Listen, I love you Internet. And I obviously want you to read every one of the ten gajillion words I write.
But I would recommend you take a look elsewhere today unless you actually aren’t BORED DEAD by the topic of home buying. Because that’s pretty much all that’s on my mind these days. It’s even edged out the Baby Brain that has been occupying my skull space for the past many months. (I’m easily diverted, eh?) But I recognize that it’s one of those things that people are either wildly enthusiastic about, or SNORE.
You’ve been warned, is all I’m saying.
As soon as my husband found out that we’re staying here for fellowship, we decided we’d take the plunge and by a house.
On the one hand, YAY! No more apartment!
On the other hand, wooly blokes! Stress! Money! More stress!
(I know, I know. First world problems. I GET IT.)
Anyway, house hunting.
Not as easy as it looks on TV, let me tell you that.
I’m not ready to talk about the house we made an offer on yet. But I will talk about it. Someday. Possibly October. Possibly sooner. (This is the lamest tease in the history of ever. “I might at some point talk more about a house.” Big woop.) But today I would like to talk about home buying in general.
I’ve been doing this house hunting thing for about two months now. And I’ve been surprised by the number of things I’ve found surprising.
I mean, I was SURE that my years of HGTV watching had prepared me for any eventuality. And yet, somehow, I have been continually smacked in the face by the reality that HGTV is not. (Reality. As in, it’s staged. Much like a newly-listed house.)
Here are the things that have surprised me so far:
That my mother-in-law would be right about houses having a “feeling.” My MIL and FIL gave my husband and me lots of great advice about the home buying process. Seriously – they walked us through a contract and a loan application and a HUD form, which was SO HELPFUL.
But at the end of the good advice, my MIL told us that, as we toured houses, we had to listen to each other carefully for the phrase, “it just doesn’t feel right,” because that was an indication that the person who said it just wouldn’t like the house – probably ever. I kind of did an internal eye roll. (At least I HOPE it was internal.) But she was totally right!
Some houses just had a bad feeling. There was one that just felt… sad. The air was saturated with this stressed, sad vibe. I felt down the whole time we were there, even though the downstairs was lovely and the master suite was palatial. Then we found out that the owners were downsizing because the husband had fallen ill. Another just felt… bad. Negatively charged. I was uncomfortable the entire time we were in it. I told my husband, “I just don’t like this place,” even though there was nothing to actively dislike. Even if my husband had LOVED the house, I don’t think I could have lived there. It wasn’t meshing well with my energy or something out-there and wackadoo.
And the houses that I loved had a good feeling. They felt warm and cheerful and welcoming. Additionally surprising – to me – was that the houses that had current residents were (usually) the ones that “felt” the best. They felt warm and loved and lived in, while some of the empty homes – even the newly-renovated ones – felt cold and abandoned and desperate.
That a house could feel TOO BIG. When my husband and I started thinking about buying a house, we’d always look at the HUGE ones. Hell, long before we ever thought about buying a house, we’d drool over the giant homes on HGTV and on the fancy streets in any city we were in. But we checked out a house that was about 3,500 square feet and it felt… cavernous. (It didn’t help that it was the sad house. Which is how we referred to it ever after.) As we walked through yet another giant bedroom, all I could think was, “What will we do with all this space?” And “Good lord, it’s going to cost our non-existent child’s non-existent college money to furnish this place.”
Bigger isn’t always better. Who knew?
How little realtors can tell you about stuff. I guess I’ve just watched too much HGTV. But my favorite HGTV host, Sandra Rinomato, knows everything about everything. How much would it cost to replace the roof? She’ll give you a rough estimate. What if I wanted to swap that window out for French doors? She knows how much you’d be out. Taxes in this area? She can tell you. How does this home compare to others in the neighborhood? She’s got a list on hand.
Yeah. I’m getting the feeling that’s all pre-planned for the sake of the show. Because I asked one realtor how much it would cost to make a window bigger, and she laughed at me. “You can do anything for enough money!” she said.
Okay, so maybe that’s expecting too much. But a realtor should at least know everything about the house she’s showing, right? WRONG.
Are the upstairs floors hardwood? Hmm, I’m not sure. How recently was the furnace replaced? Um… I’ll have to look. How much does the seller generally pay in electric bills? No idea. Is that watery-looking stain on the ceiling a leak? Oh wow, I never noticed that before.
(Sandra Rinomato would know ALL THAT STUFF. Even if it wasn’t her listing.)
(Also, if an agent asks you what you think of a house, and you mention that it’s not for you because the giant creek running through the backyard makes you nervous, since you plan to have a kid at some point, she might give you a Look of Deep Offense and say something like, “well, the seller has THREE KIDS” as though it not being a problem for them means it shouldn’t be a concern for you.)
That you can TOTALLY TELL if a house is a flip. I LOVE house-flipping shows. Flipping Out. Flip This House. Okay, that’s really all I can think of. And Flipping Out is not actually about flipping houses so much anymore.
But the fact is, a flip isn’t always the lovely, updated space it looks like it should be. It’s often not even as nice as it looks in the photos posted on the realty websites.
We saw several updated homes. And it was super clear which homes were updated and which were flips. Because the updated ones were actually homes you could live in. The flips… not so much.
The difference truly is livability. We saw this great little house with beautiful new appliances, totally refurbished bathrooms, crisp paint, and new carpet. But… There was air conditioning in every room except the living room, which seemed odd. I mean, if you need a/c, you’d want it in the room where you spend all your time, right?
And the bedrooms were super weird. The biggest bathroom connected to a largish room that connected to a slightly smaller bedroom. Across the hall from the bigger room was a third, medium-sized room. But the largest room – presumably the master – didn’t have any walls against which you could set a bed or a dresser or anything. I mean, you could put a bed or a bureau in front of a window. But that was your only option. The walls were occupied by 1) bathroom door, 2) door to balcony, 3) window/door to walk-in closet, 4) large built-in TV cabinet.
On the third floor were a fourth bedroom and another full bath. But there was no door – the room was open to the stairway which was open to the whole second floor. And the bathroom was teeny, with no tub. And one of the doors was hiding some sort of furnace/water heater thing that was set into the floor in such a way that there were gaping holes leading to god knows where. (BUGS.)
So – very nice. Lots of room. Four bedrooms, two full bathrooms. But… weird. We liked the house – a lot. But we talked over how we’d occupy it and we couldn’t make it work.
(Plus, the basement was scaaaaarrrrry. Mold and spiders and a squishy, slanty floor. Not so good.)
Then there was the other house that had the fresh paint and new hardwood floors and updated kitchen. But the master bedroom was directly off both the kitchen and the front door. The “master bath” was also the hall bathroom. The second bathroom was upstairs with the two additional bedrooms… but it was just a half bath.
The lovely, bright sun room had a bunch of windows… But there were gaps between the glass and the siding. And the windows were painted shut. So if you were in the room and there was any kind of sunlight, you’d be toasted like an ant under a magnifying glass with no cool breeze to soothe you.
Plus, the basement wasn’t usable space: The furnace and water heater were in one corner and the sump pump (whatever the hell that is) was in the far corner and the ceiling was barely high enough for us to stand up straight.
It seemed very clear that some gung-ho entrepreneurial type bought these properties and did the bare minimum to get it into selling shape. They took into account the market’s desire for hardwood and stainless steel. They made sure every item on their checklist was checked off (Master bath? Check. Master bedroom? Check. Stainless fridge? Check.). But they never considered how a person would actually live in the space.
Realtors apparently expect you to be able to Drop Everything Instantly in order to do house-type stuff. We hit the jackpot with our realtor. She is savvy and efficient and she’s knowledgeable about the market and the area. But she seems to think that we have all the free time in the world.
For instance, I recently told her that we could schedule something for a Tuesday afternoon because my husband thought he could get out of work early. “That’s great!” she said. “So what time would you want to meet?”
“Well,” I said, “he could probably leave the hospital at 4:00.”
“Oh,” she said. “That’s late.”
Dude. He normally gets home at 6:30 or 7:00 – and that’s on a good, easy day! Leaving the hospital at 4:00 is SO EARLY.
Also, she seems to think that his schedule is the only one we need to work around.
“How about we meet on Saturday?” I asked her.
“Oh, is your husband off that day?”
“No, I think he’s working. But I’m off on Saturday,” I told her.
I’m sorry. My clients keep me busy. And as a courtesy to them, I try to be available during normal work hours. Which means it’s not so easy – or professional – to say, “Oh, I’m out for three hours today!” Which happens about a billion times during the home searching and home buying process, by the way. And don’t OTHER PEOPLE have this very same problem, Internet? I can’t imagine that it’s easy for ANYONE to just pop out to look at houses on a random Tuesday.
Don’t get me wrong – our realtor has been very accommodating and we’ve found a way for me to miss the least amount of work possible. But I don’t think she gets it. Mainly because anytime we have to meet – whether it’s to look at a house or sign a document or set up a whatever – she suggests some time between the hours of 9:00 and 5:30.
That basements and bathrooms can make or break a house. We’ve spent a lot of time looking at homes in an adorable little suburb close to our apartment. The homes are old and perfectly charming. The architecture has tons of character. The lots are smallish but perfectly groomed, with mature trees and lovely shrubbery. The streets are quiet and peppered with kids on bikes and mothers pushing strollers. It’s adorable and comfortable and we’d love to live here.
But the bathrooms and basements in these places are DEAL BREAKERS. It may be princessy of me, but I cannot stand dark, low-ceilinged basements. Add in The Damp and some spiders and That Smell, and you can rest assured that, should we buy this house, I will never do laundry again.
And the bathrooms? Egad, Internet. Ancient tile with decades of dust and dirt and sloughed-off skin caked into the grout. Dungeon-style showers. Sinks with nary a spot for a single toothbrush (and we all know that my husband and I have SEPARATE TOOTHBRUSHES). Toilets set so close to the sinks that you are practically forced to multitask.
I am severely spoiled, bathroom-wise. I know this. But after an entire life of spacious master baths – save for 10 years of college/grad school/medical school when I whiningly bravely endured NON-spacious shared bathrooms – I just can’t really stand the idea of a) buying a house with a ridiculous airport-bathroom-stall-sized master or b) shelling out tens of thousands of dollars for a remodel.
A bathroom or a basement could rule out an otherwise-delightful home, is what I’m saying. I know no house is perfect. But I’d rather deal with a too-small lawn or no dining room. To each her own.
The number of people who cannot pronounce “realtor” even if they, themselves, are realtors. You guys. It’s “REEL-TER.” Not “ree-luh-ter.”
What did you find most surprising about hunting for your first place, Internet?
I, too, was a little surprised at how our realtor either didn’t know things or was trying to pretend she didn’t know. Me, looking at wallpaper peeling down at top of ceiling with big brown water spot: “What’s….this here? Looks like water damage. Is this…recent? Recurring?” Realtor: “Huh. I guess that MIGHT be water damage…” Me, looking at the total lack of finishing work at a place where two rooms met (as in, there was a one-foot gap between them, where you could see internal workings because there was no wall or floor at those places: “Are they planning to…finish this up? Or is that how it’s going to be?” Realtor: “Huh. I don’t know! Looks like that could just be patched up?” PATCHED UP. A one-foot stripe of gap in the floor, through which I can see plumbing pipes. Yes. I will just put a little spackle in there.
I DIDN’T expect her to know much about home repair (though that would have been AWESOME), but I DID expect her to know things such as “Is this a project in process here, something that will result in us liking the house MORE? Or is this an as-is/fixer-upper situation where we buy a house AND a problem?”
I have shopped for SO many houses at this point. In Idaho, I actually found our house alone and then made Matt go look at it moments before we signed the paperwork to make sure he didn’t hate it. I’m now at the point where I walk into the house and say “this one, THIS ONE”. And then I go upstairs and say, “yep, I was right.” Unfortunately, for this last move, Matt and I both had different “this ones!” (We are currently living in my choice, thus proving that I am far superior at house shopping than he is.)
As a house buying virgin, this post was very eye-opening for me. It has also lead me to conclude that I will probably rent apartments for the rest of my life as I am the pickiest person on earth and can only settle on temporary dwellings by telling myself “it’s just a year and then you can move.”
I am super picky, too, and my biggest fear going into this is that I would never find something I liked enough to buy. I’ve been surprised by that, too – I’ve liked several homes. I think you’ll find something!
We have yet to enter the buying stage, but I am fearful … we sold our house (my husband’s grandmother had bought it for him) and that was enough of an eye-opening situation! We had buyer’s come day & night …. including non-major holidays (like Super Bowl and Valentine’s day) evenings (think after 6pm). The whole negotiation process … we had a buyer almost walk away because we wouldn’t agree to including a leather recliner (it’s a family piece) in the sell! Crazy. Good luck 🙂
We got lucky in that our realtor was awesome. We went through tons and tons of homes at all kinds of hours to finally find our one. What surprised me about house hunting was that (and this is either because I’m to picky or because of the area we live in) I could never find EXACTLY what I wanted….which wasn’t much. Just a large yard, three bedroom two bath, with no close neighbors, in our price range. The realtor kept taking us to two bedrooms with huge yards or three bedrooms with no yard and neighbors right on top. It took us a year and a half to find something and I remember my catch phrase for the time was, “I’M NOT ASKING FOR MUCH HERE”. We did finally get one, and then sold it within two years because we ended up having to settle with neighbors and I couldn’t handle it. I learned a huge lesson there….something as big as buying a house? Never settle, even if everyone else thinks you should.
Also, I say real-uh-ter. It may be the southern in me though.
Oh I’m with you on the bathrooms. I nixed perfectly good apartments because of bathrooms (to an extent, mind you). Our apartment now has the bathroom the size of a closet. It’s so small both of us can’t fit in there at once. Next place we move? Big bathroom.
I love reading about your house buying experience! I’m surprised your realtor didn’t know those things, either but I guess with what we see on TV we’re mislead to believe that they have ALL the knowledge. How nice would that be? Then I could just go into an office, tell them what I want and tell them to find me the perfect house! HA!
We looked at a ton of houses and couldn’t find anything we liked – so we bought a lot in a nice neighborhood and built a house. I interviewed 11 different builders (picky, picky) until I found one I really liked and he worked with us to design our house….what a learning experience!
So true about the weird hours. I get that maybe some couples have one non-working spouse or something, but for the most part, they should get that, as Realtors, they will have to work to accommodate others’ schedules at lunch or after work or on weekends.
Don’t let basements and bathrooms be deal breakers, the beauty of owning a home is ANYTHING you hate can be changed!
Has HGTV taught you nothing?
🙂
We ONLY looked at houses on Saturdays and in the evenings. I think it’s really weird that your realtor doesn’t expect that.
Good luck on your housing adventure! I totally remember when completely anal me would make a list of all the features we wanted on one side and each of the houses we’d see on the other. I made this complex rating system, and in the end we just used our gut (and it helped that it was a pre-foreclosure). 1.5 years later we’re still making our house a home by doing updates.
You’re so right about a bathroom making or breaking a house. That’s the first thing we look at it for a potential place. I can’t wait to start looking for our first purchased place, someday!
Looking for homes is both an exciting and STRESSFUL experience. I completely agree with you regarding the “feel” of a home. When Brian and I were first looking for homes, I could walk into a room and immediately know if I hated it or loved it. It was just a feeling. Brian thought I was nuts, but I just know my gut. We looked at a new development of townhouses that were withing our budget. My realtor and Brian thought I was completely insane when I said, “I don’t know what it is, but I just don’t like it here.” Months down the road, we found out that this particular development was actually sinking due to a poorly constructed foundation. Sometimes you just have to listen to that little voice.
My one piece of HUGE advice is to NOT use a home inspector that your realtor recommends. It’s best to do research, ask around, and find an inspector on your own. That way you know for certain that the inspector is working in your best interest!!!
Oh god, I am totally a real lah tor offender! I didn’t even realize it until I read this post! I bet you I learned it from my mom, she’s still calling me a law-yher
I know this isn’t the point here (do I say that a lot?) but I think you need a new realtor. When we start house hunting, we spent almost a year looking at sub-par places that our realtor knew little about. Then after the year’s end we switched to a different realtor and we bought a house within the month! She went on our schedule, picked us up, drove us to a house that she’s already walked herself prior to taking us and knew most costs, not to mention people who could do anything. I honestly thought the same thing – HGTV and their crazy shows…but the new realtor totally proved this theory wrong in our books
I love reading about other people’s house buying experiences. I also surf realtor.com and trulia for fun.
I now try to find a realtor who lives in the town we want to buy in and who has also been selling in that town for a while. It makes a huge difference. It also helps if you’ve narrowed your search down to a single town or two. Looking in a larger geographic area puts you at a disadvantage because the realtor won’t have as much local knowledge for each town.
Our first realtor went on and on about how we could grill outdoors and enjoy the patio in the condo we bought. The day we moved in we discovered that grills were illegal and that the list of things we could NOT do on that patio was much longer than the list of things we could do on that patio. Our second realtor was a drunk and gave us zero guidance; we way overpaid for the house that we bought from him. We called him Bozo the Realtor and it truly was a miracle that our condo sold with him.
We hope to buy again next year and I will be interviewing multiple realtors. Because there are lots of sucky realtors out there.
My husband bought our current home before he was my husband. That was five years ago. I have never EVER let him forget what an asshat move that was. Make sure you pick a house that makes you both happy.
Husband and I have purchased and sold a few homes. We found out that dealing with someone you “think” is a friend can backfire on you. We also believe in “feeling the home” when you walk in. We’ve purchased a few homes based on that. Currently we love our house..everything seemed to fit where we wanted it to but now we are considering downsizing if the the economy ever makes selling this current place worthwhile. My recommendation is not to settle….you will find the right place when it is the right time.
And by the way, I love run on sentences….!
When we bought our first home together we looked high and low and came back to the first one we originally look at. The house that spoke to us and said “Hello, it’s so nice to see you”
And we both felt that amazing vibe that we still feel today years later.
I am exicted for you and your new home. And now is a great time to buy as you know.
I read this and it’s so funny:
Oct 5, 2009
How to pronounce Realtor
This is a big pet peeve of so many agents. It doesn’t bother me that much and I usually get a chuckle out of seeing the pained looks when someone mispronounces
Realtor.
But for the record people, Realtor is pronounced “Real Tor” or “Real Ter”. Just two syllables.
There is no “a” or “i” or “uh” between the L and T. It is not pronounced “Real-a-tor”, “Real-uh-ter” or “Real-i-tar”.
Try to get it right and I promise not to visit the doc-a-tor or say ‘ath-uh-leet’ for athlete or claim to live in Tex-e-as.
Few words of advice from a complete stranger (how useful, right?)
1) Our realtor met with us on OUR time. Except for paperwork stuff that needed to be done in her office (and this was only after we made an offer), we did only late evenings/weekends. We fired our first realtor because she said she didn’t work on weekends. WHAT?
Also, she/he should know things about the house or be able to quickly figure them out for you by talking to the owner or looking through documents. Its unacceptable to not know the material of the flooring!
2) Learn about sump pumps. And basement waterproofing in general. We got screwed here, having grown up in the deep sub-sea level south where basements didn’t exist. Our “finished” basement that we thought was waterproofed was not, and flooded 2 months into it. We had no legal recourse, since we were technically “aware” of this (being ignorant and listening to your inspector does not count). which leads me to….
3) Be very careful choosing an inspector. Do NOT choose anyone recommended by your realtor. I know, it sounds plain stupid, and we are smart people, but we fell for the whole “support local friends/businesses” thing.
4) We paid a lot more than we should have for a house that we thought was in “perfect” shape. I was pregnant and busy and we didn’t want to do any renovations. Well there is no “perfect”, even in a close-to-new remodeled house and the renovations don’t cost as much as the extra we paid (and continue to pay, every month, and will for the rest of our ownership). I actually wish we had picked not exactly a fixer-upper, but if JUST the basement or bathroom was an issue (and it was something fixable), you could save yourself a LOT of money in the long run.