three weeks! I’m so excited. For us, we just happened upon the perfect house. It’s next door to my parents and we had friends that owned it 3 owners ago, so we are familiar with it and have always loved it. (Plus, free babysitters next door!
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Anyway- for us, three non-negotiables:
1) location- we pretty much decided on my parents neighborhood as the only acceptable location (see free babysitters above). It’s also a great well-established neighborhood and very convenient to the interstate so that my husband can get to the airport easily since he travels a lot. Plus it’s an easy drive to church where my daughter will also attend preschool next year.
2) a good yard- we plan to spend a lot of time outdoors. After living in a condo in the city for 5 years, we insist upon a good yard!
3) good entertaining space- if there’s one thing my husband loves to do, it’s entertain. Our new house is great for that. We can’t wait to move in.
Best of luck in your continued search!
we always took our two kids to showings. it helped get a feel for the house. and my two year old, after flushing a toilet twice, helped us figure out there was a leaking bathroom in one.
we also only looked in our ideal neighborhoods. but we learned not to go by pictures. we ended up buying the house that i didn’t want to see b/c i thought it looked too small. after seeing it in person, it was the most spacious house we’d looked at. sometimes pictures are deceiving.
good luck on your hunt!
1 – A yard, even if it’s just a small one, so I can actually start a garden and the kid(s) can play.
2 – Off street parking, preferably a garage, but even just a driveway would be helpful.
3 – How about something actually in the house? A decent to large sized kitchen. Lots of counter space.
I live alone and bought a condo in October. I didn’t think it was the one when I drove by it, but at the last minute added it to the six or seven we had already scheduled for the day. Non-negotiables
1) School district (even though I don’t have kids). I just live inside the better school district in the area.
2) All one floor with no stairs
3) (For the next one) A spacious kitchen. That’s the one thing this condo doesn’t have, although I have started a pantry with nice shelves in the nearby front closet.
I’d also like to live near the water, but I think that’s champagne taste talking …
1. kitchen size
2. 3 bedrooms with a family room or room to make playroom and school room or 4 bedrooms
3. location
Having a master bath in our rental is nice so having that again would be nice but not needed for us!
Good Luck hunting!
Good luck with house hunting!
Our top 3 would be:
- Safe neighbourhood.
- Large kitchen.
- Dishwasher!
We are also shopping for a house and selling one. As empty nesters we have tons of flexibility but knowing my my heart and my natural inclinations I am asking God for wisdom and discernment in these areas:
1.Select a house in which we can fellowship and be hospitable
This means spacious within our financial ability, not stuffy or fragile and close to our church family.
2. Select a house that does not become an idol.
It is very easy to find yourself spending time and money beyond reason making a house beautiful and becoming a slave to home decor, gardening and repairs. This results in more stress, greater pride and less resources to serve God.
3. Select a house aligned with our financial reality.
We strive to be debt free.
In terms of comforts, as I consider the challenges faced by my sisters and brothers in third world countries I have decided I will be grateful with whatever the Lord sees fit and I will do my best to infuse the place with joy for His Glory.
I love these three things you’re looking for in a house — those are also things we really desire! Not only are we asking ourselves when we look at homes, “Will this work well for our family’s needs?” We’re also asking, “Will this allow us to be hospitable and provide ample room for effective ministry?” Thanks for sharing!
Our non-negotiables next time around will be:
Master bath (we have one with a separate tub and shower — LOVE THEM)
four bedrooms on the same floor
Deck
at least a 1/2 bath on every floor (you’d be surprised how awful it is to not have a bathroom on the main floor, especially during pregnancy!)
large pantry
Location, kitchen space (since I cook for 7), and a big back yeard for the 5 kids!
1. Location. I call my current neighborhood “Redneck Woods”. Nuff said.
2. Low maintenance, well built, and updated. We’ve been trying to fix and upgrade my current house for 14 years.
3. A floor plan that I really like and really works for our family. Probably more open as opposed to a bunch of segregated rooms.
As a side note, I’d love to have a place for my square foot gardens and a clothesline, but I’m scared that would require me to live in another redneck neighborhood.
You know, I would have originally said I wanted 3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, and 1 car garage, until I looked at some online listings and my husband pointed out that some homes in our price range that looked nice listed 2 parking spaces or 3 parking spaces. I assumed this meant the number of parking spaces in the driveway, until my husband pointed out that probably means on-street parking. I am not going to take on a mortgage so I can park on the street. We actually already have a mortgage since we live in a condo, and we don’t even have to park on the street now.
Based on what I have seen, I’m concerned we will have to make concessions, but I hate to compromise. I’m one of those people who really try to strive for what I really want. My husband is adamant about no oil heat and no electric heat. But that only leaves gas and propane, and there aren’t many homes heated by gas or propane in our area.
Since you have saved 100% and do not have to unload another property you are in a good negotiating position. Perhaps some homes that are listed slightly outside of your price range can be negotiated down since you seem like a prime buyer – especially in this market.
You are such an inspiration. I always wanted to not have a mortgage so that I wouldn’t be at the mercy of the banks. I didn’t think we could even do it, but now I think it is worth having unrealistic goals.
We’re not picky. We like fixer-uppers!! It’s all we’ve lived in. Our current home’s kitchen has not been updated since 1959. That includes some of the appliances. We are saving to pay for the renovation in cash. We’ve already done the bathrooms. It’s going to be beautiful when we are done!
My top three non-negotiables….
1. school district – there are only two districts around here I would consider buying in
2. big yard – we garden so we need at least a half acre
3. good bones and structure – We can fix anything else we don’t like!
We purchased our dream home in December, it had EVERYTHING we were looking for and more. Our non-negotiable were as follows:
1. must be in the township we were currently in
2. must have 5 bedrooms
3. must have first floor laundry
4. finished basement
Not picky or anything right!! But we found our house on a fluke and it all worked out so I know that it was right for us. I plan to spend many, many years here and our next move will probably be a new construction (because I am that picky
We’re actually moving tomorrow! (I know, why am I online, right? Just one more time before the computer is packed for several days!)
We did exactly like y’all before we started house hunting. We actually looked for weeks online before we viewed a home. In the end, we only viewed 5 homes (we had only picked out 4, but the realtor wanted to show us one so we looked at it too). We bought one of those 5 houses and are SO EXCITED about the move. We’ve loved this home, but there were several things about it that just didn’t suit us so when the opportunity to move came, we took it.
Our absolute must haves might sound strange to some. A bathroom not connected to a bedroom for guests was a must. In our current home there is a jack and jill bath for between the kids rooms and a master bath…and that’s all. I prefer guests not to have to trapse through the bedrooms to get to a bathroom so for me, that was a must.
A laundry room. I know a lot of people don’t have them, but my laundry closet has been a disaster for a while. I’ve organized it the best I could, hanging shelves to the ceiling and all, but the dirty clothes seem to take over! I wanted a place I could organize and easily sort the clothes and then close the door if needed!
A garage. Our daughter was born here and it was a real issue keeping her dry and warm in the rain and winter between the driveway and the car. We weren’t so concerned about us, but for the baby we really wanted a garage. We’re expecting again in August, so this became a must have.
It is hard work finding a home, but once you do it is so worth all the wait and work! A big thing I looked for was laundry room on same floor as bedrooms (it makes laundry so much easier), another thing is hardwood floors and a basement for plenty of storage and room to grow! Keep the kids involved it makes them understand the process and more thankful for what we have! Have fun looking!
A big, beautiful kitchen, tons of windows, and a separate den/family/playroom.
My husband’s a pastor and during his call interviews, we had two days to look at and put in an offer on a house in our potential new town as it was 7 hours away from our then-current location. (We only had 3 weeks of severance money remaining from his previous call.) We had been looking at internet pictures on our own, and our realtor had sent us several to look over. The one house we did not want to look at, she insisted that we see. The picture was a poorly-taken front shot with no additional views, the price was at the top edge of our budget and it had been on the market without an offer for almost 3 years. We could only imagine what was wrong with it.
The end result: a gorgeous 115 yr old home, with 11.5′ ceilings, original hardwood floors (newly refinished) and original stained glass windows and French doors in the dining room, more natural light than you can shake a stick at and 3600 sq ft! All of the 11 other (yes, we looked at TWELVE houses in one day with 2 toddlers in tow), fell very short when compared to this one. It met all our requirements:
1. In the downtown area – 3 blocks from preschool, less than 1 mile from the church, 3/4 mile from a grocery, 6 blocks from the library, etc. since we only had 1 car.
2. Have at least 4 bedrooms and 2 baths – we have one boy & one girl, and we live 6 hours from our closest family… houseguests are frequent and a given.
3. Be able to accomodate a dining table that seats 10-12, and have comfortable entertaining space for 30-50. We have lots of dinner parties and host an annual Advent open house to which our entire congregation and community of friends is invited. A kitchen to accomodate this quantity of cooking is a bonus.
4. A yard for the kids to play in and for us to have a moderate kitchen garden (our current garden is 25′ x 15′).
This house surpassed our wildest expectations and then some. I can’t imagine us being happy with any of our other options. But, at the same time, everything about this move and call has God’s handwriting all over it. I love it when God makes the path obvious!
Good luck as you continue this adventure! And, make sure to check out some of the houses with ugly pictures. You never know what you might find…
The ideal house:
1) location: somewhere in the mountains that still pays their teachers decent
2) Essentials: Large fenced-in yard. With two, hopefully more, kids and two dogs we need space. 4+ bedrooms: The kids can share a room but I don’t like toys all over my house so a playroom is a must. Master bathroom: time alone, ’nuff said.
Things I must have are
A nice sized kitchen with ample counter space. I would love an island but my husband is not fond of them.
A playroom for the kiddo. This is important because I do not like toys in the bedroom, it distracts him from the real reason he is in the bedroom.
A fenced in back yard.
An open layout, it is just more inviting.
And a guest room so family and friends can visit (most all of our relatives live in another state).
Hey Crystal –
I have a suggestion for you… Approach homebuying as you do managing your budget and it will make it much more fun!
Any home in the right location may be the perfect first house for your family AT THE RIGHT PRICE… I would not summarily dismiss any house based on an internet picture… If it is an eyesore, it may be your jewel in the rough and with a little investment (paint, redoing hardwood floors and cosmetic bathroom and kitchen updates) you can have your dream house at a bargain price. Also, since Jessie is a lawyer and you are not in a rush, you should also consider a short sale or buying a house from an estate. I would look for the worse house on the best street and pay to have upgrades made. My husband and I did this for two homes and made $220K on the first house over our purchase price and cost of upgrade and are up about $300K on our exisiting house (even with a 30% dip in prices in our New England town).
We bought our first house for 227K, redid the hardwood floor and painted before moving in for about $3K and slowing did cosmetic upgrades. Ten years later (before the housing price explosion) we sold it in a week and were able to move to a small ranch home in an estate area, which we converted into a colonial.
Be patient, plug along and snag a bargain in the best area that you can.. Cash is king girl!
1. At least two bathrooms.
2. Sidewalks in the neighborhood – so many newer neighborhoods don’t put in sidewalks which forces kids to walk on the streets. Crazy.
3. A laundry room that is nowhere near the kitchen… why do builders put laundry in a closet off the kitchen? Again, crazy.
WOW, purchasing a home can be so much fun if you think of all the hard work you put in to get there. I totally agree on the things that you “have” to have…there are just things that should be totally non-negotiable, since those are likely the things that you will love most about your new home. I actually was a bit more picky when we purchased our home…and the house we finally found was a total fixer-upper but it had all the aspects that we wanted. We have been in the house now for almost 5 years and are still working on a few projects (but nothing major). If I had to narrow my list to just 3 things though I would say that the kitchen size and cupboard space is HUGE, the yard was a necessity for the kids to be able to enjoy the house just as much on the inside and out…plus we like to have a fire and invite friends over and our yard is totally inviting for such things, third would be the front “picture” window…I love Christmas…and I love my Christmas Tree, so of course I have to have the perfect place to showcase it during the season. #3 is probably strange to most but I had to have it. lol
I will be praying for you and your family to find something that will fit everyone’s desires as well as potential for growth in your family and ministry.
Top Three most haves:
1. A very large kitchen with a ton of cabinets (12 of us here!)
2. must have at least 4 bedrooms , more would be nice
3. Must have 3 bathrooms!! ( again 12 of us )
and of course in our price range!
Good luck finding your home
We just moved last week! Three non-negotiables for me were a large kitchen, a PANTRY (which we didn’t have in our current home), and all the bedrooms on the same floors (which is upstairs in this house). Oh, and a laundry room on the same floor as the bedrooms! I guess that’s 4.
You’ve got only 2 days to get the $8000 tax credit! You better hurry and write up a contract by April 30!
We are house-hunting now after moving back near my husband’s family, currently sharing their house. Our non-negotiables:
1) At least 2/3 acre (prefer more, but don’t look at those with less)
2) Within 20 minutes of my husband’s work, preferrably 15.
3) At least 3 bed, 2 bath, 1800 sq ft (prefer more!)
4) Large dining room or ability to rearrange room usage, hard to tell online. But we have #6 on the way and I’m in my 20s and we want to have people over, so dining area needs to be at least 15 ft long, preferrably more.
Our must-haves when we were house-hunting (about 4 years ago now):
* Basement or workshop area
* Decent-sized yard
* Good for entertaining (inside and out)
* Neighborhood that feels safe (we knew we would raise kids to at least preschool age here)
Bonuses:
* close to the highway
* multiple bathrooms
We ended up with a house that needed a lot of long-term work (but nothing we couldn’t live with short-term: important, since we couldn’t afford to start major work right away). In 3 years, we’ve completely redone 2 out of 3 bedrooms, the master bathroom, and done one major outdoors project (a buried drainage system). We’re pretty happy with our house, since we knew most of the “problems” ahead of time. The only things we really don’t like are:
* the kitchen (tiny galley kitchen with semi-broken cabinetry)
* the size/dampness of the basement
* lack of a garage (instead we have a large broken-down shed)
* the 3rd bedroom is not well suited for children (french doors to the outside), which might be an issue in a few more years.
For me, the yard is a big one. It must have lots of large, old growth trees. None of these little twig trees they plant and call “landscaping”. Gotta have shade! And lots of room to plan both sun- and shade-loving flowers.
And after living in a home for 7 years with a basement not much taller than me (the floor joists above rub my hair when it’s poofy!) my next house will have a full basement.
Ours were a 2-car garage (so no one has to be stuck scraping snow and ice), larger living room to comfortably host guests, and separate dining area (not crammed into an overly cramped kitchen). In the future I’d also add a fully fenced backyard so we don’t have to worry so much about the kids playing outside.
My fiance and I are in the process of buying our first home. He’s doing the brunt of the work, but there sure is a lot involved! Our top three criteria:
1) Location. Within an hour’s drive to his work – and still in our budget. Unfortunately, this eliminated nearly everything except those in the the worst parts of the city (and, until yesterday, he was working night shift!).
We were both hoping for something with a decent-sized yard.
2) Lot size. I grew up on about 500 acres, so I’m dreadfully spoiled.
3) Front porch. Yes, it’s silly, I know. With all the thing we could want INSIDE. But we really, really want a great big front porch.
The house we’re hoping and praying goes through is something only God could have worked out. It’s just under an hour from his work, has a HUGE front porch, and sits on its very own 8.5 acres!
House hunting is very time consuming, a great Realtor can really help!
1. Location
2. Timing – buying at the right time
3. “It” factor, some homes just have “it”!! Makes you feel good the moment you walk in the door!!!!!
My sister convinced us to look at a house we thought we wouldn’t like when we were buying our first home. She said we should look “just to get an idea of what that price would buy in that neighborhood.” We ended up buying that house.
Your wise financial choices have given you an opportunity that many people do not have. I think there are probably more people out there who don’t have any choice than those that have too many. What a blessing! Have fun!
We would need a garage with enough space for the car and additional storage; a large, open kitchen with functional cabinets; and pedestrian- or bike-friendly access to park/shopping/dining.
We’ve sold 2 houses in 3 years; bought 1; and have moved 3 times. Having lived in so many places, I know these things are matter to me:
1. Sunlight – The two houses I owned were next to neighbors that “loved” their too tall, overgrown trees, and even if I chopped down every tree in my yard, my house was dark. Now, I’m living in a rental that’s bathed in sunlight all day, and I could never go back to dark!
2. No garage under the master bedroom! Three times I’ve had that, and it’s extra cold, loud, and the fumes really bother me.
3. Sizable kitchen. I spend a massive amount of time cooking in my kitchen (and supervising homeschooling too). The kitchen in the rental we’re living in is so small, I have to use chairs as workspace. LOL
1) School District — We have one of the top school districts in the state near us and that is our #1 priority
2) All bedrooms on the same floor- preferably a 2nd floor- don’t wish for a ranch
3) Basement with space for a den
(others included to our narrowing down–2+ bathrooms, 4+ bedrooms, yard)
We currently live in a home that everyone who visits LOVES…but not me. Part of it was built in the 20s with two additions in the 70s. The house is totally unique (which I’m hoping will draw potential buyers) but not well laid out for a family with more than one young child. It’s a long story, but trust me, our house would be GREAT for a family with teens, but not toddlers.
My three must haves for the house I hope to begin looking for in the next 3-5 years are:
1) good layout
2) at least four bedrooms
3) master suite
Okay, I don’t think I can just have three.
4) pantry
5) sidewalks within an established neighborhood (we live in the country now)
6) no pool in the backyard (we have one now and the thought of my 2 year old somehow drowning scares me to death)
Congratulations on saving for your house! Your story is such an inspiring one… it has my husband and I talking about what we might be able to do with our finances!
Having just sold our first home, here are the things that I would say were non-negotiable in any house we bought right now:
1) It’s not a fixer-upper! My husband is very handy and very talented at remodeling. We were able to do most of the work on our house (which was a definite fixer upper) but we learned just how MUCH is involved in completely redoing a house! We had no idea what we were getting into when we started – if you think something will cost so much or take so much time to do, multiply that by at least three times and you should be right on track! This is something we’ll be keeping in mind for next time!
2) Three bedrooms – we have two little ones, aged one and two. Again, at the house we just sold, we only had two bedrooms on the main floor so we thought we would have them share a room. This might be feasible for when they are a bit older but having an infant and a one year old in the same room means you have everyone getting up in the night when the baby wakes up!
3) A bedroom and bathroom separate from the rest – I absolutely loved this about the house we sold. We remodeled the basement to include a bedroom and full bathroom down there. My family is out of town and it was so nice to provide them a space of their own down there when they came for visits. The rental house we’re in right now has all of the bedrooms in the same area and I know it made it harder for my mom on this last visit – her room was right next to the kiddos’!
You can read more about our house story here: Something Fun…How I Met My House
Little Life Improvements latest blog: Coming Next Week: 5 Days of Freezer Lunches
1. energy efficient
2. big kitchen and pantry
3. good-sized yard and deck or patio
Closet space, closet space, closet space!
#1 Large Kitchen that you can also entertain in.
#2 An area away from the main living room that the kids can go to with their friends. Our children are all grown now and we didn’t have this and it made it difficult and made them reluctant to have friends over to watch TV and hang out.
#3 School District
our must haves are:
1. LOCATION-in our current town and in a few neighborhoods that we’ve picked
2. 2 car garage or area to build one–we have to have that for the winter
3. absolutely 2 bathrooms
we have more must haves, but those are just three!
1. Location – not in a development or subdivision
2. At least 1/2 an acre of property
3. Large kitchen
So we just bought a home and it was crazy how high the realtor fees were, especially since I did all the work tp find it? And I saw the salers realitor once would youbuy a home for sale by owner to avoid the fees?
Here are my 3 non-negotiable items:
1. A good-sized, fenced back yard with at least a couple shade trees. Our dog stays outside year-round, and we wouldn’t want him to have to be chained up all the time, or suffer hot Missouri summers with no shade.
2. Two living spaces – this would be an upgrade for us, but we’ve talked about how nice it would be to have a “TV” room and another room for entertaining or finding some quiet. It’s definitely something we want in our next house.
3. A bathroom off the master bedroom. It would be nice to have a bathroom with a shower, but I would take even a 1/2 bath like we have now. It’s great not to have to go out into the hallway to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, especially when we have company.
Thanks for sharing about your house-hunting journey! I hope you find the house of your dreams!
After living in military quarters at several locations (bleah!!), a rental or two, and owning both a starter home and a real fixer-upper, my criteria for our house was that there must be a window looking out from the kitchen, there must be easy access to the outdoor space (patio, deck, what have you) from the kitchen because I like to cook outdoors, and the house must all be one piece, meaning there are no additions to the original structure. Our fixer-upper had an enclosed porch or Florida room with a leaky roof and no A/C (not good in San Antonio) as well as a poorly thought-out addition off the master bedroom. The addition had a leaky roof as well as a crooked floor and I suspected that it had not been built with a permit. Oh, and both of these “enhancements” blocked original windows in the master bedroom and bath.
Having said all that, the fixer-upper was one that did not look good at all on the internet, but I’m glad we viewed it in person. It languished on the market for 8 months during the height of the housing boom, and we were able to purchase it for $30,000 below the original asking price. Despite the challenges it presented, we were able to update that place and sold it for $75,000 more than we paid after only three years. We rolled that equity over into our current home, which has all the features I mentioned and more.
Good luck on your home purchase! I’ve really enjoyed this series and it has inspired me to consider how we can pay off our mortgage much faster.
We just bought a house in February, we actually took all three kids ranging from 1 to 5 at the time to view most of the houses to save money when we could not get a babysitter, which was most of the 6 months it took looking. They actually liked going too. Also, look to the school district if you are planning on them going to their home school, my oldest was capped out due to them having too many kids in her grade and class size.
1. Location, location, location – maybe those ARE my top three
non-negotiables. The next place we live, I would like to be within walking distance of a library, park and grocery store. I want to be very close to my husbands work (his commute right now is 30-45 minutes each way) and to our church.
After living in a home where we have to drive everywhere and far for many things I have decided this will be a non-negotiable next time!
2. Open Floor Plan – our home that we are in now (which we bought, gutted down to the studs, and rebuilt) has this and I LOVE it. I am in the kitchen cooking a lot because I love it. I love being able to interact with my kids, husband and/or guests while I am doing that.
3. More than 1 bedroom!
Yes, you read that correct. Our home is a 1 bedroom. We remodeled with the intention of adding on. The 1 bedroom was supposed to be a temporary thing…that was about 4 years ago. Now, with 3 kids, I’m ready to have at least one more bedroom, maybe even two. 
I’m with you here! With 2 kids in a 1 BR apartment, we are so ready to move! I can’t imagine having 3 kids in here! We’re looking at renting a 3 BR house. It’s pretty small, but has alot of perks: location, big yard w/deck, and just the fact that it’s a house instead of an apartment! Yay!
Having lived in our current home for 11 years now, I can confidently say our top features are:
4 bedrooms ( or 3BR + a bonus room large enough for exercise eq.)
a large Kitchen
Walk in pantry (I love mine and am loathe to give it up)
2 baths with at least 1 garden tub (I don’t care about jets; they’re just gunk-magnets).
a separate family room would be ideal.
We are selling our house in KC and moving back to Iowa!
Yes, quite stressful! lol But, I loved what Mey shared as those share our heart as well! We have LOVED having a home where people could stay with us, we could have foster kids, and have lots of people over!!! We hope to continue that! So….
- Home with a guest room, or at least an area that can be made into a guest area.
- Fenced back yard – we have a dog and young foster kids!
-Nice sized eating area – preferably in the kitchen, as I’m not really a dining room person. But, again – to be able to have many over!
- Basement. I’m still amazed that living in the midwest there are homes without basements. lol For shelter purposes, but also storage and we want a home where we can kind of have a ‘youth hang out’ area in OUR basement for the boys to have their friends over and be able to play ping pong, pool table, etc. Teenagers love being with other teenagers, so we want our home to be a fun, loving place for them to WANT to be in. Would much rather have the kids want to hang out at OUR house, than somewhere else.
Bless you as you find your ‘perfect’ home!!! So excited for you guys!
Buying a house is so much work! But it’s fun also
We just purchased a house and I LOVE these things about it:
1. Location (I can walk to almost everything I need — using less gas!)
2. Open and bright floor plan (looks very welcoming and we use less electricity)
3. Fantastic neighborhood with nice, clean, friendly neighbors
The one and only thing I don’t like (and of course you cannot have it all in a first home): it backs up to a busy street (but with a relatively good sized yard it’s not SO bad
We are just starting to really get out there and look for houses. Our requirements are:
1. Fireplace
2. Buying in the same neighborhood we currently live in
2. Big yard
3. 4 bedrooms
I love seeing everyone’s requirements!
I totally agree with you! We were able to buy a house after 2 years of marriage and we had no children yet. For us, our 3 things were 2 toilets (they did not have to be full bathrooms), a dishwasher, and a fenced in backyard. My husband was a youth pastor so he had 2 camps and a mission trip to go on while I was looking at houses. After looking at many house in our price range I was starting to feel like I would never find our house. Finally we came across a house that was just barely out of our price range. I walked in and you could see a large fenced in back yard. I only saw 1 bathroom but found out there was another bathroom in the garage. (It was near the beach so houses were built that way so you could shower after you got home from the beach.) The kitchen was great but no dishwasher – until we opened the pantry. There was a portable dishwasher! The Realtor said it would not last long – so without my husband I put in an offer. They accepted my offer! We did have a clause in the offer that I had to get my hubby’s approval. He loved it! God provided everything. Watching Him sell it when were were about to go to the mission field was awesome too!
The three “musts” for our next home are:
3 car garage
at least .5 acres
4 bedrooms (3 of which must be on one level)
Well this is an easy question as we are closing on our next home in 4 weeks! Our top three: living room *and* family room, all bedrooms (4) on the same floor and 2 1/2 attached garage. We also wanted a masterbath but wasn’t a deal breaker and the house we are buying has one so we pretty much got everything we wanted in our new home!!! There is also a huge vegetable garden in the backyard which I am so excited about growing my own food and saving money that way
Well, having been there / done that and hindsight being what it is…
my main thing is the neighborhood. Our neighborhood doesn’t have any young families for our kid (soon to be 2 kids) to play with.
What we do have (they moved in after we did) is a convicted rapist and a convicted murderer.
My advice is to be sure to do a sex offender search and parolee search for the neighborhoods you’re considering. Save yourself a huge load of worry.
@Milk Donor Mama, I totally agree that you should check those websites but like she said they moved in after they had already bought the house so you just never know.
oh yeah and it is so NOT a buyers market. Tons of foreclosures, AS IS and short sales. We avoided all of those and were still able to find a prefect house! I feel your pain on the house hunting I am so happy to be DONE with it!!!
Three bedrooms, attached garage, and a flat yard. You would be surprised how many homes in KY seem to be built on hilltops – backyards with an extreme, cliff-like grade! Not family friendly for sure!
@Suzy, LOL, I live in one of those KY with a sloped yard. I does have it’s advantages….it wears kids out quickly and it’s great in the winter for sledding.
1. School district: We want to send our kids to public school and wanted the best district in our county.
2. Neighborhood: After living on the side of a mountain on a dirt road, I only wanted to be in a neighborhood where my kids can ride bikes, I can go for a run, and we have neighbors to wave to!
3. Culdesac: We wanted to be in a culdesac because we play outside a lot and didn’t want to be on a cross street with any traffic. We ended up at the end of a culdesac which has turned out to be perfect b/c we only get traffic from the 3 homes at the end with us. Any future moves will 100% have an ‘end of culdesac’ requirement!
As for the actual house:
1. square footage so we don’t have to move as our kids grow, if we have more children, or even after they have moved out. This also meant no wasted space because a large square footage number means nothing if you can’t use it wisely.
2. laundry on first floor. My husband was adamant about this so if there was ever a leak it won’t ruin the entire house, but only the first floor. Makes sense, but I am tired of hauling the clothes up and down the stairs
3. a fenced back yard. we could have fenced something in if it was in our budget after agreeing on a home price, but having it already fenced seemed very convenient to us since we’d be moving in with kids and want to use it right away.
We met all three criteria and love our house!
Happy house hunting!
Don’t go entirely by the pictures. Sometimes they look spacious, but they’re small, sometimes they look cramped, but they’re spacious. Some Realtors are not good photographers! Some houses also look cluttered, but once you see them, you realize the potential. Pictures are a good indicator, but not the whole story.
@Aryn, I thought the same thing when I read this portion of the post. We looked at 39 homes in three days before settling on our house and the pictures we saw online before looking at the homes were often deceiving. In fact, we ended up buying a house that had only unimpressive outside pictures, but inside was a BEAUTIFUL spacious kitchen that sold the house to us almost instantly!
1. A good sized kitchen – I love to cook!
2. A Basement – I have a huge fear of tornadoes!
3. A Garage – I am tired of living without one and don’t have the desire or energy to build one!
Our top 3 when we were looking for a house were: 1) 3 bedrooms, 2) office space- whether that meant a 4th bedroom or a nook off the kitchen or just an extra large living room, didn’t matter. There just had to be a place for the computer, and 3) a fully fenced back yard- this was non-negotiable and it has been my sanity saver. It’s wonderful to be able to send the kids out the door and not worry about them.
Please don’t judge a house by its online pictures!
I’ve seen houses that looked great online be “heck no!” when I saw them in person, and the home we live in now had no-great pictures online, but we loved the house when we saw it in person (their agent did not usually do residential real-estate- she included a picture of a crowded laundry room with the ironing board out but did not include a picture of the back yard with the green-belt view!)
@jennifer, I completely agree. Our house was built in the early 1970′s, and the owners did not do much to update the look. From the pictures online it looked like the Brady Bunch house. I thought no way. In person, I realized a couple of new light fixtures and tearing off some metallic wall paper was all it needed.
Quiet street. Three bedrooms upstairs and fenced backyard. And then a master bath. I know that’s four, but we managed to find all of them.
Our three musts: garage, basement, and NO STAIRS!!! I am a Nervous Nelly when it comes to stairs and babies!!
Definitley a pool (or enough room to put a pool in), fenced in backyard, and a big kitchen.
We are house hunting to and have put in several offers only to get outbid so I understand about how hard it is. My criteria are location, price (which is very limited), 3 bedrooms, and a master bath.
Good Luck in the hunt.
HA! I’ve been having those SAME thoughts, since we’re currently house hunting in Chicago… what a yucky process! Our 3 non-negotiables USED to be central AC, w/d connections, and a good school/neighborhood. Now that we’ve been looking a while, those have changed; affordability, proximity to my husbands job, and adequate space are the new ones! I wish you luck in your hunt!
Ah, shucks, I thought this was going to be announcement that you’d found what you wanted and would have a contract in place by April 30th.
Non-negotiables? uhm. At least 1000 sq ft. At least 2 bedrooms. Freestanding home – not a duplex/townhome.
Crystal,
There is no need for you to spend so much time searching.
My husband is a real estate agent.
A buyer’s agent doesn’t cost you money. They are paid by the seller–even if the seller is the bank and the house is a foreclosure or short sale.
A good agent will have a search into your MLS system that brings up the houses that meet your exact qualifications (number of bedrooms, size of house, size of lot, neighborhoods you like–even exact subdivisions, etc.) They can set this up to email you whenever a house comes up for sale (within 12 hours of it coming on the market, it will be emailed to you–automatically!) that meets your exact qualifications.
There is no need for you to search online. They can set the computer up to do this FOR you.
Dh meets people all the time who spend hours searching online like you are doig, and it is NOT neccessary at all. Most houses online aren’t even available anymore! The realtor’s search can bring you houses that are actually available to buy (not pending–aka under contract already, which comes up on online searches). He’ll have clients who still search online, and every single house they bring up is under contract.
I wish more people understood this. It doesn’t have to take you so much time!
@The Prudent Homemaker, I agree with Brandy! A buyer’s agent (a real estate agent that represents YOU and not the seller) is an absolute must. You didn’t mention if you have one or not, but if you don’t, get one! They can set up the computer to match ALL your criteria!
Yes, we have one whom we were very pleased with.
We’re not spending time searching online; our agent is doing that for us.
We’re just spending a lot of time looking at all the homes she finds for us in our exact specifications. We’d be sunk without her!
@The Prudent Homemaker, I agree that a realtor can sometimes shorten the searching time. But it is a misnomer that the ‘seller’ is picking up the tab for the realtors…since the agents fees are a percentage of the price…if the buyer is paying the seller and the seller is paying both realtors out of the money paid for the house…who is really paying for the it?
Off street parking, a bathroom on the main floor (Many DC homes don’t have this!), and 3 bedrooms (also hard to find!)– oh, in the right location (good public school, hello! even in DC they do exist! I didn’t want to pay for private.).
Good luck!!!
1. Location. After living in Chicago for three years, getting back to Texas has been great. We are one hour away from both of our parents, two minutes from church, and close to our good friends.
2. Space. Lots of room to have people over and fellowship, whether it be in the kitchen, backyard, etc.
3. Four bedrooms or three bedrooms + office. We don’t have kids yet, but having four bedrooms is a requirement. Our bedroom, guest bedroom, my husband’s office and my office. It makes our house seem so much more livable because we’re not cramped in!
My three musts: (1) a safe neighborhood with lots of young children for my kiddos to play with, (2) good local schools, (3) no major repair work. Regarding my third “must”, here is some unsolicited advice, so please free to disregard! I think it is a must to hire your own home inspectors. I have a lot of respect for realtors, and have always hired them to buy & sell my homes, but they do have a vested interest in closing the deal and my personal experience has been that the inspectors they select facilitate that process. I’ve learned that getting my own roofing, electrical, etc. inspectors may cost a bit on the front end but protects me on the back end. Also, I’m sure you know this already, but if/when the inspectors find something, ask the sellers to either fix it or give you cash at closing to fix it. After buying and selling a few homes I’ve found that my sellers have always been willing to do that to close the deal, as have I. Good luck!
Our three were:
More than 1 bathroom
Preferably 3 bedrooms, or 2 and some extra room for a home office
A good-sized kitchen
You think house-hunting is difficult? Trying doing it in 2 weeks, with 1 day to actually look at houses. DH and I moved to our current area for my job and it was so much cheaper to purchase a home than to rent (a few hundred a month less) and we knew we would be here at least four years. So we searched online, drove up, and looked all day. We picked a house at the end of the day. It’s not our dream home, but it’s well within our means and we’ve been fairly happy with our choice.
Our three non negotiables would be…
1.) At least 4 bedrooms or the possibility (such as an office, den, etc.). We are adopting again (maybe a sibling set) so this is a must.
2.) At least 2 bathrooms, lived with one long enough!
3.) Big kitchen with eat in dining big enough for the whole family.
a 4th for us would be a place for a playroom (right now we’ve turned our garage into a playroom).
Oh, please don’t judge a house by its online photos – or even how it looks in a drive by! We wouldn’t have bought this house if my husband hadn’t insisted we see it because the online photos were horrible! The previous home we bought looked so small in the driveby that, once again, my husband suggested we still see it and it was HUGE – just set sideways on the lot and had sixs bedrooms and large principle rooms.
i agree with The Prudent Homemaker,let an agent help you .That’s what we are here for and as a buyer it won’t cost you anything. We have more tools available and we know what to look for.
We have a wonderful realtor we’re working with. That’s the next post in this House Hunting series (see the bottom of the post).
A master bathroom is a MUST at the top of my list! (and for my hubby, since we have 5 girls–he needs his own space!) I like having a two-story with the bedrooms upstairs. And two that I don’t currently have that I’d like in the next house (if possible, someday!) are a mudroom with ample space for coats, shoes, etc, and possibly laundry as well, and a dining/eating area that is big enough for quite a LARGE table. Right now with a family of 7, if we have anyone over it is quite a squeeze, and our current dining area is “landlocked” meaning there is nowhere else to go to gain space.
We won’t be buying a house for a long time, but based on the life my husband and I are working towards, we’re hoping that when the time comes, we can find a house with:
1) Several (5-10) acres of land. We want to use the space for a dairy cow, some chickens, and a serious vegetable garden. I think this will seriously narrow down our choices.
2) Large kitchen so the kids can cook with me, at least two bathrooms, and at least three bedrooms so our family can grow.
3) Good energy efficiency — or at least the potential to be made energy efficient with minor upgrades. This means no 2,000 square feet homes, even if they miraculously fit in our budget.
Ditto the picture comments. I truly was opposed to looking at a particular house because the listing was so bad – wrong sq ft, omitted things like one of the bathrooms, and the worst photo I have ever seen. But husband insisted we look, and it turned out to be the house for us (and we hot it cheap because we were the first to tour it in the 60 days it had been on the market).
Please don’t rule out a house because it looks bad on-line. When we were looking we did the same. Some houses we looked at that “showed” good, weren’t as good as the picture looked. But the house we bought, showed TERRIBLE! First of all it was an ugly exterior color in the picture and no pictures of the inside. Our realtors wanted us to look at it, but I was not so sure. Finally we decided what do we have to lose? Well, the house was a semi-custom, 1.6 acre with lots and lots of room. It was all oak cabinets and trim through out. Nothing need to be done with the exception of clean(remember it sat for along time), and put your own stamp (read paint, decorate).But after we put in a bid we found out that it was a foreclosure and had been sitting for over a year. After working with the realtor that was working for the bank foreclosing we found out why there was no pictures… he was lazy and a forclosure was an easy sale for him. We were skeptical! Our only out was that if it didn’t pass all of the hosue inspection and well inspection we could back out without penalties. It passed, but still hopeful that we wouldn’t have any added expenses because of the house sitting for so long we decided to go for it. We got it for a steal!! We know we won’t be staying here forever, but its now our investment for our forever home when the time comes. We’ve had no problems at all. Well….maybe, kindof, sortof one. When we bought the house we knew we would want to get new windows, and we needed to much sooner than we thought. But, we had planned for it and so it wasn’t a major event. A major investment…YES! A major event…no , because we were prepared.
Just something to think about.
Ok this is super easy: (we too have lived in about 10 different homes in the course of 10 years)
1) laundry room UPSTAIRS. Why haul your dirty laundry downstairs just to take it back up again? I LOVE having the ‘actual living’ mess be upstairs and away from the first floor where visitors would see it.
2) a LARGE pantry as in WALK IN SIZE…why builders don’t put these in anymore is crazy.
3) Storage space-Garage shelves (or the potential for them w/2 cars), Cupboards and Closets that you can actually put more than three towels on or more than a set of sheets. Actual space to organize and EVERYTHING have a place.
Three things:
two bathrooms
freestanding
larger garage or pole barn
Two bathrooms – oh my how I dream of having another toilet in our house.
Laundry room on main floor. Our washer/dryer is in our basement. Hate that. I live with it but get laundry room envy every time I see one.
Dishwasher. I have lived without one and it sucks. Can’t imagine doing that with children as we run one load every day.
Good luck.
Oh and if I could add a fourth ‘must’…a quieter street. We have a fence around our entire yard, but would still love a quieter street in my urban hood.
You do have to remember that real estate agents are inputting the info so it often can be incorrect and the pictures — terrible!
Our three non-negotiables were location, quiet neighborhood (location!), and location.
My non-negiotiables (I really want a house btw). A yard for my kids to play in. 3+ bedrooms. Kitchen space. Simple things!
After having children, I would never buy another house without a mudroom for all the coats, shoes, bookbags, etc.
Large Garage
DRY Basement
Bath and a half or more
Hmmm. Tough to narrow it to three non-negotiables. I would say
1) minimum of 3 bedrooms and
2) workable good-size kitchen
3) a place for hubby’s piano.
Important for us as we look for a house:
1. SCHOOL DISTRICT! This is very important for us as we love our school -so we are only looking in our school district.
2. Large yard
3. Open living , dining, kitchen area to spend quality hours as a family and with others.
I agree with Jennifer that one can’t always judge as house from poor quality photos. I used to work at a real estate company taking pictures of house for sale. A room can be perfect by decuttering and a can of paint. I agree that the kitchen is the most important room because not only is it the “heart of the home” but because everyone gathers there. Our musts (more than 3) when building our home was 2 bathrooms, 3 bedrooms, basement, 3 car garage and location, location, location. We love our cul-de-sac where we don’t have to worry about the kids playing near a busy street.
1. Attached garage (not integral); hauling babies and groceries up stairs is not for me!
2. Laundry room on the main floor or upstairs. No basement laundry room!
3. A kitchen with lots of storage space.
I did the “if it doesn’t look good in the pictures then I won’t look at the house” when we were looking for houses too. So, when I saw the pics of the house we purchased, I passed it up because I thought the wallpaper in the kitchen was U-G-L-Y and never gave it a thought. Then when we were driving in an area we wanted to live and saw this particular house, I loved the outside and wondered why I didn’t have my realtor set up a time to look at it. So, once I was inside, I realized that it had everything we wanted and wallpaper is an easy fix. So, we put beadboard in the kitchen over the wallpaper and it was a happy ending for us. Sometimes the pictures online don’t do a particular house justice, so if you find one in the area that you like, and it does have all the features you are looking for, sometimes it does pay to go view it even if the pics don’t look great!
I bought my house when I was 24, by myself, a huge feat. I did have my father to help with advice, but in this area it was just as expensive to buy as to rent. I did have to buy a little further out of the city limits, but I grew up in the country, and the commute is not bad.
I have since married and had a daughter. We are planning more children, so we will need to hunt for a bigger house soon.
My must haves…. a big kitchen, I have a galley kitchen now and I hate it! We want at least 4 bedrooms (including the master), we use one as a study room and has our computer and crafts in it. And I want a backyard! We finally built a deck, and our plants our flourishing… its an outdoor paradise, I love having my morning coffee out there!
Good luck on your hunt!
)
Andrea
We close on our fourth home in seven years next month. Remember it is just a house YOU make it a home! We buy in what we call 48 hour hunts. I go in the first day and narrow down the very long list of homes that are available in our price range and meet a few “necessities.” Then my husband comes in and see my top few choices. The we just make offers/negotiate until a contract is met. The house we are currently living in was my 13 choice of homes but it has been a huge blessing (the neighborhood is fabulous, the yard is huge for our two boys, and with a little paint and new fixtures it feels like home)! Have fun! Although it is stressful, it is a huge blessing to be able to buy a house! I wish you the best of luck as you purchase your HOUSE and make it a special HOME for your family.
1. LOCATION … you can change a lot of things, but you can NOT change location!
2. Newer construction (because more than likely it will have a open floor plan, large pantry, several bathrooms, laundry upstairs .. all of the essentials).
3. Some land around us (for privacy, quietness AND just ample space for the kids to run & play)! We currently live in a home that is set on a postage stamp sized lot. Very noisy when you live a few feet from your neighbor. And if your neighbor’s house should catch on fire, better believe yours is going to go up too … we watched this happen a couple of streets over last winter!
Good luck in your search! I love house hunting … can’t wait to do it again myself.
I feel like we’ve spent years househunting, although I guess we’ve only done it three times! I understand how frustrating the process can be. I try to remember that it’s an exciting thing and such a blessing – and to tell you the truth, I kind of LIKE searching for homes online!! I totally agree about the buyer’s agent being a must-have, but I also think that doing some searching yourself isn’t a bad thing. It’s great to have the houses that are a good match emailed to you, but unless you dig online and have an idea of what’s out there, how will you know how the houses you’re looking at compare to others in your price range? I think that’s priceless info when it comes to negotiating and knowing how much the home is worth compared to the others on the market right now. So I say don’t give up searching on your own! We’ve had great buyer’s agents for all of our home purchases, and they’ve sent us lots of “matches” with homes they found that seem to perfectly match our search criteria…. but 2 out of 3 of our homes I’ve found looking on my own.
As for our must-haves: 4 or more bedrooms (we have three kiddos, dh works from home, and all family is out of town so we get lots of houseguests), great school district, good yard on a cul-de-sac. Those are definitely our three! If I could add a few more they’d be open floor plan, all bedrooms on the same level, and a good sized kitchen and laundry space.
Good luck with your search and try to remember to have fun with it! Hopefully you won’t be doing it again for a REALLY long time.
Mine are
fenced in back yard, master bath, 3 bedrooms.
And since we have that right now, we are living in the perfect house! =)
Attached garage (summers and winters are HARD on vehicles left outside in KS), big kitchen, 4 bedrooms (at least the possibility of it–we could live in 3 for now but would want to be able to have more in the future, like an unfinished basement).
@Jenn, ohh, and a fenced-in yard. My son has no fear! :-/
1) the kitchen must be a minimum of 5 times bigger than the bathroom(s)
2) 5 bedrooms preferably
3) 2 bath
We have 4 kids 5 and under. Our current home (which, sadly we own) has a galley kitchen that is scarcely bigger than our bathroom (yes we have only one). When I say “sadly, we own” our home– don’t get me wrong– I am very grateful to have a home– and that we are blessed to own ours. However, the fact that I bought the place 10 years before I had children, etc. means that it is not the best suited to our family. We are presently trying to get financially “well” enough to eventually get out of this house and into one more suited to our family. We have a lot of credit-repairing and other things to do before that can happen, so we are just trying to make the best of it in the mean time. I have shelving practically lining the whole inside of my house just so we have room to put things (necessities– not clutter). Anyway, it’ll be a while before we can get into a new home so we have some time to dream and decide on exactly what we want/need.
We are currently toying with the idea of moving (we currently do own a house, but would like to get out of the city) so our three non-negotiables would be:
LARGE yard
Out of the city
Dining/eating area (as it is we are crammed in the kitchen with three kids at a tiny round table)
My dream home would NOT have stairs…our house in KY is a quad and we have lots of stairs. Since we bought the house then had a baby, we had 5 baby gates! He is older now so we only use 2 now but…what a pain! Before our house in KS, we lived in TX and AZ, both of which had nice open floor plans and I miss that. So that would be top on my list too. A nice big master and master bath would also be high on the list. And my absolute DREAM is to have a huge wrap around porch! Whenever I see one of those, I melt…
We just bought our first house and our #1 criteria was school district, if it wasn’t in the right school district we didn’t even give it a chance; this cut way down on houses to look at. #2 was the kitchen, my husband loves to cook and refuses to have a Gally kitchen. #3 was 4 bedrooms, and #4 we really wanted a soaker tub!
Lots of windows, I need natural sunlight! Large yard for the kids and an open floor plan so I’m not stuck in the kitchen and everyone else is having fun in the livingroom…I like to see my guests. Although, as my kids get older, a second livingroom would be nice for when they have their friends over (male and female) so they can be loud in another room other than their bedrooms.
a living room that can be seen from the kitchen (so I can get stuff done, but still keep an eye on my little guy playing!), a YARD (we don’t have one currently), and room to entertain comfortably and have a good space for overnight guests (even if it’s not an exact bedroom).
Ours was at least 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. Our house hunt took a LONG time. My husband found the ad for our house, it only had the picture of the front of the house, it looked so small, but it has a walkout basement (didn’t know it at the time). I was thinking Eww, from the pic, but as soon as we drove down the drive we both looked at eachother and smiled. It only got better after that. Yes, it’s an older house but it has 3 beds, 2 baths, a kitchen on the smaller side. But everything else we wanted. It may take you a while too, but you will know it when you step into YOUR house. Good luck with your house hunting!!
Our three were big yard for the kids, two car garage, and four bedrooms and in one particular school district. We had four none selling points for us.
My fiance and I are just about to close on on our first house. Our criteria was a garage, 3 bedrooms and a decent sized yard. I would like to take a moment and say thank you! I have been following your blog for about a year now and it has helped me so much!
Dream features:
Eat-in, large kitchen
Lots of closet space
Level yard with modest number of trees
Do not let a picture eliminate a property!! Not every real estate agent is a professional photographer. The picture for the listing of the last house we owned was the WORST!
Also, keep in mind mistakes may be made when listing properties (price, number of rooms, etc).
Oh – I do have a suggestion – please remember to have the quality of the home thoroughly checked. Just walking into a home, you can’t tell if it was insulated properly, the condition of the roof (we had to replace ours and it was $9,000 -yikes), etc. It’s worth hiring a person to do a thorough check with this major purchase. Also, I would recommend purchasing a fairly new (if it’s a couple years old, you would likely get bonuses of the yard in, landscaping, blinds, etc.) if not a new home. We purchased ours new, but it is now almost 15 years old, and we’ve had to replace so many expensive items including the kitchen appliances, hot water heater, roof, carpet, and are now pricing out a furnace and air conditioning unit. Best wishes! HTH
We were recently house hunting, but then decided to not move. It is a lot of work. And about pictures – sometimes the pictures the realtor takes just kill me. They offer no real help at all. Here were our requirements:
4 bedrooms or at least 3 bedrooms + office/game room.
Big back yard for the kids to play in.
semi long driveway for the kids to ride bikes on.
Sidewalks to friendly neighbors preferable.
ONE story. Oh, how I wish I would not have compromised on that when I bought our current house!
1. Yard layout/neighborhood! With three boys… Shade trees, fenced if in town. Preferrably out of town, on a couple acres!
2. Large kitchen
3. Open floor plan (makes it seem bigger without the added square feet).
Only 3?!
4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms (preferably both with double sinks), large kitchen. We have the priviledge of living in a small rural community where most of the yards are large enough for us and our 3 kids. Another thing that we’re really looking for is a floor plan where the kids’ bedrooms won’t be sharing a wall with our bathroom…there’s been way too many times where we’ve ended up waking the kids up just because we were getting ready for bed. I could go on, but will stop because it would be a whole blog post! 
We are in the process of trying to sell our condo (2bd/1bth) and as soon as we sell it we will start looking for a house!! We must sell first because there is NO WAY we could afford two mortgages!! Living in a condo with a dog and a kid, we have some absolute MUSTS in buying a house! To be honest the most important thing to me is a good sized yard!! The kitchen is next, I want it open to the living area and to be BIG. 4 bedrooms. And it has to be close to our church
1. House all on one level (lived in a tri-level and hated it. Husband got me a one level. Love him for that).
2. No sloping backyard.
3. Kitchen that is big enough for the whole family at Christmas.
Goodluck with the house hunt. Hope you guys find most everything on your list.
I know what you mean when we bought our home 2 years ago it was such a long process. What we were looking for was 1. at least 3 bedrooms all in one level 2. large kitchen 3. laundry room (living in apartments, this was a must) We got all this plus a walk in pantry…God is good! Good luck in your search.
@Tricia Young,
I know what you mean…I grew up on a cul du sac and when we found just the perfect house for us at then end. We put up a sign with children at play and sit back and enjoy ourselves.
The 3 “musts” for our next house are:
1. Sidewalks in the neighborhood
2. A basement (you lose so much space without one! plus- I am a bit afraid of tornadoes!)
3. 3-4 bedrooms
Good for you for sticking to your non-negotiables. The right house is out there. We looked for about 9 months, but it was SO worth the wait! We are growing out of our “first home” now and will be pursuing another home soon- I am looking already b/c I remember how long it took & we only want to move into 1 specific neighborhood.
Good luck!
Sarah
well we bought a home with the three requirements
1. our Mortage Payment would be lower then the Allowances the Army gives us
2. It had to have a yard.. we lived in a Rental before with 3 rooms and 2 windows
3. It had to be kinda in the rual area, but close enough for my hubby to work
we bought our fixer upper, but found out its alot more fixing then we expected.. but i think its the house God intented for us.. we have a roof over our head and we should have it paid off in 9 years.
We aren’t searching for homes just yet, but we will soon and we have a few things we learned in our current house that are musts:
1. The house must face west, so the sun sets in the front of the house. We love to spend time in our backyard in the evenings, and it helps when the house creates the shade.
2. We currently live on a main road in our subdivision, and we hate it. A quiet street or a cul-de-sac is a must next time.
3. It must be an ‘open’ floor plan. We currently have one and don’t think we could ever go back.
Crystal, good luck in finding your home. The 3 musts are hard. We’ve built our last 2 homes from scratch, thought we had the 2nd one licked after figured out what we didn’t like about the 1st, but we just found other thing we’d change next time, LOL!
For us right now, with a baby, an open floor plan is insanity! You can’t block anything off with gates. You basically have to follow her around 24/7. No freedom at all.
A huge kitchen and breakfast room – no matter how many cabinets I have built, there is never enough.
Forget the formal dining or living room. It is a waste of space and unless you can close it off (i.e. it has a door or french doors) then making it into an office is impossible, at least for someone like me who runs a business out of the house.
Great Ideas
We will be looking soon….I am very picky and after living in a home in a nice neighborhood but not so nice neighbors my #1 is NOT trashy neighbors
2. garage in the back
3. no pool (d0nt want the hassle)
4. sidewalks
5. one story
Definitely a large kitchen with ample counter space and a decent sized pantry. Right now we are moving from a house with a small kitchen and almost no pantry!! 2nd would be closet space for all rooms, at least some sort of walk-in for the master bedroom & room for storage in the kids rooms. And a lot of natural light throughout is something we love!!!
1. Yard to mess with
2. Master on 1st floor (preferably all on one floor!)
3. Laundry and Dishwasher
My three are Money making potential (must be under priced for square feet due to minor updates), location (a place that could sell on location alone), at least 3 bedrooms on one floor.
Three “must” haves –
An extra bedroom — for guests or office or combination. You just need that room.
A large kitchen with plenty of cupboards and a personal perference – windows — I love my windows over the sink – I can see my garden, all the trees — just lets in light and to see the beauty of the day.
A garage — may sound extravagant but after living in a big house without a garage for 20+ years and five kids growing up in it, a garage would have been wonderful. Storage for that lawmower, garden tools, bikes, skateboards, snow shovels, etc. As it is and was, all that stuff is dragged into the house and down into the basement (except the lawmower). So, imagine all the dirt, mud, ice, snow and yuk walked into the house on a continual basis. Awful!! I am shampooing the rugs and mopping the foyer tile floor all the time. A lot of homes have a “mud room” you enter from the garage — great for the shoes, boots, coats, all the stuff to remove and helps keep your home in good shape.
Above all else, have fun looking! You will know when the right one comes along! God has a special one just for your family!
Sherri
We’re paying off 20 acres & planning eventually to build a straw bale house on it. Requirements: Serious kitchen & pantry area, sewing room, “great room” layout for kitchen/dining/living room area.
We moved into our first home last October, and we found very quickly that our list of non-negotiables came down to only one (aside from location!): a second bathroom! I am anxious to see your post about realtors, because without our very excellent one, we never could have navigated all the ins and outs of house hunting and buying…
We wanted a large sunny backyard where we could have a garden.
After buying and selling 5 houses, my advice.
1. No matter how much you love your realtor hire a real estate attorney to review your contract and closing documents. It is much cheaper to pay them a few hundred dollars to enusre everything is correct than to try to fight the title company, sellers, or agent if something happens. It seems after everyone gets paid, all cooperation stops.
2. Think long term. The school district might not be as important to you as you are homeschooling; but when you sell, it will most likely be important to those looking at your house. Is the house going to still work for our family in 5 years? Enough bathrooms etc.
3. The features of the house. No matter what you decide, there will always something you don’t like about the house or wish it had. If I had to pick 3.
closets- it is hard to add more. Lack of square footage is better than lack of storage.
laundry room- needs to be close to where you spend most of your day.
kitchen- nothing worse than a kitchen that is too small and that people can’t gather in when they are over for dinner.
Good Luck and have fun!!!
I disagree about pictures. We are in the process of buying a house, and have found that some of the listings with the best pictures were really not that great, while some of the listings with horrible looking pictures turned out to be the best houses. What really annoys me is when the picture focuses on something not important- like the bed or the ceiling fan.
We are currently in our 3rd house. Our first two, my hubby purchased without me seeing them in person first. So, yes, it does happen!
Also wanted to say that you don’t necessarily need babysitters for showings. We have always brought our children, when I’ve gone. As they’ve gotten older, we tell them not to talk about the house while we’re there (and in front of the other realtor), but we will hear their thoughts when we get in the car.
We are currently looking to downsize. We are also looking to move from the country to the city. Our 3 must-haves for our next home would be:
1. at least 3 bedrooms
2. walking distance to a playground (since we won’t have much of a yard)
3. safe area
Happy house hunting!
Lots of storage space in kitchen and a good sized storage area for seasonal, tools etc. NO TILE COUNTERTOPS. I have this now and hate it. Its a deal killer unless the house is prices cheap enough I can afford to put in new countertops. Space, space for the kids to run and play and explore outside.
a garage
a big yard
at least 2 bathrooms!
we’re pretty easy to please!
We’ve been looking for over a year
Good luck. It is tiring and in the end you usually have to settle on a few things. No house is perfect.
Dear Crystal,
I don’t know if you’ll read this since its like comment number 300 but I just wanted to ask you to reconsider 1 of your 3 criteria. My husband and I just moved in 2 days ago to our first home. (20% down, 15 yr mortgage in a 200k+ area, Dave would be proud!). Anyway, we waited 5 months to look at this house and then thought, what the heck, let’s just look. The pictures were UGLY and the description of 8 ft ceilings and a septic system did not sound right for us. Well, since we got this one at 10% less than market value and way underpriced for our area where average 50 yr old homes go for 250k+ and only the extreme fixer uppers or ghetto houses go for under 200K we were hesitant to come look at something at 210k where the pictures were bad.
BUT…remember that their realtor chooses the photos. I found the realtors here put a lot more work into those 400k houses and don’t have so much time for these houses that aren’t worth as much to them in fees. So this realtor did NOT put up the fabulous recently updated bathrooms, the dining room with the 11 month old pergo wood floor or the LARGE yard photos of 0.4 acres (flat land which is a huge amount in this city with no visible neighbors on either side). IF we hadn’t come to actually look at the house we would have missed out on a good thing.
Remember that the houses that are steals aren’t making much money for the realtors and some realtors may not put the same amount of work into selling them as they do their million dollar/luxury homes which photograph easily because they’re filled with stainless steel appliances, pools, and new paint/wallpaper. I know you’re a bargain hunter and I hope you will consider this when you’re trying to find the right home.
Best of luck, can’t wait to see what you snare!!! Don’t forget to divulge all the juicy negotiation details! We won’t benefit from them as we already bought our house but I know a lot of your readers will!
Best of luck and keep sharing your great deals and heartwarming stories (And more pics of those cute kiddos!)
Jenny
I have to agree with a previous commenter, don’t let a picture be the thing that keeps you away.
We just purchased a new home in August of 2009 after looking for six months. The house we ended up falling in love with is the one we drove by time and time again. I refused to go in and look at it because the pictures online were so bad. Thankfully we were at the house next door and our Realtor finally talked me into just walking over and taking a look. I walked into two rooms and knew it was “the one”.
When we bought our home almost 9 years ago we had only one child and I was newly pregnant with our second. We each had one important feature that we wanted. Mine was a LARGE back yard and his was central AC. We also required a minimum of 3 bedrooms and two full baths. What we bought met all of the criteria EXCEPT the AC!! (But I think that has actually saved us a TON of money in the long run not cooling the whole house!)
Now with four children my criteria would be a little different.
A LARGE backyard
master bath
a big kitchen
We really compromised on the kitchen and got a tiny not very functional kitchen and I regret the 65 year old fixtures and lack of ANY space almost daily. We thought for sure that we would be ready to remodel the kitchen in a couple of years. But other necessary projects have taken the money. You cook a lot and want to have your kids in there with you. Don’t compromise on the kitchen!
I forgot to mention single story all the way, at least while the children are young!!
1. landscaped yard (not super fancy, but I need trees and plants!)
2. a nice size kitchen
3. a beautiful porch
Fun!
My husband and I are planning to buy our first home next year when he comes home from Iraq and we’ve already discussed the matter of a criteria list. We want to find a home in our prince range (which is particularly low) because we want a fixer upper and plan to do most of the fixing up our selves since my father has every tool imaginable considering he’s been in the remodeling buisness for 30 years! Yes I know I lucked up.
Somethings we’ve included on our list is #1 location: The house must be within a 40 minute driving distance from his place of employment (yes that’s a lot of ground we have to cover but we have time) #2 it must be in a nice neighborhood! #3 it must have atleast 3 bedrooms and 2 baths with a good floor plan so that it’s easy to add-on to. #4 it must have sheetrocked walls ( I HATE doing drywall!) #5 must have fair sized backyard. other than that we are good to go. we have a remodel fund planned so if the kitchen and bathrooms need updating we’ll be able to do so or the floors and the windows etc… you get the idea!
We are sort of looking & my husband’s first criteria is it either has to have a large enough shop/garage or a place to build one, then it has to have at least a full + a half bath (no more having 4 people squeezing in one bathroom) & for me, it has to have more than a closet for a kitchen.
I think we have more can’t have’s than must have’s (e.g. no wood paneling, no major bathroom/kitchen remodeling, can’t be located on a busy street – been there, done that on all of those).
1) large kitchen that opens into living/entertaining room
2) four bedrooms
3) location (to school, church, work)
1. Fenced large-enough-for-kids-to-play-in yard (and preferably privacy fenced) with windows so I can watch them.
2. STORAGE!!!!! Closets! Kitchen cabinet & pantry space and counter space for cooking (which I currently don’t have in our galley style kitchen). Our current house was originally owned by a bachelor. We have tiny closets, no pantry, and FOUR children. Um…yeah. LOL
3. Four bedroom, two baths.
And as a “bonus” – a room right off the kitchen where I could have major book shelves for homeschooling. I don’t need a room to homeschool in, I like having them at the kitchen table so I can get stuff done in the kitchen while they’re doing school
I was surprised to read that a picture would stop you from looking at a house–house listings are not magazine layouts, afterall… Good luck in your search, and if the house is in your price range, has the right number of bedrooms/bathrooms and a good square footage, GO SEE IT!
My top 3 requirements are good school district, open floor plan, and at least 2 bathrooms. We bought that house 4 months ago, and are remodeling it while trying to sell our current home. I will never EVER live in a house for sale again. With 2 kids under 4 it is so hard to keep it show-ready, and people always seem to want to see the house when the kids are napping or sick.
Location Location Location!
Also, don’t get hung up on how a home is decorated. Look at the space and set up. Try to look past the bad wallpaper and mustard colored bathroom tile. We got a great deal on our home and love the neighborhood and location. We are 5 minutes from church and family and 2 minutes from my children’s small Christian school. We’ve been here 5 years now and have redone almost every room in the house including the 3 baths and the kitchen. Now the house is exactly the way that we want it. We have 5 bedrooms, 4 baths(we added another when we finished the basement), a playroom, family room, living room, dining room, and kitchen. Plenty of room for our 4 children to grow up in and room for out of town guests and space to host our weekly Bible study. I don’t want to ever move again. It took a while to get to this point but it was worth it.
Crystal,
I am just wondering if it would be easier to have a Realtor rule out homes based on your criteria and send you a weekly email with ones that match what you are looking for?
Also in our area we have an online resource where you can put in what you are looking for and it sends updates when something is available with your criteria. We did that as well and were able to jump on new listings fairly quickly.
When we were looking these were a couple of things that were helpful to us. We let the Realtor do the work..that’s what they get paid for
WE have been house hunting for 7 months, We’ve decided to wait 2 more years to pay more down if not 100%! ( you’ve been a huge inspiriation on that!
our criterias never changed even from location to location..
1.) Safety!
- safety was our first concern, with 1 3yr old and another planned soon!
we called local Police and searched the web to find out crime ratings and activities in the surrounding areas ( as well as S*X offenders!)
2.) School district.
- We both work fo rthe goverment and have long hours. Child care is enevidable and I can’t homeschool liek i’d prefer, but with before and afterschool costs already budgeted i can not afford privet school or tutors, so school ratings are a huge sway for me! We’ve even looked at houses 500 sqr/ft smaller for the same price becuase it was near award winning public schools!
3.) The first impression. If i can’t imagine my family living in the space.. if i have to knock down walls, or completely redo a kitchen, squeeze our exisiting life into a home that dosn’t “feel” us.. it’s most liekly not “US”!
Example. I walked into an older home last month. the tile was retro, the kitchen was homey and I imediatly started talking about how I couldnt wait to prepair dinner, and serve it in the actual dinning room while our son worked on home work in the attached office space. It worked for us, right off the bat!
With each home will come compermise. It may not be EVERY thing you wanted or right next door to your best friend.. but when you find the right home, you’ll feel it in your gut. Dont force it.
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