|
|
Post by melanell on Jul 16, 2025 16:13:55 GMT
Was there something you really wanted or really didn't want when looking for a home, that you wound up with or without anyway? For me it's a hilly driveway. As a kid I had a short span of time when I lived in a town in a valley, and both of our homes there had flat driveways. Then we moved to a different town and I've been there ever since, and it's been 4 homes in a row now with an inclined driveway.  Flat driveways are hard to come by here, and if someplace had one they often had other bigger deal breakers, so we'd pass on them. We found houses with no driveways and with shared driveways, and some with driveways that looked like ski slopes. Our is hilly, those were deadly! That being said, in the winter I've had my car stuck in the driveway or stuck on the road, depending on which way the driveway sloped. I also had my car slide sideways down a driveway towards another car. And I've used approx. 17 tons of rock salt trying not to break a leg walking up and down these darn driveways!  |
|
|
|
Post by gar on Jul 16, 2025 16:18:24 GMT
I wanted a bigger garden when we moved to our current house but 🤷🏼♀️ It had everything else, right location, extra bathroom downstairs, extra bedroom etc etc so that was our compromise.
|
|
smartypants71
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,992 
Location: Houston, TX
|
Post by smartypants71 on Jul 16, 2025 16:27:47 GMT
Not really a dealbreaker but I did cave on a nice-to-have. We're under contract for a home that checked all the boxes except for one which was a laundry room. I wanted the laundry to be in its own room bc DH has a tendency to pile up his clean laundry on a bench just outside the closet the w/d is in.
Fortunately, I got everything else and more, so this is only a minor annoyance.
|
|
Anita
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,891
Location: Kansas City -ish
|
Post by Anita on Jul 16, 2025 16:28:29 GMT
Having an HOA. It's almost impossible to find houses around here without one.
|
|
|
|
Post by katlady on Jul 16, 2025 16:34:22 GMT
It has been almost 30 years, so my deal breakers have changed. But we settled for a home with no downstairs bedroom. Also got a home in a HOA community, which I would have preferred not to. I also wanted a view. We live so close to the ocean, I wanted to see that ocean, but out of our price range. lol!
|
|
anniebeth24
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,033
|
Post by anniebeth24 on Jul 16, 2025 17:39:27 GMT
I gave in and bought a house that faces east. My DH thought it was a ridiculous factor to even consider, but I did not want it based on my childhood home.
The western sun in the afternoon absolutely bakes the back of the house and its main living spaces. It has taken 20 years to get the trees tall enough to provide shade. Now the Peas tell me I have to worry about the trees falling on my house!
|
|
|
|
Post by Linda on Jul 16, 2025 17:47:25 GMT
our current house?
I wanted a smaller yard (less to maintain) and ended up with a double lot (1.3 acres) - it WAS smaller than the previous house's 4 acres but...
I wanted a single story house - we ended up with a storey-and-a-half but the upper floor just has DD18's room/bath, guest rooms/bath, and DH's bonus/Lego space so everything I need to access regularly is on the ground floor.
I wanted a walk-in shower not a bathtub w/shower - I got a bathtub with shower and DH bought me a transfer bench.
No HOA was a hill I was willing to die on and we don't have one - yay!
|
|
|
|
Post by CarolinaGirl71 on Jul 16, 2025 17:54:49 GMT
I said never a house with. Steep driveway downhill from road, but fellin love with one and stayed there 18 years. Best house we ever had. Would still be there but needed to downsize
|
|
|
|
Post by mikklynn on Jul 16, 2025 18:02:53 GMT
Mine was the price. My house was about $75k over budget, but it had everything on our wish list. It was worth the extra money. Everyday I think how lucky I am to live here.
|
|
|
|
Post by morecowbell on Jul 16, 2025 18:17:25 GMT
The home that is all garage in front. Hi, welcome to our garage.🙄
Found our latest home that had such an appealing floor plan, we let the all garage elevation slide.
|
|
|
|
Post by ~summer~ on Jul 16, 2025 18:23:43 GMT
When we bought our house in the Bay Area I compromised on a lot of things - mainly the size, the number of bedrooms and the yard.
I hope I don’t compromise so much next time….
|
|
|
|
Post by melanell on Jul 16, 2025 18:32:48 GMT
I gave in and bought a house that faces east. My DH thought it was a ridiculous factor to even consider, but I did not want it based on my childhood home. The western sun in the afternoon absolutely bakes the back of the house and its main living spaces. It has taken 20 years to get the trees tall enough to provide shade. Now the Peas tell me I have to worry about the trees falling on my house!Oh no! Perhaps in your situation you have no reason to worry. It has so much to do with weather and type of tree. We had a line of maples in front of our property that lasted there for over 100 years before they started to have trouble. Yours are youngsters in comparison.  |
|
|
|
Post by Zee on Jul 16, 2025 18:40:36 GMT
Having an HOA. It's almost impossible to find houses around here without one. Same! If they don't have one they're either in need of total overhaul or they're million+ dollar homes. Of course, that's a lot more the norm now post covid, so I suppose they're multi-million dollar homes now. |
|
|
|
Post by workingclassdog on Jul 16, 2025 19:04:16 GMT
A big porch.. I so want a big porch... back/front or both.. don't have either. At the time we bought the house it was a starter home.. it's still our starter home 25 years later. Now it's impossible to buy something bigger (in my state) as it is too expensive.
|
|
|
|
Post by ntsf on Jul 16, 2025 19:08:47 GMT
it was so tough to buy a house when we did .. we didn't actually become too picky.. we did luck out in getting a detached house.. great street parking and a view of the ocean (couldn't see it through the trees when we bought). I wish the driveway was 2 ft longer so we could fit a car there. and there were lots of unknown problems with the house.. 40 yrs later are still waiting to correct. but it was the best purchase we could make.
it was a 2 bedroom 1 bath plus toilet house.. now it is 3 bedroom and 2 bath house.
|
|
|
|
Post by crazy4scraps on Jul 17, 2025 3:10:18 GMT
I caved on having a walk out basement and a bathroom down there. DH wishes he had even more garage space (he has three stalls now, my car occupies the 4th stall LOL).
|
|
scrappinwithoutpeas
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,215
Location: Northern Virginia
|
Post by scrappinwithoutpeas on Jul 17, 2025 4:12:09 GMT
A couple of things on our wish list that we didn't get in this house were a shady backyard, and a laundry room that was not in proximity to the kitchen. Our laundry room is situated close-ish to the doorway when you come in from the garage entry, and although not IN the kitchen, it is somewhat near the kitchen. But it is a separate room with a door we can close, so it wasn't a deal breaker! (I was just happy to have a laundry room with a door and a little bit of storage, bar for hanging clothes, etc... our last house had only a laundry "alcove"/area in the basement that was not closed off and had no door, storage or space to hang things.) We'd also have liked to not have an HOA, but that was not a huge deal as this one is manageable. (We didn't have an HOA in our old neighborhood but realized non-HOA neighborhoods are hard to come by in our area.) Our backyard here does have tall trees - they're beautiful and create a natural sort of fence surrounding the backyard...but they are closely spaced evergreens and do not provide space for a nice shady sitting area like I had wanted. But we have a sunroom so I'm not complaining! Neither of the above things were deal breakers on our original wish list. This house had so much more to offer that we had no problem with not getting those few details. The house checked ALL of our must-haves - and then provided some nice-to-have extras that we loved, some of which we hadn't even realized we wanted/needed/adored until we saw them. Like you mikklynn, we sometimes can't believe how awesome it is to be living here! Coming up on one year in the new house... |
|
scrappinwithoutpeas
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,215
Location: Northern Virginia
|
Post by scrappinwithoutpeas on Jul 17, 2025 4:15:11 GMT
I caved on having a walk out basement and a bathroom down there. DH wishes he had even more garage space (he has three stalls now, my car occupies the 4th stall LOL).I hear you! We were looking for at least a 2-car garage and ended up with a 3-car garage. I'm so glad we did because now there's space for 2 cars and a bunch of other stuff, mostly DH's. |
|
|
|
Post by busy on Jul 17, 2025 4:37:15 GMT
The western sun in the afternoon absolutely bakes the back of the house and its main living spaces. It has taken 20 years to get the trees tall enough to provide shade. Now the Peas tell me I have to worry about the trees falling on my house! No!!!! You don't need to worry about it. If they're only now tall enough to provide shade, that's not at all the kind of tree that freaks me out. I'm talking about 100'+ tall trees (and sometimes over 250'!) that are 5'-6' in diameter. They are massive an a single one falling the wrong way can do a lot of damage. But even then, the big ones don't fall very often - they've already survived hundreds of years, so they're solid. I just happened to have a childhood experience that left a major impression. |
|
|
|
Post by monklady123 on Jul 17, 2025 10:50:53 GMT
We have the smallest kitchen imaginable. Seriously. When people say they have a small kitchen but then post photos of their kitchen that has room for a table, well I just roll my eyes.  So I would have loved a bigger kitchen. But this house was in the neighborhood we wanted (ds had already started school, and I was involved in activities), and the price was right. So... 27 or so years later here we still are. |
|
|
|
Post by melanell on Jul 17, 2025 11:33:24 GMT
We have the smallest kitchen imaginable. Seriously. When people say they have a small kitchen but then post photos of their kitchen that has room for a table, well I just roll my eyes.  So I would have loved a bigger kitchen. But this house was in the neighborhood we wanted (ds had already started school, and I was involved in activities), and the price was right. So... 27 or so years later here we still are. LOL! We do have room for a table--sort of. We have to pull it away from the wall if 4 people want to sit instead of 3. But I do truly think we have less built-in cabinets than probably the vast majority of single family homes. I've seen teeny tiny apartment kitchens in cities with double the cabinets and counter space we have. Luckily we're all fine with using the table as a workspace. |
|
|
|
Post by guzismom on Jul 17, 2025 12:33:37 GMT
Our home was custom designed, so I got everything I wanted. I occasionally regret not paving the driveway and I wish I had chosen a different kitchen sink.
|
|
|
|
Post by supersoda on Jul 17, 2025 23:01:04 GMT
I did not want formal living and dining spaces. We don't need them and it's just wasted square footage I'd rather have elsewhere. It was impossible to find anything without formal living and dining space, so we have it whether we want it or not.
We also increased our budget on both of the homes we have had, and had no regrets either time.
|
|
|
|
Post by Delta Dawn on Jul 17, 2025 23:13:23 GMT
I needed to be close to both in town BFFs. I got exactly what I wanted. My dad got what he wanted. We both love living I. The area we line in.
My autocorrect is behaving badly and changing letters on me all the time. I am not that uneducated. It is doing it on it’s own!!!
|
|
Flat driveways are hard to come by here, and if someplace had one they often had other bigger deal breakers, so we'd pass on them. We found houses with no driveways and with shared driveways, and some with driveways that looked like ski slopes. Our is hilly, those were deadly!
So I would have loved a bigger kitchen. But this house was in the neighborhood we wanted (ds had already started school, and I was involved in activities), and the price was right. So... 27 or so years later here we still are. 
So I would have loved a bigger kitchen. But this house was in the neighborhood we wanted (ds had already started school, and I was involved in activities), and the price was right. So... 27 or so years later here we still are. 
