? for those who have houses or are househunting

Has/Had this process caused a rift or a level of stress between you and your spouse. My DH is NOT speaking to me right now because I didn't like either of the 2 houses we saw last evening and he is dissapointed in me

Accused me of being a prima donna. I just don't get it. I have always thought that when you stepped into the hous you get a 'feeling' that this is YOUR house. Am I living in fantasy land

Michelle, while I haven't gone through the house hunting nightmare yet, I just wanted to give you my support!!! Like I told you in my email, this has happened to friends of mine and it isn't always as easy as people think! Be strong and you WILL find a house that BOTH of you will like! And IMHO, you are totally entitled to be a prima donna in this situation!

Michelle please do a search on this topic that I just posted about DH and I signing a contract on a house and I thought I would get a greater response because we have been bickering back and forth and everytime we talk about the 'house' it's an arguement, everytime! NOT to mention we signed and put the first of our 20% down payment, not 10% like I suggested on my birthday! so needless to say my birthday was the most stressful day of my life, we fought all the way to the lawyers office. Gee I thought it was only me, thanks for sharing because this kind of purchase make tempertures rise!

Looking for and then buying a house is EXTREMELY stressful. We actually looked for over 2 YEARS before we found THE house. And believe me, we were both aggrevated with each other many times during that process!! But when we did finally find the house, we absolutely 'knew' it the minute we walked in. I believe you will know. Then begins the stress of closing - the money, the paperwork, etc. Then the stress of fixing it up, cleaning, decorating, everything!! Believe me, what is happening is normal! Just remember that this is the biggest purchase you will ever make and its important to support each other (even when you are making each other NUTS!!) Good Luck in your hunt!

This is exactly why I looked at all of the houses and only brought my DH to the ones I liked!! Hee Hee. j/k

Seriously, though, it's a big deal and if you can't see yourself living there then that's it!! Fortunately, we both wanted the same thing in a house so when I saw the 'one', I made the offer without him!!

Steve will be so happy you didn't choose one of the 2 last night when you find the right one!! Hang in there!!

When you are going to be paying for something for the next 30 years and spending as much money as it costs to live here you need to BOTH wantto live in the house. Is the problem that you have the vision of a $400K home and not the budget for one? That happens to a lot of couples. One person has very high expectations such as a certain amount of property or huge country kitchen with all of the top appliances but they simply cannot afford to purchase a home like that. Maybe you and your DH should discuss the type of home you are looking for. I bet you are not on the same page. He might be thinking, 'We can make this house a nice home' while you are thinking, 'This house needs a ton of work that neither of us can do'
Just looking in the paper at homes is stressful to me! I cannot imagine actually looking at them yet.

My hubby says that I have to look ahead and try to picture the house with our things in it...YUCk, some people live like slobs, nothing can get my mind off of that. They lie in their descriptions of the houses too, so disappointing. So what hubby does is, when he finds one that he think is up to my standards he make an appt for us to see it together.

I refuse to move from where we are to a smaller place that is just plain ridiculous.

Michelle, be patient with each other. You will find the 'one' and you both will know. Its like when you both found each other or when you knew your wedding dress was the one.

Take care and all the best

For us, it was not so much 'this is the one' (that house would be far out of our budget) but more like 'this could work, yes - this could work!'

I had accepted a job in NY and we were moving from MA and I only had 90 days in a corporate apartment, so we did not have the luxury of time in looking a lot. Our main goals were decent town, at least a quarter acre, and aiming for over 2000 sq. feet of living space excluding basement.

We too saw a lot of horrible houses - self-renovations where the owner should NEVER have been allowed to pick up a hammer! Others had a bad layout, small rooms, rental units (ie: garage or basement apt. which we did not want) and so forth.

What we ended up with is a fixer upper that needed TLC, not undoing what the previous owner had screwed up on a half acre with about 2300 sq. feet. Now we have a lot of work to paint, fix moldings, etc. but the key things were good - new windows, decent layout, not too much to 'un-do' etc. Hubby still keeps saying that he wanted a condo (yeah, like we could entertain all 25 of his family members in a condo!) He hates the work, but since I'm the handy one anyway, I'm doing the majority of it. When it's all done, we'll have a great house that we could sell for a lot more if we wanted to.

One thing that worked for us is to talk about what 'worked' or 'did not work' for us in the houses we saw. I recall one that hubby liked that I thought was just OK. He liked the fact that there was not much work to do (that he could see) I hated the hard ceramic (grey) tiles that were in every downstairs room. He also didn't see what bad shape the moldings were in, or the goofy rigging for the shelving in the kitchen, etc. He liked the big bedroom and private bathroom but overlooked the fact that the bathroom was so small you could not turn around and the closets looked liket he shelving was constructed by a blind 6 year old.

We found the 'best' houses by working with realtors that showed us newly listed houses, and by going after the 'by owner' houses in Newsday. Pay attention to the New Listings box in Newsday on Friday - we saw a couple of nice houses we found in there too.

Good luck!

Michelle, I know how you feel. It's not easy or fun to look, but I can honestly tell you that the very first time I walked into our house I felt at home. It DOES happen. Don't settle, no matter what. Aside from having to pay for it, you are going to raise your family there, so it needs to feel comfortable and cozy.

Yeah its definately adding to the stress. John loves every house that has a finished basement and not much work to be done. It dosent matter what size the room are or what the property is like. I know he is thinking big screen and football when he sees those finished basements. I tend to look at everything else.

Hang in there the right house will come along for each of us.

I have to agree with Karen H ... our dream house ( a house in East Williston) is out of our reach right now! And maybe for a really long time but what was important, atleast to me, was to be like 10 minutes from my mother. I think it was more me, who wanted to stay in Nassau County (which gives you an old house with little property and a lot of work)!
My mother doesn't like to drive and to move far from her (NHP) would be such a hassle for me, since most likely, she will help me out with the kids! Plus, I wanted to still be near all our friends (who in the surrounding areas) and my grandparents.
When I walked into the house that we are buying - I saw the potential and remembered that as we moved along the house. The price that we got it for, was good for the area, and the convenience to the train is wonderful! We love the block and we checked out the neighbors (which was important to us) and everyone seemed so very nice! We checked out the schools, again important to us - and we don't need to move until high school (or send them to a private high school)!
But most of all, I looked at the house and asked myself ... okay, if you had to stay here for the rest of your life, would you be happy? And I said yes! You never know what the future brings and who knows if we'll be able to afford to move up or not and the worst thing then, is to be in a house that you hate!
The house needs work and TLC, but my husband and family are very handy -- especially my Dad, he can fix and do anything! So, it worked for us!
It stinks for all of us because we are at a peak market and the prices are so high for old stuff. My DH was ready to move further out or out of state -- but you'll find it! We didn't look for to long and didn't expect to find it so quickly, but you'll find it!

Plus, in yesterday's WSJ -- there was an article about house prices and if we are in a bubble about to burst ... it was a great read. But can you believe that prices in Long Island have gone up 81%! You would never believe it - but we all live in a predominately upper middle class area!

Michelle -
we looked at 40 houses untill we got the feeling...We just walked into the backyard and my DH and I just knew...
We saw some crazy houses and some i would not even let a mouse live in them they were so bad,,,
Trust me you will know when the house 'feel right...

Jenn

Michelle, DONT SETTLE ! Its OK to not agree on everything, thats why we balance eachother out!
I did feel that comfy cozy feeling when I saw the house we have purchased. I think DH was pickier than me in alot of cases. If he saw that the backyard wasnt big enough or wasnt totally private, he was turned off instantly. Corner houses where the backyard is out for everyone to peek in on, NO WAY ! and it didnt matter how gorgeous the inside was or what area or price... So I was a bit more the one that was annoyed as we looked.
Neither of us was picky as far as what area, since we were not very familiar with LI Towns in specific, we just took the adivce of RE Agents on school districts and long term potential of an area staying 'a good area'.....

As alot of the girls said, make a list of what you both want, and see what you agree on and what is more important to one of you. Also, try to decide on the fact of whether this is a starter home (some prices for starter homes !!!) or if this is the house that you will invest lots of money in and make YOUR OWN over your lifetime. We bought with the idea in mind that this is where we will raise our kids, invest money on renovations over the years and be here for a long long time... (oK, maybe till retirement).. That being said, you can look at the work that needs to be done and be fine with it, since you will be doing it to your liking, to your LONG TERM home, and of course you will be increasing the value of the home too.

YOu deserve to LOVE AND WANT the house you want. Again, there will be things you might not like, even in 'THE HOUSE' that is THE ONE. I love my home, but i never loved the color of the carpets, and some of the colors of the walls and a few other things here and there... all things that can be redone, and the pros by far outweight the cons, and we knew THIS WAS IT !

GOOD LUCK and keep us posted !!

DeniseMang,

That's hard to say ... and if you read many different articles, they all say something else. I battled with this question over and over.

The WSJ thinks that we are in a bubble - but it's no way near the stock market -- the housing market will never crash like the stock market. It predicts that there will be slower growth instead of a tumbling down of prices, in certain areas - i.e. Long Island. So instead of a 20% growth in 6 months, there maybe a 5-7% growth and so on. It goes on to say that incomes and house prices are not on the same level and a lot of new buyers are out of the market because of this! In addition, mortgage banks many not be so eager to lend out money to the 'not so qualified buyers' - because there is an increase % of default loans. We also are still hearing about layoffs.

Now, it's all speculation - it always is and it's a question that you need to answer yourself. I can show you articles that say there is no bubble (Kiplingers - this month)!

I think that we are leveling off and houses have been on the market longer than we have. I also think, that if you find a great buy - you make out because interest is low. Do I think that people are paying much more for houses then they are worth ... absolutely. But I don't think they are going to tumble (not like you buy a house today for $400 and it's worth $300 next month). I think the prices will be more in line to what it's worth. So, if a house is asking $399 and it's really worth $360 - I think it may sell for more of what it's worth - who determines worth is another issue.

Of course this can all change depending on what happens with war, the economy, interest rates ... etc!

Good Luck with your search.

Cira

We've been looking since March. We've seen some real nasty houses and some that we could have purchased but there were things that we were not able to change- like location, a noisy street behind it. We keep reminding ourselves that we could have bought ANY of these houses but we're being selective. With the money we're looking to spend, we cannot afford a lot of renovation and a good school district is important to me. We're noticing overpriced houses being on the market longer and we're hoping that every little bit of extra savings will make us that much more ready for when we do find OUR house. We know our house is out there...we just have to find it!