House Shopping 101

So with nothing better to do this Sunday afternoon we took the kids and went to a few open houses. The kids enjoyed it, they actually asked to go, after we went to one down the street last week.  -- the one last week was towards the end of the typical open house times and I was noisy.

All of the ones we went to were just a few miles from our home. So it let us see what the going market is like, little bit bigger homes, and a rough idea of if we were in the market for a new home what he want or do not want.

A few things we learned:

• We want mature trees; Several of the properties we did not like do to the lack of trees, shade, etc.  I guess 10 years on a somewhat wooded lot will do that to you. We have several mature trees on our lot and our property line. So the lack of trees and shade on some of these houses was like Oh My Gosh!
• Bigger bedrooms; While all the homes we looked at had a good size family room, living room, dining and a plus for us seeing our current home is only 900 square feet, I would like bigger bedrooms.  Several of the homes while boasting to have nearly 3,000 sq feet had bedrooms that were really no bigger then our current bedrooms. One of the houses was 2000 sq feet and couple of the bedrooms even seemed smaller then what we have now.
• Having a basement would be nice!
• And the kids no matter the price or what the rest of the house is like is going to want the one with the pool! -- never mind the pool took nearly the whole yard. They want the pool.

It was fun to take them looking around. It was also fun after that was done to talk to them about prices, finances, cost, monthly payments and how to determine if something is actually affordable for you.

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