Re: What were your "deal breakers" when looking at homes?

Posted by Goldi0218

Posted by MrsFlatbread

Posted by Goldi0218

Posted by MrsFlatbread

Posted by Goldi0218

Thanks everyone. Most of those things are on our list too. There were other things that we saw that didn't " do it" for us either like location of the boiler in the basement, galley-type of kitchen, no family room.

I'm still pumped about searching though. At almost 40 years old, I finally feel like a grown up.

OH yeah...and I think you should consider a home not being in the Smithtown Vicinity a deal breaker!

We are NOT I repeat NOT crossing the county line. Sorry.

Well, then I think Syosset would be the best alternative!

You need to be kicked.

Re: What were your "deal breakers" when looking at homes?

Deal Breakers:

-No major road/busy road
-Needed at least .25 of an acre
-Minimum 3 bedrooms-had to be good size and on same level of house.
-Needed a garage-2 car garage even better
-Wanted a basement-our house wound up having everything but the basement.
-No split level-only bc I didn't feel like I would use the bottom level of the house properly.

There were more, but I took it on a case by case basis.

Re: What were your "deal breakers" when looking at homes?

Had to have:
garage
basement with 7ft. ceilings or higher
a quiet street
at least 3 bedrooms
at least 1.5 baths
lots of closets
an attic

If it didn't have any of these, it was a deal breaker.

Message edited 3/1/2010 11:50:52 AM.

Re: What were your "deal breakers" when looking at homes?

Deal breakers for us included the following.

NO Double yellow lined roads
No basement
No "funky" neighbors/houses
NO commercial property on the block
NO schools on the block or behind the house
NO yard.

The house we *finally* are getting meets ALL of our criteria.

Re: What were your "deal breakers" when looking at homes?

We didn't have too many dealbreakers identified when we bought our house, but going forward if we were to buy again, these would be on the list...

-No basement
-No garage (at least 1-car)
-No yard/tiny yard
-A technically "cosmetic" issue that would actually require a whole lot of work to fix (i.e. Spanish tile throughout the entire ground floor that would have to be jackhammered up; walls that we would like to remove, etc.)

Also, we walked away from a lovely house once because the next door neighbors had a full on aviary in the backyard. TONS of birds in all kinds of cages making all kinds of noise. No thank you.

Re: What were your "deal breakers" when looking at homes?

My "deal breakers" drastically changed with the house I just bought.

I wanted a cheap house that I could immediately dormer. So my deal breakers were (well actually my MUST HAVES):

CHEAP house (the more original - the better)
Full basement (eliminated splits)
Good location, away from main roads.
Good SD
Attached Garage

And most importantly I wanted to buy in a neighborhood that could support the dormer market wise.

Basically I wanted to make sure that I was buying into a neighborhood that had houses in the 600k and up range (AND selling in that range) since that is probably what my house will be worth after I am done with it.

I was originally looking in Wantagh and Massapequa, but I decided on Plainview/Old Bethpage instead since I felt the median house price in Plainview/Old Bethpage was higher than Massapequa/Wantagh (when you eliminate the Shores). It also helped that I found a nice dump in Plainview / Old Bethpage that fit the profile of the house I was looking at. If I would have found something in Wantagh first, i'd probably be there instead.

All of my other "must haves" I was able to simply build into my dormer (like a ridiculous gormet kitchen, huge master suite, three bathrooms, large living room, etc.)

Message edited 3/1/2010 12:00:59 PM.

Re: What were your "deal breakers" when looking at homes?

Originally - No major road - but as you've been to our house, you know we are on a major road, but we are really set back far so we were able to overlook that.

We needed to have a finished basement

move in condition

attached garage - no driveway sharing (one of the towns we looked at many of the houses shared a driveway with separate garages)

Central Air - or a house that we wouldn't have to gut to put central air in (lots of the houses we looked at were OLD)

Since this was going to be our forever home we also wanted

4 bedrooms
at least 2 full baths
good school district
easy access to the train - no more than 30 minutes from NYC.

Re: What were your "deal breakers" when looking at homes?

for us it is all about location, as long as the house has potential we will overlook a lot)

1. Great SD
2. No double yellow lines
3. Decent lot size

Re: What were your "deal breakers" when looking at homes?

Dealbreakers:

School district
Had to have a working fireplace
at least 2 full bathrooms
basement
stairs up to a full attic - no pull down stairs
at least 3 bedrooms.
No busy street

I grew up on a dead end street and was hoping that we might find a house on one as well. We ended up finding our house on a dead end - love it.

Re: What were your "deal breakers" when looking at homes?

I forgot to add it had to have 3 bedrooms or more and more then 1 bathroom, I wouldn't see any houses with 1 bath, its just not an option for me.

Re: What were your "deal breakers" when looking at homes?

Re: What were your "deal breakers" when looking at homes?

Deal breakers for us were: a garage, basement (not necessarily finished), more than one bathroom. When we purchased our home, our family consisted of DH, me and 3 SC. Now, 2.5 years later, we have 5 DCs total. If we didn't have more than one bathroom and a basement (that is used as the SCs playroom) I would have thrown myself out a window.

TBH, our house is way too small... built in 1916 with tiny rooms, but is in a great SD and we love the neighborhood. It was a good deal at the time and money is tight, so we will probably be here for a long, long time.

Here is some unsolicited advice: Get the most room you can afford. Even if your family remains to be 3 people, you will be suprised how much space you will crave and need when you are able to spread out a bit. Best of luck on your search!

Message edited 3/1/2010 4:48:34 PM.

Re: What were your "deal breakers" when looking at homes?

Our deal breakers:
- less than 4 bedrooms, 2 baths (both of our families are OOS and it's nice for them to have their own room when they visit)
- near commercial property
- busy roads
- no storage space (closets, etc)
- no basement
- no garage
- at least .25 acre


We got everything we wanted with the very first house. Two of our bedrooms are on the small side but they have great closets and we figured that we'd have a playroom in the basement eventually for the toys and we'd keep the bedrooms for relaxing and sleeping.

Re: What were your "deal breakers" when looking at homes?

not on a main or busy street
not on a corner
not backing or facing any major streets
not across the street or backing a school

Re: What were your "deal breakers" when looking at homes?

The number one thing for us is the area. We wanted a certain town and SD. This was the biggest deal breaker and I think we could have settled on a lot of other things if this was right.

Other than that, we wanted at least 1.5 bathrooms. We wanted an open floor plan for when we entertain - we have big families and a lot of friends that we like to have over. We feel an open floorplan is better for resale value as well.

We also had a very strict budget that we didn't have a lot of wiggle room with. So, we stuck to that. The important thing for us was finding a place that didn't need a lot of work. We don't have the time or money right now to be renovating. I would love to renovate but not on our first place - when we move from our Condo to a Home then we will but for now, that wasn't something we could do.

Other than that, I can't think of much. We wanted at least two bedrooms for our starter place. That's about it. Aside from the obvious - it must be a Condo. We wanted that for our first place, no doubt about it!

Re: What were your "deal breakers" when looking at homes?

Garage (once we started to find that 2 car garages were in our price range, it was great!)

Basement

Laundry facilities

No double yellow street/busy intersection

Not backing a highway or potentially loud/dangerous park (we looked at a house that backed a softball field...)

Ones you mentioned-school district, etc.

Not too close to a place where kids would congregate late at night (we're old souls, haha, what can we tell you??)

It is exciting to house hunt...have fun!!!

Nice bonuses:
inground sprinklers
garage door opener on the outside (with keypad..don't know how common this is-just happened to be on our house)
Central Air

ETA A minimum of 2-2.5 baths since we were coming from an apt. with 2 bathrooms already...

Message edited 3/1/2010 9:32:37 PM.