Buying A Home
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Question for those who are looking to buy a house..
When you are looking at houses, what do you see that stands out to you - either good or bad?
What makes you have to have a place, and what make you run for the hills? What have you seen that you say to yourself "I can't believe they left that here for a showing!"
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In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins--not through strength but by perseverance. - H. Jackson Brown
Re: Question for those who are looking to buy a house..
Ultimately, the house we just had to have had most of the things we wanted and just felt right. It wasn't spotless or even perfect, but it felt like home almost as soon as we walked in.
What made me run for the hills? The house was falling into a river. True story. The other really awful one we looked at was just really dirty and in terrible disrepair (it was a rental house, and the tenants obviously just didn't care).
We didn't see anything super awful left out during a showing. One place had a dog home, that was kind of annoying. Oh, and another had a bull skull out on the deck. That was a WTF moment.
I saw a house I liked, drove by, and called the sign when I first started looking, I was in the house to see it an hour later. They didn't know we were coming and the house was a MESS. It was a family of 3 and a little girl. I could totally look past it.
I usually see the bad, but when we chose our house, I only saw the good.
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We have spent a long time thinking through what we want from our next home (which is a signature away from custom building). Our list comes from hits/misses in previous homes and thinking forward with our needs in hope that this is 'the last' home for a long time.
Me putting what I am looking for isn't really fair for you since you have different needs/wants. Some things on our list: ranch or 1.5 story (with master + 1 on main level), walk-out lower level, at least .4 acres depending on footprint of home due to desire for both a yard and a pool, we want at least 4 beds and the kitchen should be lux.
Top things we look at are kitchen, bathrooms, over-all floor plan. I notice details, feel the weight/thickness of doors (room doors, closet doors, bath doors, kitchen cabinetry) - tells you a lot about the quality of products used. Sounds silly but I look at the height of the toilets (I hate standard/low). I look at the edges around moldings to see how big of a gap they left - if they measured right - over-all quality. It's the little things not the big things that tell you the over-all quality IME.
I also like to see homes at least three times before placing an offer - in the AM (see how the AM rising sun moves through the house), again around mid-afternoon to see how it sets and hits the house, and again after dark. I want to make sure that sun isn't going to be an annoyance in rooms that are not easy to dress windows (like front entry) and that the lighting is good for the space - too often builders have cheaped out with the smaller pots which don't allow the bigger/higher wattages leaving a room/house to feel dark.
Anyway - good luck!
Good things in the house we're buying now: driveway and garage and some street parking, quiet block, neighbors' houses look well-kept and the people don't look trashy, proximity to public transportation, lots of storage space, updated features, decent-sized backyard, finished basement, dining room, new windows, ductwork for central air already in place
Things that made us turn down other houses: major updating needed, bad smells, trashy-looking neighbors, no parking, insane amount of clutter, short sales, situated on/near a busy road, little or no backyard space, no dining room and not enough room to eat in the kitchen, evidence of the basement flooding.
ETA: Just remembered some stuff that made us eventually cancel our short sale house. We were initially excited that the basement had been finished and the kitchen had been upgraded when we first saw the house, but after the inspection and a few more visits we realized that the workmanship was really shoddy, the materials were cheap, and proper permits hadn't been secured (example, no fan or window in the basement bathroom). And the upstairs full bathroom was HIDEOUS (pink and blue tile, separate shower and bathtub, and the shower stall was like a coffin). It would've cost us a lot of time and money to fix everything up.
There were a few things that made us say "Oh hell no" when we were looking:
- Horrible basements. We had wanted a finished basement (we settled for semi finished) but this one basement was disgusting. I didn't even want to walk through it, it was so gross. The upstairs was amazing but the laundry was in the basement and I couldn't imagine having to go down there to do it.
- Old person smell. There was one house we looked at which was for sale by an elderly couple and it had a very distinct smell to it.
- Bathrooms without exhaust fans. We are dealing with this in our current rental and it is a nightmare. There was no way we were buying a house without exhaust fans in the bathrooms.
Everything else we were pretty much able to look past. The home we ended up buying (and loving!) had major clutter issues. We also have to paint almost every room but we absolutely love the layout and it just had a great "feel" to it.
October 13, 2012
The extra good stuff - lots of storage space, especially in the kitchen, and the flow of the floor plan - the house had to make sense for how we were likely to use the space
The things that made me go hmmm - house wasn't clean, people leaving their pets in rooms making it impossible for us to see them, and when the # of beds and baths didn't match the MLS
The awful - Smoker's houses - other smells too, but cigarette smoke was always a deal breaker.
And to kind of state the obvious - price was important. Once we had seen a couple of houses, it was pretty clear whether or not the one we were looking at was appropriately priced.
hmm.. we knew we wanted a house about the same size with a larger yard.
we did alot of internet "shopping" with an open mind - but...
new low end updates were a turn away - granite counters and cheap stainless steel with older cabinets and a major chain bathroom redos were clear signs of trying to hard to please everyone.
things you can't change in time - location, yard, house structure, were WAY more important than inside.
Things that make me want to buy a house:
clean, organized and clutter free
good layout
nicely decorated/furnished (I realize I'm not buying the home furnishings or decorations, but if a house is nicely furnished, it's easy to see the potential. If a house is full of junky college dorm room type furniture, it's hard to picture the place looking beautiful.)
move in ready
upgraded finishes
Things that make me want to run for the hills:
any repair or maintenance issue so severe that we would need to have it done before we could even move in to the house
weird smells
mold
water damage
foundation issues
gross stained carpets
What have you seen that you say to yourself "I can't believe they left that here for a showing!"
We saw one house that was totally empty except for air fresheners in every room and several (dirty) cat litter boxes. We kept saying "maybe they wouldn't need all the air fresheners if they got rid of the dirty litter boxes!" In any case, the odor was so bad in the house, between the scents of cat pee and the overwhelming air fresheners, we didn't even bother to look in the basement.
Mr. Sammy Dog
When we were looking, I tried not to get caught up in cosmetics, but ultimately those were the things that made houses memorable for me. The smell, cleanliness, and curb appeal make houses feel well cared for. If we walked into a house that had any hint of cigarette smell, we left.
I thought that I wouldn't mind a foreclosure or house that needed a lot of TLC, but I found out that it is more peace of mind for me knowing that someone else has loved the house and maintained it. I was amazed to see how many people merely live in the space like renters or walk away from the house b/c of the market.
Cleanliness was the overall first thing that stood out. Having a place that was bright with lots of natural light was also something I always noticed. I liked updated woodwork, nothing too dark, so I gravitated towards like the trim painted white...gave it a fresher feel.
On the downside- paneling made me cringe, even if it's painted. Dirty carpets, yuck. One showing we went to, the teenage daughter left her room a disaster. Drawers were open on her dresser (including her underwear drawer) and clothes were thrown all over the place. Also, a few places had out of control lawns, but I think that's places where no one was currently living. I still think it's important to upkeep.
It's hard to not think about "cosmetics", but when we were home shopping, I couldn't stop. We saw a home with a bright yellow kitchen with white appliances and all I could think about is spending a whole weekend painting and all the costs $$$ upgrading the appliances, lol.
Our home we bought is move in ready (according to us) and it's given me huge peace of mind! It just depends on the buyers, but I do agree with most posters on here that clean, organized and updated houses are the best. Turn offs are cluttered rooms and tons of personal photos. A photo of a child here or there is fine, but kids photos everywhere makes me wanna look at the kids not the home.
The hard part about answering your question is that many of our non- negotiables are not things that you can just "change" in a house. But, I'll give our list anyhow
-4+bedrooms
-large, level backyard
-full basement (finished or unfinished)
-open floorplan (kitchen to living area)
-quiet street (no main roads in a neighborhood. Cul-de-sac was ideal)
-overall neighborhood apperance
-swim/tennis community
-no full front stucco
-no master on main
-minimal or no wallpaper since that would have to come down
-minimal repairs needed
My Valentine Bookends (2~13~13, 2~15~09)
We are not first-time home buyers, so I think we're a little different. Also we aren't afraid of rennovations or replacing things ourselves. Our number one thing we look for is location. We know pretty much where we want to be and are sticking to that mile to mile and a half diameter area.
However, most of the houses in that area need updating. They are either rentals or have been with the same owner for 30+ years and it's now turning over. We've also seen some rennovated houses, but although they might be great for someone looking for a move-in ready house, they weren't our style. As much as I'd like to be, I'll never be a cherry-kitchen-cabinets-with-crown-moulding-type-of-girl.
So I guess we are looking for something that has good structure, has major updates in place (good roof, newer hot water heater/furnace, hopefully newer wiring, etc.), but it will also be a work in progress for us for the next several years, so we're okay with a major kitchen reno or bathrom renos. That being said, we want a good deal on a fixer-upper since we are planning on putting a lot of time and money into the house.
As far as things that turn me off as I enter - anything that smells like cigarette smoke, major structural damage (cracks in foundation/walls), bad updates (crown moulding with major wobble or cracks and unlevel dishwashers, etc.).
Are you united with the CCOKCs?