How long did it take you to find the one? (house)

[Pom]

Or how long have you been looking?

[Pom]

Our first house hunt was disrupted by Hurricane Rita, so technically 4 months. We loved that house.

This time around, we are at 8.5 months and counting. We have lost 2 houses already that the appraisal came in less than purchase and the sellers refused to negotiate. We are feeling very discouraged.

[Deleted]

We looked for about a week and a half in person, but had been looking for a few weeks beforehand online. We have a very limited area in which we were looking though and actually we saw this house online and liked it before we viewed any in person, but thought it was a bit out of our price range.

Once we saw what was out there and the work the houses needed, we decided to check it out and figured the higher price tag was worth it because it had been remodeled. Luckily it was within our budget once we crunched the mortgage numbers and it was as nice as the pictures online!

[kaylie]

We started in early January, went under contract in March and closed Mid-April. We also had a pretty limited search radius and were in a tight market with low inventory.

[rapscallion]

We looked online for about 3 months to see what the prices and taxes were like and compare properties and amenities while we continued saving. Once we got pre-approval, I found one house in particular that I really liked and a few others that we also wanted to see, so I contacted a realtor about showings. We went and looked at 3 houses one day and we ended up putting an offer in on the favorite one.

It ended up working out well and we are closing in about 2 weeks. I would say we looked for about 3-4 months but the buying process from the time the offer was accepted to closing will end up being 2 months.

[april37]

11 months and, my gosh, that seemed like FOREVER.

[housegeek]

A month ish? I searched the internet for about a month, then went down and checked out a lot and talked with the builder and signed a contract

[vanillahip]

8 months for my first home, I lost out on 2 contracts in those 8 months before finding our current home.

Second time around we're being picky, we're looking for a particular kind of house and a particularly good deal, we've been actively looking for about 4 months so far (with about 10-12 months of pretty serious listing-stalking before that). We just placed an offer on a home, actually, but I don't have terribly high hopes....

[sillygoosegirl]

We have been looking off and on since we got married 7 years ago, but weren't super serious about it because we never knew for sure that we wanted to stay in any of the cities we lived in.

We moved back to my home town almost 2 years ago and started looking pretty seriously a little over a year ago. We put in our offer almost two months ago on the house we want, but it's a short sale, so we're still looking at other houses.

Though really it didn't take us that long to FIND the house we want. We actually first looked at this house over 8 months ago and liked it a lot then, at the price it was originally listed at, we would have needed it to be move-in ready to afford it (it isn't) and even then it would have been a stretch. The price has come down $80K, and we've saved more.

[cgpm]

A couple weeks of looking in person. We also did a lot of looking online before hand, but from the time we went out with the realtor for the first time to the offer on our new house, I would say about 3 weeks.

[molldoll71]

We started looking in October and put an offer on January 22 and closed March 16. We actually saw our house in Nov but it was priced way too high. She came down 20K and then we got her down another 10K. We were only looking in one town so limited inventory.

[tardyfortheparty]

We looked casually before we listed our last house, but after we listed and accepted an offer in 36 hours, we began looking aggressively for 5 months before we decided to do new construction. Now we are 4 mos into building & our house should be done by September.

[MrsAxilla]

Once we were preapproved and got an agent, it took about a month to put in an offer, but we saw "the one" in the first week. We loved the house immediately, but it had a couple of drawbacks and we wanted to see what else was out there. We probably saw another ten houses, then "our" house held an open house and we got nervous about losing it. That's when we took the plunge.

[slug*bug]

Less time than I was expecting: a little under three weeks...we probably saw 40-50 houses in that timeframe.

I was actually starting to get a little discouraged b/c we were seeing so many houses that were almost perfect...but not quite...and wondering if maybe I was being a little unrealistic, even though we hadn't been looking long. I was spending a lot of time doing mental gymnastics and trying to mentally stretch this house or that into what we'd need it to be b/c we saw so many w/some great qualities...but none were really 'right' for us until we saw the one fot which we have a contract. It was the only house that we saw that I loved right away.

[effisia]

We looked for about five months, but the first month or two was more just scouting out what the area had in our budget. We did find one house that was really pretty and put an offer in, but the seller just wouldn't come down as much as we would have liked (it was priced WAY too high for that area and was in a really crappy school district).

Just as we pulled out of that house, though, and were all bummed and sad, I noticed that a house I had LOVED while we were looking had dropped a HUGE amount and was now actually in our budget.

We went out the very next day, put in an offer, and we're closing on Monday!

[brttny]

It took us two months from pre-approval to finding the one and having the offer accepted. We had a failed contract. We close today. so sixish weeks from start to finish.

I will add that we spent about a year looking online. We had a good idea what was on the market. And we have a very specific and limited area we wanted. So we jumped fast.

[druidp]

Oy, I had to retreat here to get some perspective. We're finally intently looking since our home sale closed a few weeks ago, but I experienced our first declined offer (one of many, the house we liked was under contract within 48 hours) this last weekend.

We've been looking at houses with our realtor since last summer when we first decided to sell and buy a different home, so this feels like FOREVER even though (as stated above) it's only been about a month that we've been ready to plunge.

Inventory is tight, our target area is specific, as are our needs. I have to keep reminding myself there is no such thing as "the one" house - but damn it's hard when a great candidate for that spot gets bought out from under you.

Trekking on!!!