Looking for a house is getting ridiculous

[thatgirl2478]

So first off I live in the land of house farms apparently.

We need a house with 4 bedrooms - preferably larger ones since we're planning on staying there forever.  We also strongly want a house with a larger yard (anything from .5 - 1 acre since anything over that is harder to take care of).

The problem we're finding is that there are NO homes in our area (considering 5 different school districts) that have both a big enough house AND a big enough yard without going into the 300k houses (and even then, most of them have smaller bedrooms & smaller lots). 

We found ONE house that is a good combination of both, but it has bad windows - and a LOT of windows - which makes me worry about mold issues.  I don't mind doing the work, but I do worry about health hazards etc in it.

I'm just so frustrated. Tomorrow we go see 3 more homes on good sized lots, but the houses themselves are 'meh' (but they are all within our original lower budget so the money side of stuff is really good).

[Pom]

Dude, I hear you. We keep looking at houses and to get something that isn't from 1990 or before and on a decent lot, it's frustrating. We want the same size lot you do and a decent house can totally be $450k and up. We are only 2 people and I get crazy, because we don't need a 3500-4000+ sqft but to get the lot size....ugh.

We found one we are offering on and I am sick to my stomach we won't get it. I wish you good luck finding something perfect for you.

[thatgirl2478]

Feb 17, 2016 10:12:31 GMT -5 Pom said:

Dude, I hear you. We keep looking at houses and to get something that isn't from 1990 or before and on a decent lot, it's frustrating. We want the same size lot you do and a decent house can totally be $450k and up. We are only 2 people and I get crazy, because we don't need a 3500-4000+ sqft but to get the lot size....ugh.

We found one we are offering on and I am sick to my stomach we won't get it. I wish you good luck finding something perfect for you.

Same to you!

There's one that we're seeing tomorrow that I'm REALLY interested in seeing - it was built in 1925 and reminds me of our first house that I was SO sad to have to leave (even though we're happy we left). But it's on the main street through town, which is also the main road from the interstate to the next biggest East/West state route.  :/ BUT! you get a 'free' house with it lol.  There's a 2nd house on the lot, so it's kind of a buy one get one situation.

[Pom]

thatgirl2478  Would you rent out that second house?  Keep me posted on what you think!  It's nice to have someone to commiserate with, lol.  

[Deleted]

Good luck to both of you!

We've been looking for months. The inventory is low and the prices have skyrocketed in our area. I don't feel like I'm being too picky, but maybe I am, who knows.

[thatgirl2478]

Feb 17, 2016 10:44:56 GMT -5 Pom said:

thatgirl2478  Would you rent out that second house?  Keep me posted on what you think!  It's nice to have someone to commiserate with, lol.  

Maybe, but it would be a 'down the road' thing. Right now it's being included 'as is' and has no water - which tells me it's in need of repair (which is great because I love fixing stuff and remodeling).  It's being used as 'storage' now...

[Pom]

Feb 17, 2016 11:44:10 GMT -5 papiercherri said:

Good luck to both of you!

We've been looking for months. The inventory is low and the prices have skyrocketed in our area. I don't feel like I'm being too picky, but maybe I am, who knows.

I refuse to call it being picky, more like decisive. After our last house-hunt that spanned 2011 and 2012, this process is no longer fun for me. I hope you find the right one too!    

[thatgirl2478]

The agravating thing is we thought that by increasing our budget from 250 to 300 (which would be stretching it), we'd find a house that would be perfect for us. Turns out we have to go even higher, and even then we might not find what we're looking for in a school district we want to be in. One of the down sides of being in a good school district is the land is scarce so they fit as many houses as possible into it, then they take the smallest houses with the smallest yards (1500 sq ft house on a 4700 sq ft lot), price them at $200k and call them 'starter homes'. It's ridiculous, plus they are the cheapest pieces of garbage you can imagine. We have friends who own one and they have had nothing but problems (and stupid stuff like leaking windows - that shouldn't happen in this day & age).

[thatgirl2478]

Feb 17, 2016 11:44:10 GMT -5 papiercherri said:

Good luck to both of you!

We've been looking for months. The inventory is low and the prices have skyrocketed in our area. I don't feel like I'm being too picky, but maybe I am, who knows.

When you're going to pay a significant amount of money for something you should be picky.

Even the expensive houses in our neighborhood frequently have bedrooms measuring 11x9 or 11x10 - which I refuse to accept as a bedroom (I know, that's entitled, but our current house has an 11x10 room and it is too small for a double bed & dresser plus kids toys).

[Deleted]

Feb 17, 2016 11:53:34 GMT -5 thatgirl2478 said:

Feb 17, 2016 11:44:10 GMT -5 papiercherri said:

Good luck to both of you!

We've been looking for months. The inventory is low and the prices have skyrocketed in our area. I don't feel like I'm being too picky, but maybe I am, who knows.

When you're going to pay a significant amount of money for something you should be picky.

Even the expensive houses in our neighborhood frequently have bedrooms measuring 11x9 or 11x10 - which I refuse to accept as a bedroom (I know, that's entitled, but our current house has an 11x10 room and it is too small for a double bed & dresser plus kids toys).

I always wonder WTF people were thinking when they built some of these houses. We looked at a house a few weeks ago that had massive bedrooms but the living area and kitchen was SO small. You literally could not open two appliances at the same time in the kitchen. I was about 1/4 the size of our kitchen in our current house, which is only 795 square feet. Who builds a 2000k square foot house with a kitchen the size of a closet? And being as prices are so high, knocking down walls and doing a massive overhaul wouldn't be in the budget.

It's almost enraging to see an otherwise good house with such massive design flaws and I've seen so many.

[Deleted]

Feb 17, 2016 12:08:04 GMT -5 @fivedogs said:

Housing prices must be pretty low to start with in your area! I'm sorry you are frustrated, but finding that combination under 300K here would be difficult, and we are fairly MCOL. Near RTP in NC (so still a decent amount of land to be developed) and there are only 32 houses in our entire county (of a million people, 800 sq mi). All but 4 of them are an hour from RTP (the major employment hub).

I knew someone would be swooping in here to us all about how cheap $300k is...

lol

[sunshineluv]

I feel like this is an episode of House Hunters..

You will learn a lesson of you either have to give up sq ft, yard space, or increase your budget. It will come down to three houses that are almost perfect... and magically you will have the money to buy the most expensive one.

I agree with house hunting, you should be very picky. Its a lot of money, and you spend so much time there.

[LoveTrains]

You should definitely be picky, but I think people everywhere at all budgets have to make some sort of compromise on their house purchase.

[MDmomof2]

Feb 17, 2016 12:53:02 GMT -5 LoveTrains said:

You should definitely be picky, but I think people everywhere at all budgets have to make some sort of compromise on their house purchase.

This.  I watched one episode of a House Hunters-type show where the people had a multi-million dollar budget. The real estate agent said at the beginning, "Everyone has to make compromises on their house regardless of how much they can afford." I thought he was crazy, but these people had very high expectations (as you'd expect at $2 million+) and just couldn't get everything they wanted in the area they wanted at that price. I try to keep that in mind when looking at houses, even if I had all the money in the world there'd be something I couldn't get in the house I wanted.

[bostonmichelle]

I hear you. We are house hunting at the moment and there is basically no inventory. I'm hoping there are more houses soon. Our dogs are going crazy with no yard to go run around in. We take them to a dog park in our complex but they don't burn off the energy like they did at our last house with a nice yard.

[hbomdiggity]

Another house hunter signing in. We are moving to MCOL and thought we'd be able to get everything and live like kings. Nope. There is no inventory and sellers are pricing high because they know a desperate chum will come along.

[UnderProtest]

thatgirl2478, want to feel better about houses? We rent a house in a very nice area of London that was completely renovated right before we moved in. I have stalactites coming from one ceiling, I had a leaking skylight window, drafts everywhere, another water leak at the water main, and 80% humidity in the laundry area. The landlord, property management company, and builder don't care. I seem to be the only one that actually wants to take care of the house. I'd take a construction grade tract house over this any day.

[agnes]

We've been more seriously looking for about a month now. Our budget is very low for our area. Under 400k.  Possibly unrealistic.  And we're looking for a small SFR if possible. There have only been 2 that we've wanted to put an offer on, but they both had multiple offers well over list price, thus pricing us out of our budget. There hasn't been much inventory, so I'm told. Maybe we'll have better luck as it gets closer to summer and inventory increases? Maybe it'll be worse competition? I don't know.

[thatgirl2478]

Feb 17, 2016 14:51:28 GMT -5 @fivedogs said:

Feb 17, 2016 12:14:32 GMT -5 papiercherri said:

I knew someone would be swooping in here to us all about how cheap $300k is...

lol

Ha - I used to live in NNJ, so $300K is amazing from that perspective.  I figured I would piss someone off, but oh well.  It's not like we have any perspective on how reasonable her expectation is.  

LOL - I get this. I don't know that it's that unreasonable.  There are plenty of great houses here the size we are looking for (bedrooms not so much.  I'm not sure why designers think the master has to be the size of a city block and the other rooms as small as airplane toilets) and plenty of houses on lots that we like.  However that combination is hard in our price range (not impossible).  Right now there are 7 houses that are 4+bdrm/2+bath on .5 an acre or more.  They start at 250 - which is the one house we like, but it needs all new windows - and go up to 1.4 million (it's a 7,300sqft house on 1 acre...).  There is one other house that fits the bill, but it has a bizarre layout I do not like (and it's 275k which is getting close to the top of our price range).


90% of the houses built here are 3 bedroom houses or are put on .25 acre lots and jammed together to fit as many as possible.

ETA: the median listing price in our town is 109k if that tells you anything.

[sfy]

I feel your pain. I am zeroed in on four neighborhoods and I still keep coming up empty-handed. I want to move forward with putting our house on the market, but where are we going? It's very frustrating and it didn't help last weekend when we went to visit friends in one of our target neighborhoods an she reminded us that they looked for THREE YEARS!

Fingers crossed for you!

[Pom]

OKAY. Our realtor is doing her "due diligence" and I respect that. But we've known we want this house since Sunday and she was supposed to have the offer ready for us to sign this afternoon. Now she is pestering the administrator (estate house) about smoke, we checked it yesterday AGAIN...Mr. P and I did not notice any smell and she STILL doesn't have the offer ready for us to sign. What in the name of all that's fresh and good. Someone else wants that house she tells us, it's priced to sell, she says. If we miss this, I am going to go completely, fucking apeshit crazy.

ETA:  Lest you think I am a bitch to work with (I am), she said we'd write the offer last night and then said she'd get it to us today. Now she's at a showing for one of her houses and I am probably going to bed again with out having this offer signed and submitted.   Are we expecting too much?  

[shell403b]

thatgirl2478, I hear you. It took us 2 years(!!!) to find our forever home. I swear, I was so sick of looking at listings by the end of it, I just about cried every time I had to deal with it.

I don't have any advice, just wanted to commiserate.

[lilac05]

Pom, you're absolutely not asking too much! Anytime we have found a house we wanted to make an offer, we meet & it is submitted within hours! And it hasn't been in hot markets.

thatgirl2478, we were in a similar situation. I knew that our expectations weren't realistic. They weren't outrageous, but I knew what I wanted, and it would be hard to find in our budget. I watched the market for a LONG time. I made sure my agent knew exactly what I was looking for, and she set up a portal to shoot me emails that fit my criteria as soon as they hit the MLS (which is usually 1-2 days before Zillow). Our house was a foreclosure. Within 24 hours of hitting the MLS (& before Zillow), there were multiple offers. It's bigger than what we wanted, but it was the best we were going to get. We just had to be very patient, and then very aggressive once it appeared.

Just a thought on small bedrooms. We were willing to look into houses with smaller bedrooms if they had either an extra bedroom or an extra family room that could be a play room. The kids have basically no toys in their rooms, and I don't have (many) toys in my main living room. None stay in there permanently. Anyway, considering smaller bedrooms sounds like it could give you more options.

[thatgirl2478]

Feb 17, 2016 18:44:48 GMT -5 Pom said:

OKAY. Our realtor is doing her "due diligence" and I respect that. But we've known we want this house since Sunday and she was supposed to have the offer ready for us to sign this afternoon. Now she is pestering the administrator (estate house) about smoke, we checked it yesterday AGAIN...Mr. P and I did not notice any smell and she STILL doesn't have the offer ready for us to sign. What in the name of all that's fresh and good. Someone else wants that house she tells us, it's priced to sell, she says. If we miss this, I am going to go completely, fucking apeshit crazy.

ETA:  Lest you think I am a bitch to work with (I am), she said we'd write the offer last night and then said she'd get it to us today. Now she's at a showing for one of her houses and I am probably going to bed again with out having this offer signed and submitted.   Are we expecting too much?  

Annoying. I don't think you're asking much at all!

[thatgirl2478]

Feb 17, 2016 18:35:32 GMT -5 sfy said:

I feel your pain. I am zeroed in on four neighborhoods and I still keep coming up empty-handed. I want to move forward with putting our house on the market, but where are we going? It's very frustrating and it didn't help last weekend when we went to visit friends in one of our target neighborhoods an she reminded us that they looked for THREE YEARS!

Fingers crossed for you!

YES! I don't want to be living in a rental again.

[scout8]

Feb 17, 2016 18:44:48 GMT -5 Pom said:

OKAY. Our realtor is doing her "due diligence" and I respect that. But we've known we want this house since Sunday and she was supposed to have the offer ready for us to sign this afternoon. Now she is pestering the administrator (estate house) about smoke, we checked it yesterday AGAIN...Mr. P and I did not notice any smell and she STILL doesn't have the offer ready for us to sign. What in the name of all that's fresh and good. Someone else wants that house she tells us, it's priced to sell, she says. If we miss this, I am going to go completely, fucking apeshit crazy.

ETA:  Lest you think I am a bitch to work with (I am), she said we'd write the offer last night and then said she'd get it to us today. Now she's at a showing for one of her houses and I am probably going to bed again with out having this offer signed and submitted.   Are we expecting too much?  

WTF??!!!! Noooooo. If you want to write an offer, she needs to write up the offer. This is ridiculous. If a client wants to write an offer, I make it happen ASAP. I have missed out on many a social plan because a client wanted to write an offer. Last year, I took my laptop with me to a dinner party so that I could write up an offer for a client. I am furious for you. 

[Pom]

Feb 17, 2016 21:52:11 GMT -5 scout8 said:

Feb 17, 2016 18:44:48 GMT -5 Pom said:

OKAY. Our realtor is doing her "due diligence" and I respect that. But we've known we want this house since Sunday and she was supposed to have the offer ready for us to sign this afternoon. Now she is pestering the administrator (estate house) about smoke, we checked it yesterday AGAIN...Mr. P and I did not notice any smell and she STILL doesn't have the offer ready for us to sign. What in the name of all that's fresh and good. Someone else wants that house she tells us, it's priced to sell, she says. If we miss this, I am going to go completely, fucking apeshit crazy.

ETA:  Lest you think I am a bitch to work with (I am), she said we'd write the offer last night and then said she'd get it to us today. Now she's at a showing for one of her houses and I am probably going to bed again with out having this offer signed and submitted.   Are we expecting too much?  

WTF??!!!! Noooooo. If you want to write an offer, she needs to write up the offer. This is ridiculous. If a client wants to write an offer, I make it happen ASAP. I have missed out on many a social plan because a client wanted to write an offer. Last year, I took my laptop with me to a dinner party so that I could write up an offer for a client. I am furious for you. 

Thank you! Well, that's always been my assumption of how this works.  She called a half hour ago and is doing it right now.  I think she got the message that we were running out of patience.  I understand she wants to do all the homework and we appreciate that.  I am not willing to risk missing this house.

[thatgirl2478]

Ok - so the 1920's house with the extra house on an acre backs up to a Fraternity... wah wah :/

[scout8]

Pom, well I'm glad she is doing it now anyway. Still took her way too long. Good luck!!!

thatgirl2478, oh that is too bad.

[thatgirl2478]

Feb 17, 2016 22:30:57 GMT -5 scout8 said:

Pom , well I'm glad she is doing it now anyway. Still took her way too long. Good luck!!!

thatgirl2478 , oh that is too bad.

Thanks.

This is what I'm talking about - even when we're not picky there's SOMETHING about every house we've seen that just doesn't work and isn't workable.