House Hunting

The House Hunting has begun! Two weeks ago, the Boy and I went to see our first round of houses. We saw 4 in total that night, and it was a little discouraging. We didn't see anything we really liked, and I was told over and over that with our price range, we may not get the bathroom and kitchen I wanted. Also, as a Property Virgin (house-wise), I wasn't sure how my approach would be when I started to see houses.

Well, that was settled immediately. Apparently, I walk through houses the same way I walk through museums. In a museum, I enter a room, take a quick inventory of what's in it, and move quickly out if I didn't find anything that captured my attention. When I do find a piece I admire, I will stand there for 10 minutes, staring at the painting/sculpture. Same thing when I house hunt.

I think I surprised both the Boy and the realtor after we walked into the first house and I immediately told them I didn't like it. The flow wasn't there. And because of that, I didn't want to spend too much time in it. Why? We still had 3 other houses to see. The Boy was taking a few photos and stopped him. There's no point - this is not the house. The thing I did take away from it, was learning why I didn't like it. For instance, I never knew how important the foyer was. Until I walked into a house that didn't have one.

The second outing was better. We saw 3 more houses and one of them was perfect! Huge size, everything upgraded and great flow. Could we have found a house already? Sadly, no. During this outing, we learned all about location. After a little chat with my Auntie, I learned that this house is right under the flight path. And in a neighbourhood that's not very desirable (being in the 'boonies' of Sauga). I likely wouldn't lose any money on the house, but I probably wouldn't make any either.

At this point, the Boy and I had some long conversations and crunched some more numbers. We realized that we could up our house budget. Originally, I wanted to save at least $25K for upgrades. However, we noticed that all the houses on MLS that were 25K over our original budget, were already redone/reno'ed. So we decided to up the budget and see some houses that were in better neighbourhoods.

The move paid off. This weekend, we are going to see some houses closer to the centre of Sauga. YAY.
There's even a couple we're excited about! Hopefully, the photos aren't stretched this time. I'll rant about that another time. :)