Anonymous wrote:going into our second year now ... have seen probably 3 that were almost "it" ... but for one reason or another we bailed. Usually the factor that drove us to pass was the neighborhood not being exactly what we want, which is teeming with families but also decent sized lots, a somewhat hard to find proposition.

What is a decent sized lot? Isn't a quarter of an acre pretty standard?

One year of light looking where we were mainly narrowing down the areas we were interested in (all suburbs). Then once we had chosen 2 suburbs, we did 10 months of very focused searching with open houses every weekend, working with a realtor, etc. Took 10 months to find the house, including putting an offer in on a house that fell through due to a bad home inspection report where the sellers would not fix the issues. We were frustrated that we weren't finding anything good in the price range we were looking at, so we ended up raising our price range by a lot, looked for 2 months at the new price range, and found the right house.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:going into our second year now ... have seen probably 3 that were almost "it" ... but for one reason or another we bailed. Usually the factor that drove us to pass was the neighborhood not being exactly what we want, which is teeming with families but also decent sized lots, a somewhat hard to find proposition.

you'll never buy. I hope you are saving or making 8-9% a year because that's the appreciation you are missing.

No neighborhood or house is ever going to be exactly what you want.

+1

The only way to get the perfect house is to spend 2 million. 2 million is the new "1 million". So unless your budget is that you will compromise on something.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:going into our second year now ... have seen probably 3 that were almost "it" ... but for one reason or another we bailed. Usually the factor that drove us to pass was the neighborhood not being exactly what we want, which is teeming with families but also decent sized lots, a somewhat hard to find proposition.

you'll never buy. I hope you are saving or making 8-9% a year because that's the appreciation you are missing.

No neighborhood or house is ever going to be exactly what you want.

+1

We looked for about 6 months, although the first several months was more of a broader neighborhood search. Once we narrowed down where we wanted to live, it took us about 6 weeks to find a house. The house isn't perfect, but we are making the changes to it that we want over time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:going into our second year now ... have seen probably 3 that were almost "it" ... but for one reason or another we bailed. Usually the factor that drove us to pass was the neighborhood not being exactly what we want, which is teeming with families but also decent sized lots, a somewhat hard to find proposition.

you'll never buy. I hope you are saving or making 8-9% a year because that's the appreciation you are missing.

No neighborhood or house is ever going to be exactly what you want.

Anonymous wrote:going into our second year now ... have seen probably 3 that were almost "it" ... but for one reason or another we bailed. Usually the factor that drove us to pass was the neighborhood not being exactly what we want, which is teeming with families but also decent sized lots, a somewhat hard to find proposition.

you'll never buy. I hope you are saving or making 8-9% a year because that's the appreciation you are missing.

going into our second year now ... have seen probably 3 that were almost "it" ... but for one reason or another we bailed. Usually the factor that drove us to pass was the neighborhood not being exactly what we want, which is teeming with families but also decent sized lots, a somewhat hard to find proposition.

One month or less when we were looking for our condo 3 years ago. It was just DH and I. Now we are going on 6+ months looking for a house now that we have to consider our growing family and can't afford anything.

Anonymous wrote:1 year in 2004.

2 years in 2009 (and we were renting in our target neighborhood).

We did end up getting what we wanted both times---lost some bids along the way but what we did end up with both times were homes way better than any of the lost bids. I am of the 'the right house will happen'.

OP-- it also will completely depend on where you are looking.

We were set on a very small area in very desirable(competitive) neighborhoods. There were many months when NO houses would even come on the market. There was a lot of waiting for listings. We never used a realtor. Later found out a lot of sales were before houses ever went on the market--so we might have benefited from the woman that does most of the sales here.

A little over a year. And this was before kids and worrying about school districts, etc. The instant I walked into the house we ended up buying, I knew it was "the one." Good luck!

1 month

Took us about 6 months. School district, yes. Area, I still waffled and am not 100% sure. There was an area of higher "cachet" so sometimes I wonder if it would have been better to shoot for that and sacrifice something else. We also ultimately decided to get the less updated house and update it ourselves because the updates others had done were not impressing me (especially the flips!). Am I in love? No. It's great, though, and the updates are not going to be my dream updates either. They are going to be universally appealing for resale (if that exists!) while still making me happy. My forever home is still in the future.

GL!

1 year in 2004.

2 years in 2009 (and we were renting in our target neighborhood).

We did end up getting what we wanted both times---lost some bids along the way but what we did end up with both times were homes way better than any of the lost bids. I am of the 'the right house will happen'.

The only houses I would truly love are ones that I can't afford. It took us about 5 weeks to find a great house that should last us many years. We did get lucky looking in the winter though, not much inventory, and if we didn't get that one, we'd still be looking.

Did you get what you wanted (area, sq ft, price)? Going on almost 1.5 years and haven't been able to find what we "love". Need some inspiration!