A question for you ladies and gents that have bought or are in contract
Kriss2c
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A question for you ladies and gents that have bought or are in contract
How did you know that was the house for you. I have a feeling, it's a 'you just know' kind of deal, but I want to see if there are any of you that used some sort of deductive reasoning or something.
Going thru a tough time right now, so any help will be appreciated. Thanks.
Niecey
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Re: A question for you ladies and gents that have bought or are in contract
Mostly you just know - For us we weren't in a rush to buy but had been looking for a couple months to see what was out there and figure out what town we wanted to live in and seen tons of houses and lots of junk. So we went to this open house and loved the house but had a couple reservations, felt it may not be the right time, etc. So we kept looking and for some reason we kept saying, let's drive past that house. So we just kept coming back to it. So one nice day we past it and wound up DH casually knew the guy across the street so we stopped to chat. The owner of the house recognized us and came out to see what was up and next thing we knew they answered questions that we had reservations about and we were buying the house.
But besides the coincidences and the outta know feeling. The house met many of our basic requirements, nice town, commutable to NYC (less than 50 min by LIRR to Penn on a local was our limit), 4 bedroom, decent property, in our price range, decent yard, etc.
Kathy116
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Re: A question for you ladies and gents that have bought or are in contract
The MOMENT WE PULLED INTO THE DRIVEWAY, WE KNEW!!!! We looked at each other and said, 'THIS IS IT'....my exact words to my DH were, 'Don't mess this up!' We didn't even have to go inside the house (we, what we cared about was the waterfrontage, not really the house), so when we saw the LI Sound surrounding the property, we knew we found IT!
We offered asking price, didn't want to play any games, especially since there was another couple interested who made an offer (and we knew this house/property was undervalued)...to make a long story short..every time I pull up in my driveway, HONESTLY, I still get that feeling of, 'WOW'
Kriss2c
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Re: A question for you ladies and gents that have bought or are in contract
Thanks Niecey, that helps a bit.
Niecey
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Re: A question for you ladies and gents that have bought or are in contract
Posted by Kriss2c
Thanks Niecey, that helps a bit.
Glad to be of assistance. I can tell you a year later we wonder now and then but we are pretty happy with our decision.
Kriss2c
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Re: A question for you ladies and gents that have bought or are in contract
Posted by Kathy116
The MOMENT WE PULLED INTO THE DRIVEWAY, WE KNEW!!!! We looked at each other and said, 'THIS IS IT'....my exact words to my DH were, 'Don't mess this up!' We didn't even have to go inside the house (we, what we cared about was the waterfrontage, not really the house), so when we saw the LI Sound surrounding the property, we knew we found IT!
From what you have described here and from previous posts, your house sounds amazing. Thanks.
Kathy116
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Re: A question for you ladies and gents that have bought or are in contract
Are you seeing many homes that just don't do it for you?
We went through some of that as well...we had realtors show us 'waterfront/view' homes that were NOT!
We went through this and it was depressing...we even had someone tell us we'd never find what we wanted for what we wanted to spend...I was so upset. Then this came along.
So, keep looking, don't get discouraged, so many people have to sift through the 'bad ones' to find their gem.
Kriss2c
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Re: A question for you ladies and gents that have bought or are in contract
I wish we had that kind of time. Right now we are living in my parent's old home on LI. FH works in northern Jersey and his job is really starting to put the pressure on him to get something local. We have been looking for almost a year already, had three deals fall thru on us. Now we have offers in on two houses that have a lot potential but just don't scream out to either of us. Now add on top of all this that the wedding is less than a month away, I'm just a mess. We are fighting and I'm just too tired to deal with all of this.
Kathy116
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Re: A question for you ladies and gents that have bought or are in contract
I'm sorry
I don't think investing in a home is ever a bad thing...even if it's not 'The One' you can stay there for a few years and sell it...even 5 years, and make a profit...you'll get a nice income tax check back because of closing costs etc.
It is a lot to go through right now with your wedding being so close...take a deep breath, if possible, go to a spa for a bit with some good friends and get a massage. Things will work out.
Melissa
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Re: A question for you ladies and gents that have bought or are in contract
The house we're currently buying, when I walked in, I loved it. I was able to picture my son running around in his diaper, and his little feet smacking against the hardwood floors, I was able to picture where the Xmas tree was going, etc. In the backyard, I was able to picture him running around and playing. It just felt like home. It was so comfortable. I didn't think I'd like it, before we got there because it's built in 1978, that right there, I never wanted an older house. Since I'm from LI and everything is older, I always wanted to buy a new house, and down here in NC you can! Well, we looked at a new house, and I just had that 'not sure' feeling. I was having more thoughts of 'well, maybe this, maybe that, what about this..' I didn't have definite thoughts. I couldn't picture the future too well in that one. It wasn't homey, and it wasn't as comfortable. I also had to go back there 3 times to see it, and I still wasn't happy. Everyone's situation is different. Our first reason on buying a house was to just be able to take out a loan to pay off our credit cards. I thought, well if it's not exactly what I want, that's fine, since we're just trying to reduce our debt that way. Now I love the house we're buying, but it's not in the area I want, or in the school district I want, but my son is only 7.5 months old, so by the time he goes to school, we can buy something in the neighborhood and school district I want for him. It's a nice neighborhood, but not in the town I wanted. That's something I can deal with for now. But the house, I definitely love. I'm still not sure being that it's such a big purchase, but, you'll get 'That' feeling. Whatever it is for you, you should get that when you walk in, or as someone else said, when you drive up! Good luck!
goingtobemrs
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Re: A question for you ladies and gents that have bought or are in contract
A lot of my friends who bought houses says in the beginning they were picky and then quickly realized they couldn't afford the ones that grabbed their attention and switched their mentality to 'what can we afford'. Scary!
skew
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Re: A question for you ladies and gents that have bought or are in contract
we are house hunting as well and i agree that it will be just an 'this is it' feeling once we find the home. we definetly have certain criteria (4+ bdrms, 2+ bths, colonial, no new construction i.e 'cookie cutter', cac, .50+ acre property, pool, good SD etc) which i think will make our search a little more difficult, but we are willing to buy a less than mint condition home and we are patient.
take advantage of the open houses in the areas that you are looking. there are a great opprtunity to view the different styles, floor plans, condition, property size, and amenties that are being offered in various price ranges. i have looked at homes from 450K - 1.4M (not that we are able even thinking of spending that much on our first house) and it is great to compare all the homes. always remember that a home is an investment and no home will be 100% perfect. there will ALWAYS be something (even as little as painting the front door) that you will want to change.
good luck!
Chloegirl
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Re: A question for you ladies and gents that have bought or are in contract
We are in contract now and I definitely felt the same way.
We were so specific in what we wanted and to make it harder it had to be within 3 blocks of the LIRR....so that really made it difficult to find 'The One'!
But we did....we had even seen everything on the market and were sure this would be a LONG process. THEN, on my DH bday he saw an ad in the paper, we went to the open house and we fell in love. Knew right away this is where I must live. I told my DH to do whatever it takes to get it. We were bidding against 3 other couples...it was a tough process...but we close on or about 10/15!
Good Luck...and just as Kathy116 said, this doesn't have to be a life long comitment....we are buying to only stay for about 5 years.
Kelly9904
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Re: A question for you ladies and gents that have bought or are in contract
I can totally sympathize with you! I thought we would never find ahouse! We looked for about 6 months and didnt find 1 we even wanted to put a bid on! It was really frustrating! When we saw our house, DH went first during the day, and he loved it! He just totally knew. We went back that night, and I was hesitant! BUt then I went down a mental list of things I wanted, 3 bedrooms, nice yard, basement, garage, 2 baths, minimal renovations needed. And I realized this house had 10x more than any of the other houses we looked at and it was in our price range, and it has some things that were on my wish list, like central air. I love my house, its not my forever home so to me I could compromise some things, but with this house I also feel that if it needs to be my forever house it could be and that was also important!
swags1016
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Re: A question for you ladies and gents that have bought or are in contract
When I found this house, we had just lost another house that I thought was perfect. In reality it was cute and probably the cleanest of what we seen to that point, anyways I was on MLSLI and I saw our house on MLSLI and I e-mail my realtor immediately and told her I want this house! I showed the picture to DH and told him this is the house. There were no additional pictures just the front. I had no idea about the neighborhood or the inside, property anything but this house screamed to me. When we pulled up the neighborhood wasn't what we had dream (tree lined culd-sac) but it was a nice neighborhood not too far from main roads. When we walked in that was it! I loved it!! Frankie and I both loved the house for so many different reasons and we agreed this was better than the house we lost and we could live here forever and never have to move! This was not a starter home this was our long term house!!
Did we have doubts of course, there were times, but when you are spending over 300k on a house I think that is natural. It's a lot of money. But like Kathy said every time I pull into my driveway I am happy again!!
Editted due to my horrible spelling.
butterfly20
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Re: A question for you ladies and gents that have bought or are in contract
well there was one house before the current one that fh and i both liked, and our bid wasnt high enough, then the current house came up, fh and i both liked the house right away, and it had pretty much everything we were looking for.
edited to add, the day we looked/bid/got the house, in the morning i was telling fh you cant expect to get a house with a basement, and br's on second level, and 2 bathrooms, and backyard for the price we are looking at...telling him to give up the basement or the second floor, and we ended up with both and more...
LisaT
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Re: A question for you ladies and gents that have bought or are in contract
we certainly did NOT get a 'THIS IS IT' feeling, it was more like it grew on us.
The house we are now in contract with, was one of the first houses we saw months ago. We liked it, thought it was a good deal for the size, but we weren't immediately in love.
It wasn't until months later, after seeing tons of CRAP (half the house for the same price), that we realized how fantastic this house really was (and bonus: by that time the price had dropped $20K).
We DID put offers on other houses that we had gotten immediately excited about after seeing them, and ended up retracting the accepted offers on each one (3 of them).
'Our' house, we saw three times over the course of 2-3 months, before we knew it was the ONE. And we haven't wavered from that feeling since.
Good luck!
DjPiLL
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Re: A question for you ladies and gents that have bought or are in contract
I was in a more interesting situation. When I was selling my 1br and moving into a 2br... it was a very stressful time. I am definitely one of those guys that had 'issues' about the place I was buying... but i took a chance and it worked out nice.
When I started looking for a 2br... i put my 1br on the market. I figured it would take some time to sell my 1br because I had no prior experience of selling, I was doing a FSBO, and I had the smallest model 1br that my complex offers.
I figured I would easily find my 2br way before I sold the 1br for the price I wanted. Well low and behold that wasn't the case cause my 1br generated HUGE interest. I had some very nice offers that I was considering... then somebody offered me asking price (on a 1br co-op). His offer was about 8% higher than the next highest bidder. I didn't want to lose his offer because I didnt have a new place lined up... so I sortof 'rushed' finding a new place.
I picked out a 2br model in my same complex that week. It was in decent shape but it wasn't nearly as nice as some of the other models I saw that were priced a lot higher. I took a chance and bought it figuring it had a lot of potential and I could customize it the way I wanted... and I also figured the value would go up.
Well a year later... I put about 10k into it... and its currently worth at least 30k more than what I paid for it. I fixed it up real nice... and IMO it looks better now than any other co-op I saw when I was looking (even better than the really nice ones I saw a year ago).
A happy ending indeed for somebody that wasn't even 100% sure about the place... but took a chance cause it had 'potential'.
butterfly20
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Re: A question for you ladies and gents that have bought or are in contract
Posted by DjPiLL
A happy ending indeed for somebody that wasn't even 100% sure about the place... but took a chance cause it had 'potential'.
Definately very important to keep in mind potential....... the first house we bid on, was because of the potential....
julz33
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Re: A question for you ladies and gents that have bought or are in contract
Posted by butterfly20
Posted by DjPiLL
A happy ending indeed for somebody that wasn't even 100% sure about the place... but took a chance cause it had 'potential'.
Definately very important to keep in mind potential....... the first house we bid on, was because of the potential....
