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We've been in our house for 7 years (pre kids) so there are some things I would look for if hunting now vs then. At the time we wanted:
-good schools
-large backyard/fenced or able to be fenced
-4 bdrms
-bedroom on the first floor for FIL when he visits (he's in a wheelchair)
-walkable to the train for DH
-garageWe have all that in our current home, but if I were looking now, I would look for something with a different bedroom layout and a finishable basement, in addition to the things we have now.
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I thought our current house was our forever home when we bought it, but we've been casually stalking our dream neighborhood for a while and I've become increasingly convinced that we'll move eventually. The main improvements we're looking for are:
- flat driveway space
- flat yard
- room for cars and a workshop for DH
- laundry room in a not annoying location
- dream neighborhood (close to work, parks, greenways, and highway)And it has to have that on top of all the things we love about our current home, so its a tall order...
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My main concern is always with being able to sell when we need to and not owning so much house that it causes budget issues if one of us were to lose our jobs...so I didn't choose anything too big or too small, too custom or too cookie cutter. I wanted at least 3 bedrooms and 2 full baths, 2 car garage on a smaller sized lot on a low traffic street in a certain part of town. I got all of those things because we were able to offer asking price.
I absolutely didn't want a certain style house or a pool, but ended up with both. I didn't want the pool because of maintenance, but it hasn't been bad at all and what we pay to heat it is way less than what we would spend on a membership to a club.
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With our first home we did not get our first pick location. We started out looking inside of one gated community that was on one side of town. When all the homes on there were getting snatched up we expanded our search. We ended up gaining more convenient access to two major highways. When we started our must have list included backing up to nature- water or trees. We ended up buying a home that backed up to someone else's yard. Between their landscaping and our bushy and tall hedge we enjoyed privacy.
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We are in the process of building and here was a list of my must haves (1 I gave up)
Ranch
3 bedrooms
3 stall garage
walk in pantry
cleaning closet for storage
mud room area
large master closet
stand alone shower and tub in master (I ended up giving up my tub to make more room in closet which was more important to me)
Island in kitchen
FireplaceOur fireplace will not be finished with stone immediately, it was a compromise we made in order to have everything else on our list (besides bathtub.)
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I'm surprised at how many people specifically didn't want a pool, as a pool has always been a must for me. It's interesting!
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@LulaBee: omg brown recluse?? Is that why you're listing the house again so soon? If only that were a box you could check on your MLS search.
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@Jennibenni: i bet the pool thing has a lot to do with location. In New England I feel like we would want to use it MAX three months out of the year. Seems like too much work/ cost/ liability for such a small window.
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@Jennibenni: yeah, like @Foodnerd81: a pool was sort of a negative on my list since I'm in New England. Sure it would be nice I guess, but it's a lot of work and extra money for use for a couple months.
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@Jennibenni: Well, I didn't want it because I had been a lifeguard in my late teens and had a lot of memories involving cleaning the pool using a manual vac cleaner and chemicals, chemicals, chemicals. I thought for the season (May-September), we would get better bang for our buck belonging to a pool club.
Well, then Hurricane Sandy happened and it decimated the pool club we were planning on joining and everything else was out of the budget. So, we found this house, with a fully functional pool, fenced, heater, gas tank, etc. My husband did some research and spent close to $1000 on a pool robot and it's been fun ever since. We hardly use any chemicals at all (we aerate the water) and with the robot to do the cleaning, it's not terrible at all.
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@Jennibenni: @Foodnerd81: @looch: I assumed the anti-pool thing was a combination of people 1) not wanting the maintenance hassles, 2) would rather use that space in the yard for actual yard, and 3) major safety hazard for toddlers due to accidental drowning (one of the top causes of accidental death for kids age 1-4).
Not an issue for us, nobody has pools around here.
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@PawPrints: yeah.... we have been scouring closets of places we look at but sadly there is no way to know of an infestation unless you put glue traps down- not sure any sellers will let us do that!
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@looch: I would love a pool if it were saltwater! Have you thought about converting it?
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@T.H.O.U.: No, we really haven't thought about converting it. If and when we have to replace the liner, we will regrade it to make it less deep at the one end and possibly consider it then.
@PawPrints: Yeah, it's so personal. I can see how it would be a dealbreaker for some people.
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I didn't want a pool, and have one. I did not want it because of maintenance costs. We just spent $3500 fixing a leak, and overall I feel like it doubles our home maintenance costs. I would also prefer having a grassy back yard, and our pool takes up our whole back yard. We do have a long pool season, and do get a lot of use out of it.
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When we bought as newlyweds, our must haves were a single story with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, garage, and a comfortable sized backyard. Now that we are a family of 4 it has changed a lot. We still want a single story, but we would like at least another bedroom, a laundry room, more open concept, and a much larger lot.
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location (we had 3 neighborhoods in mind)
3+ bedrooms
2+ baths
2500+ sq feet
outdoor space (preferably a backyard versus deck)
needed work
parkingwe got everything we wanted in my ideal neighborhood (4 beds + unfinished basement, 3.5 baths, back patio, gutted) except parking. we were passively looking for about a year and actively looking for 4 months.
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