Does being CF affect how you househunt?

Let's get some traffic on this board!
This is for everyone that owns, looking to own, and thinking of owning a house. How does being CF affect what you look for in a house?

Me personally, I would like to have a 3 bedroom house. Master and guest room and an office. Amenities would include a pool or jacuzzi of some sort, and a basement or entertainment room for a billiards table and bar, but that's wishful thinking...

Re: Does being CF affect how you househunt?

I'd probably want a 2br/2ba coop/condo/townhouse. I wouldn't want to clean more than that.

Re: Does being CF affect how you househunt?

Well the best thing is you don't have to choose where you live by school districts! We have a small house now...but someday hope to move to New Hampshire maybe where i would like a big chunk of land...and a modest house w/ a decent master br..2 home offices...and a good size media room...oh and a workout room!

Re: Does being CF affect how you househunt?

well.. we're a little different in that we're only child free for now- we do plan to have at least one child at some point. So, when we were lookign, we did take space, school district, neighborhood in mind , even though at this point we don't have kids.
we kind of fell into our house- ILs had to move, so we decided to buy their house from them. Its in a nice, family friendly neighborhood, good schools... it has 3 bedrooms ( so one for us, a kid, and a guest room). it also has another bedroom sized room that has no heat in it ( so couldn't be a guest room) BUT we turned it into a library with lots of bookshelves and a couch in there. it also has a den area and we had my uncles build us a huge bar in there, AND ILs had added on a bigger kitchen, so we took all of the cabinets and stuff out of the old kitchen and turned it into our office.
So we definitely took spcae into account because we do plan to have kids.

Re: Does being CF affect how you househunt?

It definitely affected the things DH and I were looking for (or weren't looking for?) when we got our current house. It's small, far from family (across the country) and our work (an hour commute), we didn't think for a second about the local schools, and besides affordability, our primary concerns were layout (we wanted open, for easy socializing and parties) and a yard so we could get a dog.

Now that we're a few years older and children ARE a possibility, we're realizing we'd really need an additional bedroom, a basement would have been nice, being closer to family would be a big plus, and not having such a long commute to work would be better as well if we had little ones in daycare. Luckily we ended up in a great school district, so if we do have kids down the line and still live here, we won't have to worry about that aspect.

Either way, I love my house, but had we had children in mind, we might have chosen differently or even held off buying for a while longer until we could get something bigger.

Re: Does being CF affect how you househunt?

We didnt worry about buying in a 'Huge" school district.

we bought a house on a semi busy street and it didnt bother us. We know how to cross the street and not play in traffic!

Re: Does being CF affect how you househunt?

we chose our house based on how close it is to the office.
We redid it, and its 4 beds 3.5 baths pool, jacuzzi etc. and its just us

Re: Does being CF affect how you househunt?

We plan on having kids "someday" but for now our house is way too big. I wish we would have waited.

Re: Does being CF affect how you househunt?

Since our situation is different (we'd like to have kids but may not be able to) we did have kids in mind when househunting. But I will say this, no matter kids or not, you can never have too much space, especially closet/storage space, so don't skimp there!! Honestly, we wanted more house/less yard so that was our main factor when looking (I HATE yard work!!)

Re: Does being CF affect how you househunt?

Posted by KittyKatCopper

Well the best thing is you don't have to choose where you live by school districts!

Well for re-sale purposes it is a factor bc houses in good school districts sell for more (then again you pay more lol so maybe this does not make sense after all )

Re: Does being CF affect how you househunt?

We bought in a crappy district. ( or so I've been told.)
It's not really a concern for resale, b/c it is a co-op & small enough that a single or couple without kids would buy it, and there are a few kids that do actually go to the local school or to the parochial school, so its; not like no one would want to live here.

We could probably have 1 kid here for a while, but after a while or more than 1 kid, we'd run out of room.

If/when we move, I'd like to know where we stand on the kid issue, b/c school districts really affect price a lot around here, and if I don't have to worry about it , I won't.

Re: Does being CF affect how you househunt?

Definitely. We have lived primarily in inner city transitional neighborhoods -- where the houses have a ton of character but the school districts are pretty terrible. If we had kids, we'd either have to send them to private schools or move to the suburbs -- and neither option is all that attractive to me for various reasons.

Also, not having kids means I can live in a small cozy home with modest square footage and lessen my impact on the earth.

Re: Does being CF affect how you househunt?

It didnt b/c even if we never have children - most people buying houses DO have children so we wanted to stay in a place where it would be easy to resell to a family.

Plus we wont move far from our family or anything like that so that wouldnt change even if we did have kids.

Re: Does being CF affect how you househunt?

We didn't think about it too much. We picked our house based on location, price, layout, space & proximity to the LIRR since I work in manhattan. But I think we're in a decent school district.

Re: Does being CF affect how you househunt?

I am looking where we can afford, what the neighborhood offers us currently and we then consider school district as the last element since we are unsure of kids now. 2+ bedrooms we would like 3, since one would be a office and one bedroom would be a spare and one master.

I find it funny that some people will buy a house that overextends their finances so they are in an "amazing school district." I realize being in a horrible SD is bad if you plan on reproducing but why kill yourself to be in "the best" SD when really it boils down to part SD and mainly your parenting on how successful a child is.

Re: Does being CF affect how you househunt?

Re: Does being CF affect how you househunt?

well yea if you have shootings at gang violence in a certain SD then I wouldn't want to move there because typically there is a high crime rate all around.

Re: Does being CF affect how you househunt?

Re: Does being CF affect how you househunt?

We are in the process of buying a house. We did research the school district to an extend but only for resale value.

Because we were OK with only having a 2br (this will be guess/office) we were able to afford a fully detached house on Staten island as opposed to a fully attached house that we would have only been able to afford if we needed an extra br.

Re: Does being CF affect how you househunt?

Not really. When you aren't having kids you don't have to worry about school districts, but at the same time- all of the "nice" neighborhoods were the ones with the good School districts anyway.
So we ended up in a good SD anyway.

And we have 3 bedrooms and need every one- even without kids- because without a basement those rooms serve as storage, a gym, a computer room, etc...

Re: Does being CF affect how you househunt?

We were looking at areas and the taxes seemed inflated. When I asked here, I found out that they were in the Three Village SD which has a great reputation.

So we stopped looking there.

I mean, typically the neighborhoods that have good/great SD's are also the ones that are well kept, less crime, less unsavory commercial properties. But I can see that for myself, you know?

We were looking at houses with no basements, because we didn't see the need since we would only use it for storage anyway. We wound up with an unfinished basement but only 2 bedrooms. Obviously not the kind of house a family would need.

We do plan on adding a 3rd room and billing it as a "first house" when we sell for people starting a family because it's really affordable utility/tax wise and it's not even a 1/2 mile from the elementary school.

Message edited 4/22/2009 7:37:04 PM.

Re: Does being CF affect how you househunt?

DH and I are planning to have kids sometime so it did a little bit - but for resale value, I wanted a good neighborhood with good schools and not a busy street.

But our house has a strange layout - the master is on one side and the other 2 bedrooms are on the other side. And a few people were like... if you have kids, you won't want them so far away from you. But we bought the house anyway! It was still our fave.

Re: Does being CF affect how you househunt?

Since we don't have kids yet we went with a coop, we did get a 2 bedroom...the extra room is great and when we do have a baby we won't need to run out so quick

Re: Does being CF affect how you househunt?

I wanted to add, When we were house hunting back in 06, I did not want a corner house, because i grew up on a corner, and HATED not having a backyard, and only a side yard.
I also was opposed to living near a busy street, i grew up 2 houses in from a very busy intersection, and it was never quiet, and at night when tractor trailers would go by my whole bed would shake.

I know people dont want to buy on a busy street if they have kids, but i didnt want it because i wanted peace and quiet and didnt want to have the sound of cars going by day and night.

Re: Does being CF affect how you househunt?

Message edited 9/17/2011 1:25:14 AM.