Homeowners: How Picky Were You?

Julie's Haircut

Julie's Haircut

DIS Veteran
Joined
Oct 2, 2015
How many houses did you look at before buying?

Stepdaughter and her fiancee have been living with DW and I since September 2017. He lost his job in a mass layoff in spring 2017 and a month later the bank where she works was going to be taken over by another bank and she was unsure whether they'd keep her on. So when their apartment lease was up we let them move in with us.

She kept her job and he was able to find another one in late 2017, albeit at a lesser salary. They started looking at houses in spring 2018 and they must have looked at 100 different ones since then. According to them something was wrong with every one. It will be their first house and apparently it must be absolutely perfect. It's not a problem having them here but I think they're just being too picky.

I found out yesterday they finally put in an offer and hopefully it will be accepted.

Back in 1989 I only looked at about 7 or 8 houses before finding mine.
 
For our first house we had literally one day in that town, we set up about 10-12 showings for the day and we picked one at the end of the day.

For our current house, we again felt under a time crunch but still took a few months, probably looked at 30?ish I'm kind of guessing there, it seemed like a whole lot to me at the time. But we also put in 2 other offers that fell through before we got this house.
 
We are on our third house ... I think we looked at about 10-15 houses in person each time. It was pretty easy to eliminate some based on driving by and the online information. We had deadlines though, so that probably helped us along.
 


We looked at a few used houses first. The first new house we looked at we bought. Not that much more than the used houses we were looking at.
 
This is our third house and we lived in one rental. I’d say an average of 5-10 places each time. Never had an offer turned down. We knew the type of house we wanted and where we wanted to live and did not expect perfection. In fact all three houses we knew we were going to be doing work/remodeling. We were in them within a couple of months from when we started looking.
 
We looked at maybe 10.
We weren't terribly picky, we never had an issue with having to do work or change things but there were a few that had major issues like mold, or foundation problems that were quickly off the list.
We found the perfect one, but the sellers couldn't find a home they wanted to move in too, so we kept looking.
We thought we found another perfect one, so decided to take a drive by and drive around the area and found it was very close to a prison so the search continued.
 


We moved four years ago and we looked at more than 50 houses for sure, of course over a longer period of time as we did not have to move. However, we like looking at houses and we wanted to make sure we were making the right decision. We were focused on mainly new construction. We were close to buying another home two weeks before our current home, but backed out after 24 hours due to some issues with road noise at the home.
 
I would be way more picky now, looking at moving into retirement than I would have been years ago.

I would say that if they have been living under somebody else's roof, and have been looking for for a year, yes, they are being picky.
But, part of me is thinking that haven't found the 'right one' yet is making it easier for them to live cheaply, and easily.
If they were not just too comfortable, after a year, they would absolutely find a house, or go ahead and rent so that they had their own place until they do find the 'right one'.
 
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About 10 but we had a specific area we wanted to remain. I did a lot of online checking to rule places out. We weren't under any time constraints to move from our old home
 
Four. The first one was a newer house and we realized we didn’t like new construction, The second house was a 1 1/2 story and we didn’t like the slanted walls in the upstairs. The 3rd house was perfect and an American four square house built in 1925 in the historical part of town. We fell in love but unfortunately even though we went $20,000 over asking, we lost out on it. The house we currently own wasn’t on the market but our realtor called the couple since she knew them and asked if they’d be willing to sell to us since they had mentioned wanting to downsize eventually. They agreed, gave us a price and a few hours later we were under contract. It’s was similar and only a few blocks from the “perfect” house. Almost 8 years later we have no complaints about it.
 
Looking at houses was a hobby for my wife and I. New construction is so much fun to explore and see what the trends are in finishes in our area. I would say we looked at several thousand homes that way so when it came time to look for a home to buy we knew what we wanted and in what area of the county.

So thousands would be my answer.
 
First house I would guess we looked at 20ish with a realtor, maybe another 50 on our own during open houses. We were not in a rush and weren't sure what area of town we wanted to live in. I think it took us 5-6 months.
Current house we were moving out of state, and didn't want to rent. We had 3 days to look at houses and made an offer at the end of that long weekend. I don't recall how many houses we looked at that weekend, but it was quite a few.
 
First house we looked at less than 10. The house we bought was purchased for the location not really the house itself. Second house we looked at less than 5. We looked at several and there was something about all of them-- too close to neighbors, too much wallpaper to remove, too close to interstate traffic, etc. We happened to drive by a house under construction that was FSBO. We called the number and looked at the house the next day. Made an offer the day after and have been here 21 years. We actually made the offer on house #2 before listing house #1. Because of the location of house #1 we had 3 offers within 24 hours.
 
One, although we briefly considered having a new house built and had already bought 15 acres of land to build it on. I was 21 and DH was 22 when we bought it, we had rented a townhouse for almost a year and knew apartment-style living was not for us. We wanted our own house with some property. We bought a house that had been in DH's family since it was built. He wanted it because his great-grandfather had built it, he knew every part of the history of it, and knew exactly what he was getting. It is in a good neighborhood on a quiet street in a great location (very close to town but not in town, also not out a crazy curvy, hilly road). It was also less expensive than the house we were planning to build.

We made a few minor changes, but I was fine with it. We have been here 19 years and it is paid off as of last week--the best part of this house! No plans to move. We sold the 15 acres about 10 years ago.
 
Not picky at all, we looked at a lot of houses but for us it was a matter of waiting for the right house to come on the market. What we were looking for wasn't staying on the market for more than 24 hours in the area we wanted to be in, so as soon as something showed up we jumped on it.
 
First house I wasn’t very picky, but the budget only went so far. I knew I wouldn’t get everything I wanted the first time around. Second house I was picker, but still only looked at about 10. I could narrow down a lot online. It still isn’t exactly perfect as in I needed to paint, some of the finishes aren’t what I would pick if it were brand new, but it’s great and I got a good deal. Unless something drastic happens, I don’t intend to leave this house until it’s time to downsize.
 
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