Discouraged about finding a house - how long did it take you?

[PrincessMommy]

I'm getting pretty discouraged trying to find a house.   We have zeroed in on a couple of specific areas, which limits our options. Also, I do have some specific house types that aren't exactly common in this area.....so even more limitations.  

 

  Just waiting for the right one.  We've had a few come up that were close, but one thing or another took it off our acceptable list.   We saw two this past week that looked great online but weren't right.   Now I'm back to being discouraged that I'l ever find one.   

 

Mostly we can tell the house is not what we want just by checking zillow and redfin.  For every 10-15 houses I check out on real estate sites, one is worth actually going to visit.  We've been looking since Feb/March.  

 

 

[Pink and Green Mom]

The longest we looked was 6 months.  When we were moving from Arlington to western Loudoun county there was one neighborhood I really wanted to be in and we drove thorough it every weekend for 6 month waiting for someone to list one for sale.

 

Compare that to moving to FL when we had 2 weekends to find a house.  UGH.  If I knew then what I know now I never would have bought this house in this neighborhood/area.  I would much rather be able to take my time find something I really like than have to rush.  But I know it is frustrating and not easy.

[Frances]

It took us seven months to find our current house eighteen years ago. We went into the process very excited, but very quickly became discouraged. In the end it was worth it though because the location has been excellent, and we've liked it so much that we have no plans to ever move.

[Epicurean]

We've been looking since august and are due to close on the 29th. I know what you mean. The area we were looking at basically had one type of house, and whether it was old or new or cheap or expensive, all the houses were really close to each other with postage stamp lawns. We ended up expanding our search farther out in order to find what we were looking for. The house we decided on is very different for the area and comes with two acres.

 

We looked at about thirty houses in person and hundreds on Zillow. I'm still a bit nervous about this house because it's not absolutely perfect (mostly just in terms of location) but after looking for so long, we just realized we couldn't realistically have everything.

[foxbridgeacademy]

We've started looking this month into the areas within an hour drive of DH's work.  We won't be ready to buy until next Spring so this is just research.  I am really particular about what I want and so is DH, to lesser degree.  I want a fixer-upper but not in horrible shape.  I want something older, 1800's up to 1960.  I want either right in town (walk to stuff) or way out in the country (think mini-farm). It has to have 4 bedrooms and a second living space (family room/den or even separate dining would work)... with all that and wanting to stay on a low budget in a high COL area and a sellers market, I expect it to take 6-12 months, which I've been told is not unusual here (not enough houses for the influx of new residents).

 

 

*Also under consideration is a town that is well known for it's beautiful but tiny old houses that often go for 500K and up.  It's really hard to buy a 1000 sq ft for under 300k (don't expect a yard).  Occasionally you'll get something in the 200K range but it's rare. it's where I really want to live and I might hold out, especially since it's where we go weekly for all of our social activities (I'd love to not have to drive 45 minutes each way). 

Edited June 12, 2017 by foxbridgeacademy

[MysteryJen]

We looked for 5 months and got our house on our fourth offer. I do know people who have been looking for almost a year. We found that we had to sell first and then got better traction on our offers. This was last year, and I know it is worse now.

[My4arrows]

For our current house we looked for a little over a year. Like you mentioned we had a specific area and type of property, so that's what took us longer. Had we had more open parameters it would have been closer to the 5-6 month mark I have a feeling.

[Scarlett]

My first house with first husband, we looked a year and a half. It was brutal.

 

Second house with first husband....at least a year.

 

With this house....we had a little cash and wanted to find one we could buy with our cash. It took about 6 months.

[happypamama]

It can take such a long time. Before we bought this house, we looked at fifteen others in the area. And that was after we weeded out a ton.

[Clemsondana]

We chose our current house with plans to stay put if at all possible. We spent more than 9 months in a less-than-ideal apartment while we house hunted. Our previous house, our straight-out-of-grad-school purchase, we found in 2 days and lived in for 9 years. But, we wanted a certain kind of house on a bit of acreage, and we just had to wait for the right one to come on the market.

[Ottakee]

We looked about 6 months. We were being ousted from our previous home by a highway project. That meant though there were 24 other families in our township in the same position at the same time....and 3 others also looking for over 5 acres for horses---&

just like us.

 

We found one we liked, put in a full price cash offer with no contingencies and owner rejected it....thought she could get us in a bidding war with another couple. Ended up an even better property hit the market the next morning and we had bought that one by noon. Other couple found a different place and that lady ended up being foreclosed on :-(

 

I would search the listings daily early in the morning and be ready to jump on any that look good. We also posted on Facebook groups and Craigslist what we were looking for and that gave us some good leads. Sometimes through that someone thinking of selling but not on the market yet might contact you.

[foxbridgeacademy]

We looked about 6 months. We were being ousted from our previous home by a highway project. That meant though there were 24 other families in our township in the same position at the same time....and 3 others also looking for over 5 acres for horses---&

just like us.

 

We found one we liked, put in a full price cash offer with no contingencies and owner rejected it....thought she could get us in a bidding war with another couple. Ended up an even better property hit the market the next morning and we had bought that one by noon. Other couple found a different place and that lady ended up being foreclosed on :-(

 

I would search the listings daily early in the morning and be ready to jump on any that look good. We also posted on Facebook groups and Craigslist what we were looking for and that gave us some good leads. Sometimes through that someone thinking of selling but not on the market yet might contact you.

People here do that, a lot and it works. I'm only on a couple local groups and someone is either buying or selling a house about every week skipping the realtor entirely (these aren't FSBO but literally "oh, yeah my neighbor is thinking of selling I'll give them your #").

[Arcadia]

For our first house, it was a month. Floor plan and location was what we needed but size was smaller than what we wish for. However going bigger with similar floor plan would mean paying more mortgage than we could afford.

 

For this house it was 9 months and we bought in a hurry in 2006. So it was much smaller than what we wanted and smaller than what we need. However it end up being the right choice financially as we couldn't have qualified for a loan when the property crashed in 2009 since we had very little credit history and did not have enough for 20% down payment. When we bought in 2006, we put 5% down payment, no credit history, no need to pay PMI and our monthly mortgage payment was equal to what our rent would be adjusted to once our one year lease was up.

 

We started looking again for a bigger house in 2011 but either the location or floor plan was unsuitable, or it was not affordable. So we have been earnestly looking for more than 6 years now. We are also thinking of relocating to another state or country so there is that to think about too when house hunting.

[Paige]

It never takes us long because we have no choice. Consequently, we have often made bigger sacrifices than we'd have liked if we'd had time to wait. I don't think we've ever spent more than 2 weekends looking and most of the time we only have a couple of days. We spend ALL day on those days, however. Out by 8am and not back to the hotel until 7 or 8pm or whenever it's dark. 

[Guest]

Have you thought about building what you need?

[Guest]

I went to, with my 1-1.5 yo son, more than 100 houses. Probably close to 150. His job with the agent was to count the potties. I adored the house we found though. It was the best house I'll ever live in.

 

When we moved into it, my son came and told me, "Mommy, dis house has free (3) potties! How can that BE?"

 

Now, the market is so hot, I don't think we could FIND 150 houses in our price range in a 6 month period.

[elegantlion]

In our case we found the house right away, but it took two offers to get it. My mom was selling her house at auction and it was too far our for the seller to feel comfortable taking the offer, so we went back after she had a contract through the auction - it was an agonizing three months because we couldn't find anything else that fit our needs. If he had not, we might still be looking almost a year later. We wanted some specific features, like 4 larger bedrooms, which was hard to find in our price range.

 

 

[Scarlett]

I went to, with my 1-1.5 yo son, more than 100 houses. Probably close to 150. His job with the agent was to count the potties. I adored the house we found though. It was the best house I'll ever live in.

 

When we moved into it, my son came and told me, "Mommy, dis house has free (3) potties! How can that BE?"

 

Now, the market is so hot, I don't think we could FIND 150 houses in our price range in a 6 month period.

That is stinkin adorable.

[SereneHome]

Are you ready??

 

2 yrs and probably close to 500 houses.  Our realtor had the patience of a saint!

[Julie Smith]

Usually a few hours of looking. I usually go buy and house and pick one out in the same afternoon session of looking at places.

[Guest]

On the other hand, we bought the first house we looked at when we moved here, 15 minutes after we walked in the door, 15 minutes before the open house started. I didn't see the basement until after closing. And we offered our beach house within 10 minutes of walking in the door. We had already decided by the time we got out of the car.

 

No regrets on either.

[OneStepAtATime]

1st house we bought we were already living in it as tenants and it needed a ton of repairs.  It was either buy it or move since the owner lived out of the country and had no interest in taking care of it.  We bought it.

 

2nd house, we were moving out of state.  We took two weekend trips up to go look.  I did COPIOUS internet searches and narrowed down our options to just a few houses that looked promising.  First trip up we found one that we could tolerate but neither of us was super happy.  Second trip up the real estate agent had several lined up to look at, but one that I had found on the internet was one of the first we saw and it was exactly what we were needing.  We didn't look any further.  Did it have some things I wish were different?  Sure.  Did it need repairs?  Yep.  Some.  But it met all of our basic needs and some of our wants.  We actually really loved many aspects of that house, despite some issues.  In fact, with this house we didn't even have to talk about it.  After independently combing over every nook and cranny in that house, DH came down the stairs and I came around a corner, we looked at each other, then we both smiled and nodded. No discussion needed.

 

3rd house, once again we were moving to another state.  DH was working in one state on a temporary assignment, I was working in another state and we had to meet up in the third state to look at houses.  We both had extremely limited time.  Again, copious internet searches got us a list of possibles that we could see in just a few days.  We had less than a week to find something.  Because we had a lot of animals we couldn't rent.  2nd day of looking we found a house that worked well for our needs.  Again, it wasn't perfect (and actually needed a lot of work) but the bones of what we needed was definitely there and we got it for a good price.

 

4th house, we rented from my parents before eventually buying.

 

The two times we were not already living in the house that we bought we were able to find a home in just a few days because:

1.  Our needs were actually pretty basic.  We didn't have a long list of must haves or don't wants.  We were also both very flexible on style.

2.  We didn't have a lot of requirements regarding location as long as the commute to work wasn't more than 20-30 minutes and the neighborhood was reasonably safe.

3.  The market both times was in our favor, meaning there were a lot of houses on the market in our price range so we had several to choose from.

4.  DH and I may have issues in other areas (like whether Miracle Whip or Mayonnaise is better :) ) but we were always in complete sync with buying houses.  We both liked both house immediately, despite various flaws. 

5.  I was more than willing to do repairs/remodeling/painting as needed, including putting in a ton of my own sweat equity, and I did so in every house we have ever owned. (In fact, I did so much work with one house I ended up with a contractor's discount).  What we cared about were the bones and we were pretty flexible on layout, how many stories, what size yard, etc.

 

In your situation, it sounds like you have some very specific criteria, and are only looking in certain very specific areas.  You are at a different place in life than we were.  That is going to make things more challenging.  Be patient, hang in there.  Something will come up eventually.  But you might also have to seriously consider adjusting your expectations, too.  No house is perfect.  They all have flaws of some kind or another.  The question is, can you find a house with flaws you can alter or live with?  I wish you all the best in this ongoing endeavor.  I know you have been hoping and working at this for quite some time.  Good luck.

[PrincessMommy]

On the other hand, we bought the first house we looked at when we moved here, 15 minutes after we walked in the door, 15 minutes before the open house started. I didn't see the basement until after closing. And we offered our beach house within 10 minutes of walking in the door. We had already decided by the time we got out of the car.

 

No regrets on either.

 

That is how I felt about the house we removed our offer from.  It was a moment... I just knew.  And then there were big problems.  Sigh.  I still think about that house, but it is way overpriced for the condition.  (the sellers cannot go lower, so they are in trouble - but that's another topic).

[PrincessMommy]

We looked about 6 months. We were being ousted from our previous home by a highway project. That meant though there were 24 other families in our township in the same position at the same time....and 3 others also looking for over 5 acres for horses---&

just like us.

 

We found one we liked, put in a full price cash offer with no contingencies and owner rejected it....thought she could get us in a bidding war with another couple. Ended up an even better property hit the market the next morning and we had bought that one by noon. Other couple found a different place and that lady ended up being foreclosed on :-(

 

I would search the listings daily early in the morning and be ready to jump on any that look good. We also posted on Facebook groups and Craigslist what we were looking for and that gave us some good leads. Sometimes through that someone thinking of selling but not on the market yet might contact you.

 

how do you go about doing that?  I'm clueless.

 

We did send out letters to one of the neighborhoods but we got about 3-4 responses that went no where.  Very disappointing.   I suspect most people thought we were flippers.  

Edited June 12, 2017 by PrincessMommy

[Ottakee]

how do you go about doing that? I'm clueless.

 

We did send out letters to one of the neighborhoods but we got about 3-4 responses that went no where. Very disappointing. I suspect most people thought we were flippers.

Our area has a "**** (city name) informed" Facebook page. See if there is a local community page for your target city or area and post on there that you are looking for ........

 

We did the same on Craig's list. Find the page for the area you are looking at and then post there that you are looking to buy.

[PrincessMommy]

1st house we bought we were already living in it as tenants and it needed a ton of repairs.  It was either buy it or move since the owner lived out of the country and had no interest in taking care of it.  We bought it.

 

2nd house, we were moving out of state.  We took two weekend trips up to go look.  I did COPIOUS internet searches and narrowed down our options to just a few houses that looked promising.  First trip up we found one that we could tolerate but neither of us was super happy.  Second trip up the real estate agent had several lined up to look at, but one that I had found on the internet was one of the first we saw and it was exactly what we were needing.  We didn't look any further.  Did it have some things I wish were different?  Sure.  Did it need repairs?  Yep.  Some.  But it met all of our basic needs and some of our wants.  We actually really loved many aspects of that house, despite some issues.  In fact, with this house we didn't even have to talk about it.  After independently combing over every nook and cranny in that house, DH came down the stairs and I came around a corner, we looked at each other, then we both smiled and nodded. No discussion needed.

 

3rd house, once again we were moving to another state.  DH was working in one state on a temporary assignment, I was working in another state and we had to meet up in the third state to look at houses.  We both had extremely limited time.  Again, copious internet searches got us a list of possibles that we could see in just a few days.  We had less than a week to find something.  Because we had a lot of animals we couldn't rent.  2nd day of looking we found a house that worked well for our needs.  Again, it wasn't perfect (and actually needed a lot of work) but the bones of what we needed was definitely there and we got it for a good price.

 

4th house, we rented from my parents before eventually buying.

 

The two times we were not already living in the house that we bought we were able to find a home in just a few days because:

1.  Our needs were actually pretty basic.  We didn't have a long list of must haves or don't wants.  We were also both very flexible on style.

2.  We didn't have a lot of requirements regarding location as long as the commute to work wasn't more than 20-30 minutes and the neighborhood was reasonably safe.

3.  The market both times was in our favor, meaning there were a lot of houses on the market in our price range so we had several to choose from.

4.  DH and I may have issues in other areas (like whether Miracle Whip or Mayonnaise is better :) ) but we were always in complete sync with buying houses.  We both liked both house immediately, despite various flaws. 

5.  I was more than willing to do repairs/remodeling/painting as needed, including putting in a ton of my own sweat equity, and I did so in every house we have ever owned. (In fact, I did so much work with one house I ended up with a contractor's discount).  What we cared about were the bones and we were pretty flexible on layout, how many stories, what size yard, etc.

 

In your situation, it sounds like you have some very specific criteria, and are only looking in certain very specific areas.  You are at a different place in life than we were.  That is going to make things more challenging.  Be patient, hang in there.  Something will come up eventually.  But you might also have to seriously consider adjusting your expectations, too.  No house is perfect.  They all have flaws of some kind or another.  The question is, can you find a house with flaws you can alter or live with?  I wish you all the best in this ongoing endeavor.  I know you have been hoping and working at this for quite some time.  Good luck.

 

One of my thoughts was to buy a house with some flaws and fix it the way that would suit us.  We found one house that fits this criteria.  It has good bones. The yard is exactly what we would want (shady, flat yard) and it even had a full bath on the main floor. But, it's on the smaller side and the owner has it overpriced by 50-70K. I don't want to over pay for a house that needs remodeling.   My thoughts are to be a stickler on the things I cannot change (location, yard) and try to be less particular about the things I can change like bathrooms and kitchens.   However, to be honest, I am very particular about style house.  I despise tradition boxy colonials and that is the popular style here.  I also do not want 3000 + sq feet.  There's been several houses that could work quite well but they are far too big for us at this time in our life.  We're trying to downsize.    

[OneStepAtATime]

One of my thoughts was to buy a house with some flaws and fix it the way that would suit us.  We found one house that fits this criteria.  It has good bones. The yard is exactly what we would want (shady, flat yard) and it even had a full bath on the main floor. But, it's on the smaller side and the owner has it overpriced by 50-70K. I don't want to over pay for a house that needs remodeling.   My thoughts are to be a stickler on the things I cannot change (location, yard) and try to be less particular about the things I can change like bathrooms and kitchens.   However, to be honest, I am very particular about style house.  I despise tradition boxy colonials and that is the popular style here.  I also do not want 3000 + sq feet.  There's been several houses that could work quite well but they are far too big for us at this time in our life.  We're trying to downsize.    

:grouphug:

 

Like I said, hang in there.  Eventually hopefully something will turn up.  

 

I remember that other house.  I'm sorry they couldn't come down on the price.  And no, you don't want to overpay for a house that needs remodeling.  We were lucky in that we got both houses below market value because they needed work, the owners knew they needed work, and they just wanted to get them sold.  Come to think of it, both houses were being sold as part of a divorce situation.  That probably affected the situation, too.

[Guest]

Again, have you considered buying a parcel and hiring a builder? We also have very own particular needs and preferences and that is the only way to obtain a home that is the right size, but fulfills all needed functions, without f busting the budget. Especially if you are in an area where a tear down in a nice neighborhood could be an option, I'd highly recommend it.

[Scarlett]

I would probably look into building also.

[PrincessMommy]

Thanks everyone for your stories.  They are all encouraging.

 

I don't know if I want to build from scratch. I know people who have in this county and it is full of red-tape and frustrations (and $$$$).   I wouldn't mind at all taking something that is existing and adding to it.  Just finding it in the right location has been difficult.

 

[OneStepAtATime]

:grouphug:

[TravelingChris]

 

Two days, one day, and two days. We were military all those times. If we were buying a house, we had no choice but to buy fast the last two times. The first time, we did have more time but still didn't take long. But that is our philosophy on life= do the best that you can in the time you have and the circumstances you have. So did we get perfection ever-- no. But are we satisfied- yes.

[Spryte]

I know the area you're thinking of, I think, from other threads. My interest in building there would be low as well.

 

I think there's a lot of unpredictable luck involved in house hunting.

 

We looked for 6 weeks in 2001, and we're living in a friend's basement so we finally settled for what we bought. It had good points. It was what we needed at the time.

 

In 2015, it was a different story. We started accidentally looking in March. My DH was keeping an eye on zillow and Redfin. We found an almost perfect house. Almost. We waffled for months, and it didn't sell. We loved that house. We got serious around the first of July, spent July 4th in the community (gated lake community, house was on a lake beach and we wanted to know the feel of the other people there) and decided against it. Reluctantly.

 

We told our RE agent what we wanted, and looked at 6 more houses. We saw ours the day it went on the market, and it had four offers by evening. I adore it.

 

But, really, I think it's just luck, finding the right house at the right time.

 

Hang in there!

[Hilltopmom]

This time,we were only sortof looking to move into town. Eyeing big houses but on a budget. Really wanted to be in my moms little neighborhood, but most of the houses are too small or on the lake so too pricey for us.

 

One that was big enough had been up for sale for the summer didn't sell by fall & the price dropped low enough for us. Saw it right away. They accepted our first offer without a contingency,we closed & then ours sold to first person who saw it, thankfully.

 

We looked at Thanksgiving & moved in Jan. We're across the street from my brother & his family and 7 doors down from parents. It's perfect :). Well, the location & size, at least.. It's not the style Iwould build or design if Ihad my choice..