So my husband and I are going to buy a house. Well, hopefully…that’s the plan anyway. But that’s beside the point.
When we found our realtor and he began sending us housing listings online I thought, “This should be pretty simple right?” He sends us information with rooms, sizes, pictures, short descriptions and so on. I figured that with all the pictures, I would easily be able to knock out houses that just looked awful, and only visit the ones that LOOKED to be a better fit for us. Yeah… that was silly. Talk about false advertising!
Okay, so maybe it’s not “false” but some of those listings are pretty tricky. I saw pictures of sun-filled rooms, new appliances, spacious back yards and more. I was really excited on our first day of home viewing, with my binder of notes to help me make my final decisions. My excitement quickly faltered, however, when I reality set in. Those sun-filled rooms turned into huge 50-year old windows that ALL needed to be replaced, new appliances that weren’t included with the purchase, and spacious backyards with power lines running so low even I could probably reach them with my 5’0’’ frame. I might need a running start… but you get the idea.
After a while you begin to catch on to the housing lingo as well. “Charming” houses are old, “cozy” houses are tiny, “tucked-away” means secluded, ”new” means year 2000, “updated” means one countertop in a kitchen, and “decorated” means, ‘ew, what were these home owners thinking?!
I finally decided to look at a few of the houses with the not-so-good pictures. Surprisingly, they ended up much better than the other houses. I guess they just didn’t pick up on the simple camera tricks that the other house sellers did so well with. Just goes to show that good “advertising” might get people to a good product… but bad advertising might keep people away from an amazing one.
We still haven’t found anything that’s specifically piqued our “oh-my-gosh-I-want-to-make-an-offer-right-now” interest, but we are learning a lot of what we can get and what we’ll have to compromise on. Or maybe we should think about getting a condo instead. Oh well, I guess we’ll find out eventually.
February 21st, 2012 at 6:09 pm
Millie good luck in your search. Sorry you are off to bad start. Agents will stage homes for pictures but it’s up to the seller to keep the home clean. Some do and some dont. As an agent its frustrating. When I look at some homes I feel like I need a shower when I leave. The clean homes will sell quickly
February 22nd, 2012 at 7:26 am
My husband and I are about to embark on buying our first home too. I’m of the mindset that you just “know.” Or at least, I am hoping that is how it will be! When we have searched for apartments in the past, that is how we chose each one we lived in–we just knew, both times. So I am hoping that finding a home to make an offer on will be similar. Either way, it’s fun to look at houses and see what’s out there!
February 22nd, 2012 at 8:59 am
Thanks Brad. It really is frustrating. I know you’re supposed to ‘look past all that’ when it comes to things that can be easily changed such as cleaning and minor updates… but it does make it harder to picture yourself living there.
Amy – I know what you mean about the apartments. Maybe it’s a little harder to ‘know’ with your first home purchase because with an apartment you know you can just move out the year the lease is over, but with the home it’s more permanent. But so far we haven’t gotten that ‘this is the one’ feeling yet. We did start looking at Condos as well to compare and we actually might be leaning more towards that path instead. We will see.