How many homes did you look at before you bought your house? We're first time buyers & curious whats the average amounts of homes a buyer looks at before purchasing a house?

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Angels may not come when you call them, but they'll always be there when you need them.

I looked at about twenty houses but that was in late 2005 when a house literally went on the market in the a.m. and was sold by the afternoon. There is not as much competition. I don't know what area you are looking in but if you are looking here on the West Coast you will get a good deal right now.

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The political system is broke and it's a joke.

We looked at about 30 or so...some manufactured homes and some stick built.

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30 plus, also in 2005. We didn't get what we really wanted, but what we could afford in the area we wanted. Location, Location, Location!
Of the three places, (in the same complex) that came available the day we offered ....one was sold before we could even get an appointment to see it, one was holding out for the best offer ( we didn't have time to wait for them), and we bought the third after being the first to look at it. We still had to put about $7000 into it too. Sadly, compared to what we had seen already it was still in much better shape than most. We had to do lots of painting and replace carpet, etc because of their smoking and pets. ( it wasn't just that the walls were lavender with black carpeting.....lol)

You should have much better luck now though. People care a lot more now about showing their homes in the best light. We were literally looking at places that needed to be gutted/hosed down/etc and the owners were acting like they were doing us a favor for even letting us look at them.
We would love to move soon but we would barely get out even after all is said and done. It is frustrating that the last owners walked out with a $45-48,000 check after owning it for 9 months and we have been here 3 years only to be almost even. Maybe in a year we can move to something larger if we are lucky.

We bought our first house in 1999 and the market was good around here then. We looked at probably 30-40 in 3 different towns. We weren't sure if we wanted a house, townhouse or patio home so we looked at all of them. For our second house, we looked at about 50 before we found the one we liked

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Proud to say I haven't shopped at a Wal-Mart since Sept 2003

We looked at a lot too. The second time we bought was before the internet so the realtor gave us a printout of ALL of the houses in our price range and area and we drove by all of them and then decided which to look at personally.

These days it's much easier to look with the online stuff, even inside now!

Don't rush it though, things aren't selling fast so you can take your time a little more than say 2 years ago when things were selling before they even hit the market ( I guess depending on your area). And if you don't get the one you want, it wasn't meant to be and you'll find the right one eventually.

Happy hunting!

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"A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked." ~ Bernard Meltzer

The first house, I'd guess about 10-15. Our current house, we probably looked at 30-40, easy. We looked for a long, long, long time!

When I was looking in Chicago, I looked at 15 in one day. I think there were a total of 40+ houses before we settled on one. When we moved to Richmond, we looked at more on the internet than we did in person....maybe about 20 in one weekend. The market is flooded right now, so look at as many as you can....

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I'm the kind of woman when my feet hit the floor in each morning, the devil says "Oh crap, she's up."

Go here

REALTOR.com - Real Estate Listings & Homes For Sale

That way you can compare prices and amenities in different neighborhoods, cities, etc. If you live in a city with more than one zip code make sure to try them all.

Good luck! You are in a buyer's market so make sure either you or whomever you are buying with is a good negotiator and you have a good agent.

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The political system is broke and it's a joke.

We bought the 3rd one we looked at and i'm still happy with it

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"Never loan your car to someone you have given birth too"

We looked at around 5-10 houses before we decided to build a brand new house. It wasn't worth paying for an existing house that was already lived in when we paid the same amount of money for a brand new house. You may want to look at that option too.

Many!

But, we weren't certain if we wanted to buy a 5 yr old or less home, or new construction. We found some online sites that found both existing homes and new construction for the areas we thought we might want to live in. The homes we liked pictures of, we made note and the new construction we'd find the builders website and look from there.

It took us several weekends of all day driving (thank goodness for GPS or I don't think we'd be home yet! LOL!) to settle on what we're doing now.

I think "how long" is determined by what YOU are looking for - if it already exists or it would be easier to have built.

It's exciting, either way - Good luck good luck!

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We probably looked at 10 or so homes.

After the first 7, we decided to really narrow it down, and chose 3 different houses. One of them WAS going to be THE ONE.

Turned out it was the last house we looked at.

DH and I walked in, walked around. After the tour, without even saying a word to each other, DH told the real estate agent that THIS is the house for us. We both knew it, so there was no need to even discuss it with each other. It was just about perfect for us. And 5 years later, we still love it!

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"Yesterday my life was duller, now everything's technicolor!"

Probably 7 or 8? Weird thing was that the realtor was almost discouraging us on buying this house. Probably something to do with a lower commission because it wasn't one of HER listings and was priced lower. Greed? We LOVE our home and even though it is 16 years old now, it is built better than MANY of the new homes in this area.

When we bought our house, about 26 years ago, I really wanted to move back to the town I was raised in...and therre were exactly two houses for sale. lol My husband couldn't stand up straight on the second floor (low ceilings) of the first house, so we bought the second house we looked at in this town. We had looked at two in a nearby city, but then decided city living wasn't for us.

We are now thinking of where we want to retire. The taxes are higher in this town than some of the neighboring ones, so we may look in other areas. I expect to be looking at more than two houses this time aroun....lol

Good Luck!

Not that many, but being able to look online helped a lot. We left one builder, because they wouldn't tell us the total cost to anything, went to look at another, but they were busy, and ended up driving around, and finding the one we eventually bought. It was sort of tucked away, and really, that's not a bad thing. There was one house we didn't buy because I made the floorplan up in The Sims, and the little guys kept getting upset over the bedroom/bathroom door placements. I hadn't even noticed it was a problem when I saw the house in person.

For our first house, we looked at around 200 houses. We were new to the area and really had no idea what was available. For our second house, we probably looked at around 25-30 houses. The one we bought (our current house) was not exactly what we were looking for, BUT it was in a great neighborhood of much more expensive homes and the builder had just lowered the price $50K (yes that's 50). We knew if we didn't jump on that house, we probably wouldn't get another chance to get into such a high-end neighborhood.

On a side note, it's probably good we got in on the deal we did. Our house is still worth more (not much more, but more) than we paid for it today, even in this terrible housing market.

I guess how many houses you look at somewhat depends on if you know exactly what you want or not and your realtor. For our second house, we had a very specific area we were looking at and specific features that the house had to have. That limited our search quite a bit the second time.

Sarah............

one,it was beening sold and i rode by and ask how can i get this house they told me where to go and i a sign up and 30 days later i was a homeowner.It was right around the block from where i lived at the time with my parents,my brother lived right down the street,i have family next door.I want to move out and it was location location location and my time.I been here for 15 years,we close the carport in .add on a master suite,and we love it here.I can see my parents house form my back window.

You are in a perfect buyers market. Use the internet and you will see many many homes and be able to compare prices, neighborhoods, schools, etc., and narrow it down from there. Good luck and have fun!

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Thanks everyone! I was kinda wondering if we were being too picky because we look at 17 homes. I guess not....LOL


Today was so much better. We narrowed it down to 3 homes....but the house we like we feel is overpriced ..I went to homegain & it shows that they paid $120,000 for the home 7 years ago .....they are asking $199,000 ..Our Realtor said, it's been on the market for 3 months & they have reduced the price by $5,000........The owners are relocating so that leads me to believe they might accept a lower offer......I was thinking the appreciation value should be around 6 % yearly???? The home is located in a very nice area and is in a prime location . Downtown is less then 2 miles away. but there is downfall....There is a Cow pasture located in the back... You can hear the cows mooing... Could you use the Cow pasture on the negotiation price ? I'm thinking this could hurts us if we ever sold the home... I did notice some light stains on the berbar carpet & a couple of snags..I've always heard this type of carpet stains easily so I would want to replace the carpet eventually...There is also no decorative logs in the gas fireplace & the key was missing ..I will need do another walk thru with our Realtor before making a offer .. I'm sure I've missed some things

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Angels may not come when you call them, but they'll always be there when you need them.

Good Lord- i would die for cows mooing in the backyard. i would pay extra. I would talk with the farmer and make sure he isn't thinking about selling his land to a developer and I would jump at the chance. I lived across the street from a cow field for years. There is nothing better than a moo in the morning. One drawback--dogs especially Labs and hunting dogs LOVE LOVE LOVE to roll in fresh cow poop. Just keep a hose ready.

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Lyn Clarke

Cow mooing is something you would get used to very quickly and not even notice. I grew up near a railroad track and when the trains would go through people would startle or ask how I stood it. I was like, "what?" I seriously did not hear them - unless it was an unusual sound - which sometimes happened.

A cow pasture is way better than a gas station or strip mall. We bid on a house a couple years ago that had a horse pasture behind it. We didn't end up buying the house, but we loved the fact it had the horse pasture behind it instead of other houses.

Lisa

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"It's not having what you want,
It's wanting what you've got"

OK sorry, I can't but help do this... PLEASE make sure that you fully understand the terms and conditions of your mortgage, before you sign anything. Believe it or not, the BAD guys are still out there trying to lure decent people into unfair loans. One big trick right now is to not escrow taxes and HO insurance to reduce your monthly payment.. what a surprise when you get a $2,000+ bill in 6 months..

Even if they TELL you what the terms are, make sure that is what you are signing.

I am dealing with many decent people who got taken by unscrupulous lenders and couldn't help but put my 2 cents in here. Good luck with your new home..

we looked at about 40 houses before buying ours, about 15 years ago.
liked a few others, but they weren't perfect-one house was great but had a backyard connected to other backyards, no privacy. another was gorgeous and big inside, but was next to a main road/highway.

about the 40th house we looked at.. next to a park & greenbelt, more privacy, big yard, renovations, new deck, new full basement that had been built out, etc. We loved it. Owners had put the house on the market Friday, we were the first to walk through it and gave them an offer by Monday. Other offers came in but ours was first and we got it

babyblue that is funny about the sims!

Our loan is thru our bank and the taxes will be included into the payment...Our Realtor actually referred us to a mortgage broker supposedly beats everyone in town. We talked with the mortgage broker & decided it was in our best interest to go with the bank even though their fees are more. The major reason we decided against the broker is...I do not want our Realtor to know what we qualify for or what we was pre-approved for. & since she knows him,I'm sure she would of gotten this information from him easily. Our Loan officer has been a big help & I"m so glad we decided to go with a bank instead.

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Angels may not come when you call them, but they'll always be there when you need them.

Our house is located across the street from a fire department. They are a bit old=fashioned and used the siren for everything....fire calls and ambulance calls. It didn't bother my husband or I, but I really worried about it when the kids came along. Believe it or not, they would sleep though it!! Before we had new windows put in, the old ones would rattle everytime the alarm went off! I could not believe it didn't wake them!

We did look at a house that had a cow pasture in the back. I wasn't concerned about listening to them, but my sister mentioned that she didn't know if it made any difference but the house was on a well and the pasture was on a hill - meaning when it rained, the water would then wash down onto the property.

Personally, I don't mind having a fire department across the street or a cemetary behind us - I find them both very good "neighbors", but when we put our house up for sale years ago, the realtor mentioned that it was not exactly a good selling point....lol

We live out in horse country, and I love it. Nothing's more peaceful. Somebody bought the pecan orchard behind us and put in a beautiful lake, we have enjoyed it so much!!! Just watching the wildlife is fantastic. I would love to be able to actually see livestock! I would probably be feeding the cows apples.