Ironically we have none and we decided on each house in 5 minutes (incredibly tight and competitve market). I still absolutely love everything about our first home in the city==location, layout, etc. and it is a great rental.

The second home I had a few tiny apprehensions which turned out to be wrong and 3 years later I think it is the absolutely best choice we could have made.

I am somebody that analyzes things to death so I am amazed at the two biggest purchases I have ever made--the decisions were made so quickly. It did take a lot of going to open houses and a lot of studying the two neighborhoods so we knew it when we saw it. Each time we were VERY patient...waited 1.5-2 years for a house we liked to come on the market each time.

Not being under pressure to move is probably the reason it turned out so good. The first time we were in a month-month rental so had all the time in the world. The second time we were in another rental while renting out first home---so again no pressure to find something and move immediately. I think if you are against a school deadline or have to move because you just sold it is easier to end up with somethign you don't like because you don't have the option of waiting it out.

11:21PP here - to be fair, I haven't seen much in my price range ($550K-ish) in our area (North Arlington - Yorktown schools) that was better than what we got, and I was pretty sure that would be the case. I figure this is a downside of buying an older house. The only newer houses close-in were townhouses and we'd already owned one of those and wanted to feel like we were taking a step forward. Plus the high condo fees at many townhouse complexes raised the cost of ownership higher than a SFH and it's not deductible like mortgage interest. oh well! still not remorseful.

Was first time buyer.

I should have asked for replacement of old furnace/air conditioner/new roof. They were all 20yrs old, and I'm looking at a good 20-27K expenditure in a year or two.

The house itself is fine. But I'm further outside of town than would be ideal and the local high school has an iffy rep. But DS is < 1 year so we have awhile to worry about the latter.

Too few bedrooms, not enough square footage. Should have stretched more financially for the forever house.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't have buyer's remorse, though I occasionally wonder if I should have bought a house with fewer deferred maintenance issues. We're looking at a LOT of money in necessary upgrades in the next few years, and part of me wishes I could have bought a house with that stuff already done.

That said, we love our house, the neighborhood and the schools and we got a very good price on it. So I pretty much just suck it up.

we're in the same boat. i wonder if we could have bought a home that needed less work (lawn regrading, insulation, electrical, new rook in 3-5 yrs, new windows) have rationalized it by the fact that I beleive we got a very good price for the sq footage. Other homes in our neighborhood may have been better maintained, would have been less work on our part to upgrade things and cost less in out of pocket expenses, but they are also selling for 50-100K more and have less space. Hoping that in the long run we made a good decission.

I agree 100% - We did the best we could at the time, buying a house that hadn't been maintained for what seemed like an aggressive price. After the fact, it seems like it would have been better to spend more and get it in great condition, upgraded, etc. Kind of regret not having the fore-sight on that. Or wait a couple of years and then get the well-maintained house for a similar price. You do the best that you can - there are always regrets.