How many times did you see your house before you made an offer?

[Anonymous]

Twice. I liked it a lot the first time we saw it, but my husband had mixed feelings. Once we went through it a second time, we were sure it would be a good choice for us and we made the offer.

[Anonymous]

2 houses, offers after 1 visit each ( 1988 and 2007).

[Anonymous]

Saw at open house Sat - along with several hundred others. We weren't officially looking, but had strong instinct this was it. Next day went to other open houses - as many as possible, drove around neighborhood. We let them know we were interested and we learned there was likely bidding war and needed offers in by Wed. Husband Saw it on Monday again with relative who renovates so a sense of what issues we may have without inspection. (no inspection clause). Made offer Tuesday.

[Anonymous]

Twice. The 2nd time was with an appraiser, who gave it a clean bill of health after a 2 hour inspection. We made an offer, w/ no contingencies other than financing, the next day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Twice. The 2nd time was with an appraiser, who gave it a clean bill of health after a 2 hour inspection. We made an offer, w/ no contingencies other than financing, the next day.

Excuse me, I meant w/ an inspector, not an appraiser.

[Anonymous]

Once. For each of the 14 houses I have purchased.

[Anonymous]

Last two were twice. One was a vacation house so we had a weekend to look at houses and saw the house we ended up buying on two back to back days. Our primary house we saw the first time early in the search process and then again about 2 months later after the price had dropped, the owners had moved out (so it showed very differently) and we'd seen a lot of other houses in the interim and decided we were willing to buy a house that needed work. In both cases we knew the neighborhoods pretty well.

[Anonymous]

One time - it was gone in a week.

[Anonymous]

once but the purchase was also contingent on the home inspection and there is always something you can pull out to use to walk away. So we got to really spend time in the house during the inspection so that made us feel better

[Anonymous]

2x

[Anonymous]

We have only bought two houses but both times we looked at them twice with our agent and/or open house and then a third time with our parents. We are lucky that both sets are in the area and know a lot about real estate. Both times we were house-hunting, we always brought them to houses that we were seriously considering. If your parents won't be honest (and find every potential fault in a house), who will? Honestly, they talked us out of two houses that I am so glad we didn't end up buying.

If you have a family member or close friend who will give you and honest opinion and has a good sense about real estate, I think its worth bringing them along. Oftentimes, they will find issues that you won't see because you are so in love with the house (or just so tired of looking).

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

We've bought two houses, and only looked at both of them once before making an offer. As a PP said, both times we were very familiar with homes and prices in the area. Both times, before we ever were "seriously" looking we'd go to open houses in the area just to see what homes were like at different price points, as well as to look at different layouts and figure out what we liked and didn't like about various homes. So when we did start looking "for real", we had a very good sense of what we wanted for our home (both deal breakers and would be nice things) and what we liked and didn't like about layouts and features. And both times, we had already looked at LOTS of homes with our realtor (and put in offers on other homes that we had lost out on) and knew right away we had found the one. We also always did drive-bys ourselves first based on the listing our realtor gave us, and only went inside a home with our realtor if it seemed promising. Saved a lot of time spent on looking at noncontenders that way. Our one visit also was long--we were probably there for an hour or more.

Our current home (which we plan to stay in until we are old and retired) I was pretty positive was "IT" just from seeing it online (barring some fatal flaw that was only noticeable in person), but my husband still made me look at three other homes that morning before we went to look at it, because he knew once I had seen it I wouldn't want to look at anything else. We laugh now at how we ended up in our current home, because I was almost ready to pause from looking for a while, because we had just lost out on a house that I had really liked, and we said we'd just look a little this one final weekend and that would be it for a while. And our house was listed that weekend, and I loved it so much more. We just say it was meant to be.

[Anonymous]

Just once for about 20 minutes, which is surprising since my husband has a tough time making decisions. We had seen so many houses at that point that we knew it was a great find. Also, my parents (who also happen to be in the real estate business) were with us and they kept saying it was the one. So, that helped us make a decision. No regrets.

[Anonymous]

Once before the offer, once after with the house inspector before the sale was finalized.