How did you feel when you bought your house?

Did you just know it was THE house or did you feel like you settled?

DH is very handy and I could be creative so we could make any house work for us. I just don't want to regret it later. I just hate renting and we need another bedroom asap so we will need to move pretty quickly, within a few months.

A little background...we've been house hunting for over a year. We've looked at all different types of houses, probably over 100. We just never went into contract, we were either outbid or there was an accepted offer already, and a few other reasons came up. Now that we are really ready and serious I feel like I could be too picky.

Re: How did you feel when you bought your house?

we settled. didnt thihnk so at the time, but years later, we feel that we did. don't settle, it will be a huge mistake!

Re: How did you feel when you bought your house?

First house....loved it but had a few reservations that we thought we could get past. Turns out in the end, we could never get past them and grew to HATE the house.

Second house (looking for 3 years now) still the best of all them we have seen. Knew it was the right choice (out of what we have seen that is). It's not perfect but I had to compromise on some things b/c we learned whats important above all else.

Re: How did you feel when you bought your house?

well, a little of both...for size, it wouldnt have been a first choice, we had bigger house options within our budget but for various reasons like no Cos, too close to the water and flood insurance was an issue, etc. then we also had to move out of our rental by a certain time.......so we chose the smallest house, in that way we settled, in every other way, i was happy.

its our first house and we knew going into it our limitations due to getting an fha loan (stricter on certain things), time and of course budget. i absolutely dont regret choosing our house and i do love our house. different circumstances though and for our next house, i would like to LOVE it more from the start and not have to settle on as much

Re: How did you feel when you bought your house?

if you are really serious now, more than before, than it could go two ways...maybe you are more picky or maybe you are more accepting and realize what you could accept and what you absolutely cant.

actually for me, once we were serious, different things became more important. cosmetic things werent as big of a deal, but looking for maintenance related things and upkeep of things were more important.
i personally dont think any house (that is not custom built for you) is going to be your exact vision so thats why its good to go in with an open mind, have a mental list of things you absolutely want and then a list of things that you are willing to be negotiable about.

good luck!!!!!

Re: How did you feel when you bought your house?

Thanks for answering! I'm definitely not looking for my vision to be perfect and in our price range, I'm just looking for the potential. The only thing I really don't want to compromise on is the location.

Re: How did you feel when you bought your house?

We bought the perfect house for us. No regrets at all!

Re: How did you feel when you bought your house?

I definitely feel like I've settled on all 3 homes I bought. They all needed some or alot of work.

I'm renovating my last home now because it has the crappiest kitchen ever but the location and potential can't be beat.

If you don't have a 'wants' vs. 'needs' list, definitely draft that up, and go into every home you want to buy with that list. If the home doesnt have what you want, whether it is an updated kitchen, or 2 bathrooms, just keep in mind how much it will cost to update/add that. All these little things do add up!

My biggest regret right now is I didn't really price out all these things that needed updating on my current home. So far we've had to:

- replace most of the windows (8k)
- refinish the wood floor (2k)
- renovate the kitchen and bathroom (50k)
- add more lighting (1.5k)
- replace garage door (1.5k)

And there's a whole slew of other stuff to do!

:P

Re: How did you feel when you bought your house?

I walked in and knew it would be mine!! flaws and all..

Re: How did you feel when you bought your house?

Posted by Linda1003

I walked in and knew it would be mine!! flaws and all..

Re: How did you feel when you bought your house?

We went back and forth for a while and decided that the location, size and price were the best for us. I had a hard time because I never wanted a high ranch, I wanted a one floor home. I love our house now although we need to remodel the kitchen and bath eventually. DH and I talk all the time about if this is our "forever" home and I think it very well can be, with the right amount of renovations and changes. I really had a hard time at first though, getting past the idea I had in my head of what I wanted.

Re: How did you feel when you bought your house?

I think it was sort of a mix of the two....I think that we bought a house that was the right fit for us at the time, and will be the right fit for us for awhile.

We bought what we could afford (which honestly was not much....I was still in school and taking out loans, and we were simultaneously saving for the part of our wedding that we paid for), so only DH's salary could count toward any sort of pre-approval.

We bought a house that is plenty of space for two people, and we could have two children here...though it would be tight. We have a huge front yard, so we'll either eventually build on the house or buy another house within five years or so.

We didn't buy in an amazing school district, but we bought in a decent, good district. However, we want to send our children to Catholic school regardless of where we live, which does work out in our favor if we stay in this town, since our taxes are extremely low. We also live in a town that people are constantly bashing as "bad." Yes, some parts are rough, but some parts-including ours-are not-which is the case for many, many areas. However, again, this works to our advantage as the taxes are low. Walk literally 2.5 blocks down the street, and you're in the next town where taxes go up $5,000 a year.

Wow sorry I went off on a tangent! In short-yes it's right for us now. If we could've, we would've loved to have bought our forever home from the start, but we couldn't, so we'll work with what we have.

Re: How did you feel when you bought your house?

A little of both. We house hunted for close to 2 years. We originally were only looking at single family homes. We compromised in the sense that we ended up in a townhouse instead of a single family home, but we love our place and I cant imagine us anywhere else. We looked for so long and had so many rejected offers that we were just releived to finally be in a place of our own. Plus, we back up to a stat park so we have acres and acres of privacy behind us which kind of gives the feel of our own home.

Realistically though, we can probably only stay here for about 5 years. Once we decide to have more children we're going to be forced to move because there arent enough bedrooms. But we knew going into it that this was a 5-year place and not a forever home.

Re: How did you feel when you bought your house?

Re: How did you feel when you bought your house?

1st house we knew was not a long term home...Renting was NOT an option so we simply bought and made it as nice as possible and only stayed a few years.

2nd house we knew upon walking in that this was a longer term house that we really liked but not our forever house

Re: How did you feel when you bought your house?

First house love it as soon as I walked in, knowing it would not be our forever house.

Our new house (we close next week) I knew immediatley it was our house. It needs a lot of work but will be our forever house.

Re: How did you feel when you bought your house?

Re: How did you feel when you bought your house?

Posted by Linda1003

I walked in and knew it would be mine!! flaws and all..

Re: How did you feel when you bought your house?

I instantly felt a connection to the house we bought. We both agreed it was the best house in the area we wanted, within the budget we wanted. It had most, but not ALL, of what was on our wish list. But we knew we wouldn't be able to get every single item on our wish list within our budget. The goal was to get the most we could get within the budget we wanted to spend. I bought my house before I went into real estate as a career, so I really was a real estate novice when we bought, but it was a great decision.

I think there's a difference between settling and being realistic. If you have been looking for a long time and have seen 100+ houses, then you are definitely educated on the market and have a good sense of what your money can buy in that market.

Personally, I think if you haven't found the house you want to buy yet in the area and price point you are searching in, then you probably should re-evaluate your criteria (and be honest about whether it's realistic) OR consider looking in other areas (if possible) OR consider raising your budget (if possible).

It's definitely important not to settle, because it's the biggest investment most of us will ever make, and you need to be happy with your choice. But at the same time, unless you custom build a house yourself, there are always going to be some tradeoffs/concessions you need to make.

Re: How did you feel when you bought your house?

Posted by Linda1003

I walked in and knew it would be mine!! flaws and all..

Re: How did you feel when you bought your house?

It's the perfect house for what we could afford.... not our dream home by any means.
had the updates we didn't want to spend a fortune on, layout and potential. We could be there forever (with a few more changes) but I don't think its our forever home. Either way I would be ok!

Re: How did you feel when you bought your house?

Posted by Linda1003

I walked in and knew it would be mine!! fall..

Re: How did you feel when you bought your house?

I think it was a little bit of both for us too. We kind of had the mindset that this would not be a forever home, but we wanted to be okay with it if it ended up turning into one if that makes sense. So we really went for location and school district. It was definitely move in ready and there's nothing wrong with it per se, but there are a bunch of things that are not exactly our taste, for instance the kitchen and bathrooms. However, we figured if we ended up staying here longer than originally planned those were all things that could be fixed.

Re: How did you feel when you bought your house?

We went through 3 RE, and 1 house inspection on another home before we found ours! We just knew...it was everything we wanted, and had the potential down the road to be great!!

Re: How did you feel when you bought your house?

We had lost a few homes (outbid, contract disagreements) before finding the one we bought. I was convinced we would be outbid again, but we weren't! And I have been happy ever since! It doesn't have all of our must-haves, but we can add them eventually. Good luck!