This guest post comes to us via the smart, home-owning Liz of Being Geek Chic fame. She writes about comics, apps, technology, and The Hunger Games on the regular. Pop over and say hi!
Yesterday, we talked about the whys and how-muches of buy your first home. Today we're going to talk about the "yeses" and "OMG, nooooooos."
Start by making a list of MUST-HAVES that CAN’T BE CHANGED. What should be on this list? You can always buy new carpet or get stainless steel appliances - don’t put these items on the list. You can’t, however, magically create a larger backyard or move a house from one neighborhood to another - these items should be on the list. This list should guide your decision making.
Be warned: It can be really easy to fall in love with a house 30 miles from your office because your money goes a lot further towards the kitchen of your dreams when you’re further from the city. Trouble is, you’ll be kicking yourself when you’re sitting in traffic 5 days a week completely unable to enjoy that kitchen. Trust me, follow your list!
Next, make a list of deal-breakers. Here’s what my deal-breakers were when I started looking for a place:
I won’t live in a really old, inefficient home.
I can’t live in a home smaller than 1000 square feet.
It would be impractical to have a home without a garage.
Pretty simple, right? You wouldn’t think this would narrow down your search that much, but it really, really does.
Now, you might be saying: “but stainless steel is a MUST HAVE and if a house doesn’t have it, it will be a deal breaker for me.” That’s fine, but if you are buying your first home and you live in a major metropolitan area, you WILL pay a premium for things like that. Oftentimes, that premium isn’t worth it.
Now, start looking at houses! When walking through homes, I tried to think about how the life I live everyday would look in this place. I tried to imagine myself watching HBO in the basement and what it would be like to type up blog posts in the office. The more you can envision yourself in a place - the more likely you’ll start to love it.
Eventually, it should come down to a combination of things: the home you choose should include your MUST HAVES - PLUS you should feel at least a little excited about living there. I found a townhouse that made the cut and I know I made the right choice, because I’m still excited to come home every day.
Share your house-buying tips on the comments!
photo by young swan designs, for sale here
When my boyf + I were looking for our first place to live together we started out thinking we wanted a nice old townhouse (terraced since we're Brits) in the (relatively) classy + older part of town.
ReplyDeleteWhat we ended up buying was a new build 3rd floor apartment; the first apartment block built in amongst an industrial area of town (directions to my flat involve: "It's next to the Outlet Mall, opposite the car park. No literally, next door to the mall.")
This is because when we started looking we realised:
We don't want to be in a bourgie area of town with drunken fools wandering + screaming past our house at night.
All the terraced houses that we could afford needed serious renevations + decorating and we just wanted to start out with something simple we could move right into + didn't need redecorating any time soon.
Those terraced houses all had grotty little bathrooms that you access by walking through the kitchen. The only ones with converted upstairs bathrooms were out of our budget. Walking wet + naked downstairs through my home + kitchen was a dealbreaker
This is some really good advice, and though I'm nowhere near close to buying a home, I watch enough damn HGTV to know what stupid criticisms of potential homes are, and what unrealistic expectations are. Chances are you're not going to have everything you want in a first home... unless you're willing and able to shell out the big bucks for it. Sometimes you need to be willing to overlook a home's minor imperfections (that are fixable) to get what you really need. That said, don't settle for a place if you aren't just the teensiest bit excited about living there. If it doesn't feel like home, you're going to be that much more uneasy when you've signed the mortgage agreement.
ReplyDeleteSimple considerations like where the big bay windows face (in Sydney, north is best); is there rising damp; can you see the stars when standing in the roof space (no it's not romantic, it's leaky); is the wall and ceiling plaster flaky or does it smell?
ReplyDeleteIt's worthwhile investing in that new kitchen, bathroom or picket fence shortly after moving in. No point waiting years and it's the new owner who will enjoy the inconvenience you suffered!
Oh my goodness, living in BC I honestly thought I had to be rich to own my own home. We'd just gotten out of a super bad basement suite (dangerous DIY renovations + sharing utility bills with drug addicts) so when we found out the owner of our happy little apartment was selling it we were CRUSHED! I envisioned living on the streets and all sorts of bad things.
ReplyDeleteBut then her realtor suggested it was possible to buy the apartment and we laughed at him. But as it turned out, we could!
We did rush into the decision carelessly because:
a) we felt like we were losing our home
b) we had just gotten out of a comparatively terrible living situation
We basically based the decision on the ridiculous cost of rent (much higher than a mortgage), the convenient location, and the simple fact that we'd lived there for six months and nothing horrible happened. haha.
I do not regret the decision in the slightest, despite the fact that the timing was bad (it's an old building so LOTS of repair work happened last year).
But I feel like our list of requirements has changed:
I'd like to have a place with a garage and a small outdoor space.
More privacy would be nice.
in suite laundry for sure!
More rooms and maybe laminate flooring to keep the dust down. Our carpet is so old and terrible, but our cat is a scratcher so we can't get new carpet just yet.
That's the thing about stratas is you either change things illegally or you don't change anything at all.