How long did you look before you found your (last) house?

[ourbabygirl]

We're looking in a slightly lower inventory area (a town of about 4500 with about 55 houses currently on the market), and have been looking since late last summer. We've walked through about 20 different houses (some multiple times) in our desired town, and about 10-15 in a couple of other towns we were looking at.

We found a house that we both really liked a few weeks ago, but at the time our house wasn't even on the market (we were going to wait until after Easter to list it since it's still very much winter here). So we placed an offer, and they accepted every part except the fact that it was contingent of the sale on our house.
So we lost out on that one (which I've become more sad about since I think it was almost a perfect house for us, and everything else we're finding pales in comparison), since they accepted another offer a week or so ago.
Luckily it did inspire us to get our house on the market super quickly, and we put it up for sale last Thursday and sold it in a day. :cheerleader1: Now we might be in a situation where we move out of our house before we can find the perfect one to move into. At least we have a couple of places we can stay until we find one, but we'd rather just be able to move our stuff and ourselves into a house when we close on this one.

Did it take you quite a while to find your house? Was there a lot of inventory to choose from? Was there anything you did to speed up the process? DH has the MLS listing being sent straight to his e-mail, so we've been looking at things pretty much right when they come on the market.

Thanks for sharing!

[WatchingThemGrow]

My LAST house that I bought- looked probably 8-9 months, then ended up with one that had been for sale all that time. Got a deal on it because it had been sitting.

Congrats on selling your home so quickly.

We've currently been looking for years. YEARS. Pretty sure we have record low inventory in the areas we want to buy. Our old house is currently rented out, but we're working to get it on the market ASAP because we need the cash out of it. We're in a short term rental, hoping we can stay while we continue to put in offers on stuff. The last offer we submitted was pre-market, which we thought was good. Problem is...people don't have a place to go to, think it's worth $35K more (not) and all that kind of stuff...

We did sign for a month with a realtor who specializes in this n'hood. Hope that will help us.

[AnnieW625]

We have only ever owned one house.

Did it take you quite a while to find your house?
It took us about 3 months. We started looking in mid December (about a month after moving into our apartment), but it was honestly a really casual looking. We did do one day of all day looking with our realtor, but again it wasn't like "we have to buy something now" kind of thing. She had actually given us a list of open houses to look at the following day and while driving to one of those houses (via driving by another house we both really liked and wanted to see again) we found our house, which happened to be open.

Was there a lot of inventory to choose from?
This was early 2005 so there was a fair amount of inventory, but at the time every weekend that went by there was less and less in our price range (max budget was $525K, but we didn't want to go that high at all, we ended up at $513K). When we started looking in January, 2005 the average price in our target area for a similar sized home was probably $465K to $475K, but two months later there was very little if anything in that price range that had 3 bedrooms, and most 3/1s were being sold for between $500K and $530K (for a really nice updated with awesome yard and or home with a pool). 18 months before we bought a co worker bought in our same tract a very similar house with a pool and an extra half bath for $385K. Our sellers made probably $200K on their house and they bought it for $245K in April, 2002. Had we not bought the weekend we did buy in late March, 2005 we would not have been able to afford to buy until maybe sometime in 2008, but more likely probably 2009 or early 2010. I kind of regret that choice to buy, but I have to look on the bright side owning saved us probably $5K to $10K total in income taxes we would have had to pay, and we have never not been able to pay our mortgage or our property taxes.

Was there anything you did to speed up the process?
No not really. We were new to our area and we liked going to open houses because we were able to really get a feel for the area. I really think the day we spent with our realtor really sped things up, but had we not stopped by to see that other house again I am not 100% sure we ever would have found our house.

DH has the MLS listing being sent straight to his e-mail, so we've been looking at things pretty much right when they come on the market.
We did the same thing. I found it pretty helpful, but our house had falled out of escrow three or so weeks before we saw it and had been taken off the MLS temporarily. By the time we saw it it had only been back on the market for 3 days and it was the first open house since, and it wasn't listed on the list of open houses our realtor gave us.

I would probably start looking at zillow or redfin just in case that happens to be a little different. You just never know.

Congrats on selling your house so quickly!:boogie::cheerleader1: If you need to I would offer to do a rent back (we did that for our sellers and we offered to do it because we were renting an apartment without a lease so it ended up paying off that we offered to be flexible in our offer). Is the house that denied your contigency offer still on the market? If so I would go and make an offer on that house ASAP. Best wishes, and lots of mojo!

[bostonsmama]

We bought last fall. We were IN LOVE w/ this one house. We must have visited it 12 times (since my mom's a realtor and it was vacant). We used to drive to the neighborhood and take walks, imagining our lives there, commuting to/from work. We were so smitten, but the more time we spent w/ the house, the more we found wrong w/ it. Turns out it's illegal to do a home inspection on a home before you make an offer, but my husband just knows WAY too much about home construction to not see horrible flaws that (in our minds) continued to devalue the home. We came when it rained and video-taped nine open holes where you could see sky through the roof. Again, not sure we were supposed to be in the attic, but our first offer was $75K below asking price. It needed $100K in work, and the repairs that Fannie Mae did (it was a HomePath loan/FM-owned home bought from auction during a foreclosure/short sale/bank sale). We knew from private records what they got it for, and they were trying to flip it. Short story long, we were outbid by people who really didn't do a thorough inspection & offered full price!!

After that sale fell through, I lost 15 lbs. I couldn't eat or sleep. NOTHING felt like it compared to that house. I literally was grieving, so I understand that feeling of frustration when a house "gets away." But walking out of house we just saw (and didn't like), we met a neighbor who said her house'd be on the market next month, we went in, saw it, made a full-price offer, negotiated for a bit on repairs, and have been in total love w/ this dream house ever since.

The right house is out there for you! Often it takes a creative realtor who knows people who live in neighborhoods (esp little old ladies who have all the gossip on who's moving next, etc) to get a lead on the perfect house. Just don't expect a smoking deal. We bought in ridiculously low inventory, and good houses were gone in a blink. The CRAP that's out there is overpriced and less desirable. The good stuff is worth the price they're listing it for. The only thing that convinces people to sell when their houses are overpriced is time.

[brittone2]

We were in a rental as we had just relocated, weren't sure how long it would take to sell our other house (turns out it was 1-2 weeks), we weren't sure exactly what area we were going to settle in, so we had some flexibility. We were in a lease, so couldn't shop too early, even though our other house had sold, we didn't want to pay pricey rent and a mortgage. We ended up ending the lease early due to a total deadbeat LL, and dealing with him was a kick in the pants to look pretty hard at what was out there while we got closer to the end of the lease.

We looked a little over the course of a month or two. We saw maybe 4 houses with a realtor. Then we found out about something via word of mouth and worked out a deal with the seller before it ever hit the market. We found out about the house from neighbors two doors down from her who are friends of ours. We always liked their little neighborhood, so we were excited something was up there, and was well cared for by the original owner (but in need of some cosmetic updating).

The house we sold most recently was purchased during a one week trip we had to find a place. We were moving out of state for DH to pursue his PhD. We had watched the market a bit from out of state, drove around months before we were ready to buy with a realtor to acquaint ourselves a bit with the area, and then we really only had a week to buy when we were ready. We had a string of things not work out or that didn't feel right, and then expanded our search area a bit and found "the one."

Our very first house, I think we looked for a few months. Maybe 2-3?

[boolady]

About 3 years. When we go for walks or drive through town, there are hardly any blocks where we weren't in at least one or two houses. But, we held out for what we wanted and we got it. It's not perfect, by any means, but we love it and it immediately clicked as "our house."

[elliput]

I said two weeks, but it might have been just over than from when we knew we needed to buy to when we made the offer. As there is a very tight rental market here, we had a very short time frame to work with and needed to make a decision fast. The town we moved to has less than 8000 people and is rural. The next biggest town is an hour away and has 25,000 people. The two closest metro areas are 4 hours away.

DH did all of the actual looking at houses, which was a total sum of 4 properties. There were approx 30 on the market at the time, most of which were too small, not enough yard, etc. We pretty much already new from the web searching we had done which house would work best based on size, location, amenities, etc. Of the 4 houses DH looked at in early Dec, only one is still on the market.

[kellij]

We knew we were going to list our house for about a year before we did. We wanted to list in the Spring and we wanted to do finish up the updates, fresh paint, move stuff out etc, so it would sell as quickly as possible. So I had been going to open houses and watching the mls for the year before we sold our house. We got an agent when we listed our house and it sold in a week. I was surprised it sold so quickly. I looked at all of the houses I had been eyeing over the previous year, plus a few the agent new about that weren't yet listed, and one I found in foreclosure. We ended up getting one of the ones I had been drooling over for even more than a year. We gave them a low ball offer, which was the most we could afford, and they accepted it. So actual, official looking was 1-2 weeks. Maybe the one you want will fall through and be for sale again!! You could also see if you buyers are flexible on the move out date and might be willing to let you stay there longer.

[hillview]

It took us almost a year of near constant looking. We rented for 6 months and then had to extend it.

It was in 2006 so there was inventory for sure.

Looking at a LOT of places -- we also ended up firing our first agent (she didn't listen) and got another buyer agent. We were VERY specific about what we HAD to have. The house we have we went the first day it was on the market and competed with 5 other bidders. We did an offer "as is" within a specific cost, this helped us.

[kerridean]

Military. We usually have 3-4 days.

[Twoboos]

I voted 10-12 months, but don't let that get you down. ;) I had basically been looking since we moved into our previous house, LOL! I was a Realtor so had access to everything and would just watch listings for certain areas/nhoods. If something came on I was there, if it was good I was pitching to DH. He was soooo done with me. ;)

Definitely had mourning periods over a few houses (including one that we prayed would fall through but it never did). We were in the midst of negotiating on another house when this one came on. We bowed out of the other house and got this one asap. It has loads of problems as we've come to find out, but I still love it.

You WILL find a great house!! And if your house is sold that puts you ahead of the game.

Good luck!!

[SnuggleBuggles]

We only looked for about 3 months with our 1st house but I was pretty sure we looked at every single house in our price range and requirements and were about to give up. Found a FSBO by driving around neighborhoods. We weren't 100% committed to only one neighborhood.

This house we found after just a month or 2. We weren't looking too hard b/c our other house hadn't sold yet. We got it pre-market listing for a great deal; our realtor was great.

[citymama]

Close to 2 years - and we put in 6 bids on houses over an 18 month period. Our realtor said it was not unusual in our area.

[ellies mom]

I said between 2-4 weeks but we only walked through two houses with our realtor. The first house we looked at had potential but needed either new carpet throughout or a significant price reduction and according to seller's agent the owner wouldn't consider either (which explains why it was on the market so long). The second house and the one we bought was sheer luck. The same day we found out that the owner of the first house wouldn't budge, the owners of the second house dropped the price by $30K, which brought it into our price range. We walked through the next morning and put in an offer on the spot.

We did do some leg work of our own. We would find houses we were interested in through MLS and then drive by them to see if we were still interested. And we went to one open house and toured a couple of model homes. The house we ended up buying is in the same neighborhood as the model townhouses we looked at.

[joules]

2-4 months.

We started looking July last year, closed escrow on our current house in October.

We are in a HCOL area with extremely low inventory. We looked online A LOT, drove by a lot of other houses, and of course also looked at a LOT of houses in person. Two of our other offers, we got beat out by all cash offers (these houses were in the $600K range!). One of them was the most perfect house for us, or so I thought at the time. It was devastating. Another house we lost out on, the sellers were going to sell to someone with a contingency to sell their house first. After a bit of time, we even contacted them and found out that the buyers were about to run out of time and the contingency wasn't lifted yet. They were willing to go under contract with us as soon as that contract expired. We were really desparate at the time since the market was so hot and the inventory was so low...luckily we found this house at about the same time and let that one go.

We also had to expand our search since the area(s) we wanted to live in were pricey and had low inventory (so it was especially hard to find something in our price range).

At one point I searched the entire city on zillow and redfin. Redfin was the biggest help and we actually found our house through Redfin. It was not in the area we told our Realtor we were looking in so it wasn't in the automated email list. This house was above our price range, but I liked it a lot so I kept checking up on it. I knew it was over-priced and sure enough, the price dropped one day and we snatched it up. We love it here and even though it's smaller than the other house I really wanted, the location and surroundings work out better for us.

[MommyAllison]

We were looking at Christmastime 2008 in a record-breaking snowy winter for our area. There was pretty much zero new inventory going on the market. ;) There were 3 houses that fit our parameters, all were vacant so we looked at all of them on the same day and ended up buying the last one. We made a lowball offer, the seller countered with full price :rolleye0014: we waited a couple weeks and re-offered closer to asking price. Hope the perfect house for your family pops up soon!

[cvanbrunt]

10 months of constant looking. Low inventory, crazy bidding wars on every house. We made offers on 7 houses before finally getting one. It was awful.

[KrisM]

I voted other. A friend knew we were looking for a certain subdivision and let us know the house across from her was going to be for sale. We looked at it and bought it. We hadn't planned to move for another 8 or 9 months.