Re: what were your must haves in a house and what would you compromise on?

Our must haves
- 3 bedrooms
1.5-2 bathrooms
- not a fixer upper (some work okay, full gut not okay)
- at least 1/3 acre back yard
- good Schools (we looked in Smithtown, Commack, KP mainly)
- Nice location
- room to expand if need be
- big basement (didnt matter if it was finished or not)
- EIK AND dining room

Compromises we made
- only 1 garage (we would have preferred 2 but it just didnt happen)
- we are corner lot
- we are close to schools so at times it gets noisy

But I still feel I could be happy here forever so I am good. We hope to move in another 5 years but I am realistic that you just never know what life is going to bring.

My big thing was that I wasnt moving into something that I knew 100% we would outgrow and not be able to work with Because I know my parents moved into a starter home and due to issues in life never moved out. So for me it had to be somethign that I could see the potential of forever in!

Re: what were your must haves in a house and what would you compromise on?

Not in a house yet, BUT here is my list:

3+ bedrooms
2 bathrooms (would comp n 1 1/2)
eat in kitchen (with gas stove!)
dining room
living room
1+ car garage
attic (or crawl space)
basement (walk in NOT crawl space)
laundry area

steps leading up to front door (do NOT want front door on street leve, strange tweak of mine!)

closets galore!

reputable public school district

decent size lot (.25+)

GOOD BONES-I want a house with good structure, healthy roof, excellent plumbing. I don't care about updating a kitchen or bathroom as long as they work! But I don't want a beautiful house that is growing mold behind the walls or has pipes that are about to bust.

WISH LIST:
1+ wooded acre
pool
fireplace
outdoor sheds
sunroom
private road
4 bedrooms
full basement with workshop
porch
Essentially, my wish list is my grandfather's house! I absolutely adore his house and wish I won the lotto to buy it!

Re: what were your must haves in a house and what would you compromise on?

LOL!! So many now that we own and one day would like to upgrade. When we bought our first house 10 years ago, we really only worked on location. And we are very happy with our town, but I've grown to hate a high ranch, especially now that we have kids

For our next house:

no ranches or high ranches (bedrooms must be on a different floor than the living part of the house)
move in condition (I hate our never ending cycle of construction!)
4 bedrooms (have now and won't go less)
large, private yard (have now, but it's small)
eat in kitchen (don't have now)
dining room (have now, but small)
2+ car garage (have now)
CAC (have now, we installed it 4 years ago)
3 bathrooms (we have that now)
DH wants on the water since we own a boat
(this is a non issue, we'll never afford a house on the water )
same town, or one of the neighboring ones (CSH, Muttontown, Laurel Hallow, Syosset or Jericho)
15-year mortgage (we did it with this house and are very happily close to an end)
attic and basement space (our high ranch has neither!)

Message edited 11/19/2010 7:53:13 PM.

Re: what were your must haves in a house and what would you compromise on?

Location was #1. That was the most important thing for us. Sure we could of gotten a bigger house in another area of LI, but then we wouldn't be in the neighborhood that we are in. I will deal with the smaller house to be where we are. We plan on adding on eventually.

#2 Property Size. We really wanted a 1/2 acre or close to that.
Also, no main road locations or corner lots.

#3 Two bathrooms

#4 A Basement

#5 A well built house, you can change the kitchen, bathroom, etc.. but you can't change the structure.

#6 Area not prone to flooding. I was just about to go in to contract on my house in the spring, and we had a few days of terrible rain. My parents had 3 inches of water in their basement, and they hardly ever get water in the house. I knew if our house was to have water in the basement this was the time to see. We made an appt. with the real estate to come see the house during this time. No water problems.

Compromises:
Only 2 bedrooms
The driveway is kind of steep
No garage
The extension we plan to do will fix all of this.

Message edited 11/19/2010 8:49:05 PM.

Re: what were your must haves in a house and what would you compromise on?

My must haves for our next house are:

4 Bedrooms
Front Porch
Den
2 1/2 baths
Finished Basement
Pool
Fireplace
Big Backyard

The next house we move into will be our forever house so we want it all

It won't be for at least another 5 years or so though.

Re: what were your must haves in a house and what would you compromise on?

at least 2 full bathrooms
Dining room
Garage and finished basement
Good school district
Decent sized backyard
at least 3 bedrooms

Re: what were your must haves in a house and what would you compromise on?

potential to do anything that i want to.
walk in closets
a large bathroom w/ closet
island in kitchen

Re: what were your must haves in a house and what would you compromise on?

Basement
atleast 4 bedrooms
not on a main street or a corner
good sd
larger kitchen
big backyard
decent neighborhood/block
room to expand
dining room

Re: what were your must haves in a house and what would you compromise on?

Our must have list was extensive and at times made it seem like it was going to very hard to find the right house. It was 4 or more bedrooms (5 preferred - but legit with permit if it was added on) - ALL upstairs - no bedrooms on main level or basement, master suite (tub didn't matter, but shower a must), linen closet (we didn't have one in our first house), 1/2 bath on main level, colonial style house, basement (full preferred or at least big enough for 1 office if need be, DH and my gym, the girls gymnastic/sports equipment and a separate space for the cat's litter boxes, food and such - so the bigger the better) and at least a one car garage. DH insisted on at least 1/3 an acre. Quiet street and GAS must at least be in the street and available if not in the house. EIK, den, LR, formal DR, washer on the main floor. Larger closets and storage space. Kids have their own bathroom. School district had to be excellent.

Compromises... being not far from busyier streets so not a culdesac, we would have dealt with a half basement and a 1 car garage, we would have dealt with 4 bedrooms instead of 5. In the end we did get the right house for us. The only compromise in my mind was that it is not move in condition (just paint and some flooring needs redoing, some walls need to be redone too) and needs a gas conversion.

Message edited 11/20/2010 3:31:24 PM.

Re: what were your must haves in a house and what would you compromise on?

Must haves:

specific neighborhood. non negotiable to both of us. We want to live where I grew up. It is near my parents, our friends, great commute, not far from his parents and the rest of our family etc.

3 bdrms
2 baths
Big kitchen or the room to make it bigger.
basement

We are flexible with everything else style of home, garage etc.

Re: what were your must haves in a house and what would you compromise on?

I asked this not long ago. I was trying to figure out what was "settling" vs what was "compromising". I could not decipher the difference b/w the two. Once i asked others their thoughts, it was clear to me what I had to do re a house I was on the fence about. It was finally for me.

So what I did compromise on was waiting for my perfect home. I let some things slide. But what I would not let slide was school district and quiet location. Also had to have a formal dining room that would fit my furniture. Also could not have a tiny kitchen. Those were biggies to me. In addition, overall location of the home was important to me too (not just lot and block).

Message edited 9/17/2014 11:05:53 PM.

Re: what were your must haves in a house and what would you compromise on?

basement, garage, large land plot

you can always extend up or out but you cannot change certain things like the land size, or basement.

most important location!
not on busy street but close to parkways.

Message edited 11/21/2010 12:48:30 AM.

Re: what were your must haves in a house and what would you compromise on?

must haves: big property in a good school district and in a close-knit community kind of town, good access to highways for our commutes, room for expansion, big kitchen, no houses on a slab, no in-ground pool, no houses on busy roads

compromises: it was okay if the house was small or needed fixing. we wanted hardwood floors, but it wasn't a deal-breaker. we looked at places that were ugly bc we knew the superficial stuff was easy enough to deal with.

basically, if it was something we could change in time, we would compromise. but on things like location or type of foundation we wouldn't budge bc we knew we'd be stuck with it for life.

Re: what were your must haves in a house and what would you compromise on?

-more than 1 bathroom (we have 3).
-garage
-bedrooms being upstairs
-basement
-backyard
-GOOD neighborhood

Re: what were your must haves in a house and what would you compromise on?

LOCATION! - quiet street, good school district, nice neighborhood, not more than 10 min from a direct train station (DH was commuting daily - not anymore)

lot size (at least .25 - we got .47)

garage/basement (we got small ones)

at least 3 beds (3, but now we need more)

at least 1.5 baths (1.5, but I would love 2 full)

not falling apart, but not super upgraded and not to our style. (everything was good in the house - we redid kitchen and updated both baths)

I compromised on the distance from my parents. We are pretty close - I didn't want to be, but it turned out not to be a problem at all (I feared my mother over all the time)



Now we are looking for two things:
location (must have water view, but doesn't need to be as close to train) and potential for upgrading and expansion. We would like to stay in this house for at least 18-20 years (when I'm eligible for retirement)