Home Sweet Home: House Hunting Lessons

Things we learned from our first home buying (and living!) experience.

When my now husband and I became engaged in 2013, our conversations turned to where we would live in our newly-wedded bliss. My parents, being of the generation that believes a house to be an investment, said a house. His parents wanted us to follow a different life-script: rent an apartment, save for a starter home, and eventually move up to a single family.

Like many people of college age, I lived in a dorm room for a time. Living in an apartment is much like living in a dorm, and I already knew I did not enjoy dorm living. My hubs had not enjoyed his dorm life, either. We grew up in the Denver Metropolitan area and wanted to stay in the Denver Metro area. Even in 2013, the writing was on the wall: housing was about to get VERY expensive.

So we made the decision that we thought was most sensible for us as a couple – we skipped the apartment and began looking for starter houses. In the way of house-buying, we didn’t receive a lot of help from either of our parents. Mine hadn’t bought a house in over thirty years, and his did not really approve of us looking for a house together so we avoided the topic with them. I turned to the internet for answers, and to assuage my dear SO’s fears and questions. While Nerdwallet, Forbes, banking institutions, et al do a fine job of explaining the practicalities of home buying, I have some insights to offer which might not be on their lists.

Don’t buy more house than you need.

I mean this in more than just a financial sense. Nerdwallet has some good advice here, also. Just because your income says you can buy a house that is 5,000 square feet doesn’t mean that you should. Does the average person really want to clean that much, anyway? I know I don’t, not unless I also have the luxury of a maid.

Do you like to host parties? Do you have family or friends who live out-of-town and frequently come to visit? Do you need a spare room for drunk friends to stay the night instead of driving home? What about room for friends who are too tired to drive home? Is there enough room for a baby if you happen to have one before you can move to a bigger home? Are you willing to take dogs out on a leash to go potty, or do you want a yard? How much yard? Do you like to garden? Do you need storage space? Do you want to be as minimalist as possible?

For two people, we looked at houses between 1,000 and 2,000 square feet. We didn’t want to be tripping over each other all the time. My SO’s requirement was that the house have a garage (he’s a car guy). My demand was that it have three bathrooms. The bathrooms didn’t need bathtubs, but it did need toilets and sinks. Have you ever done the potty dance outside the bathroom when your house guest is blow drying their hair? Yeah. Three bathrooms were ideal, but the house needed at least two. I also wanted a nicer kitchen, and I did not want a galley kitchen.

Including the garage, we bought a row house that contained 1,800 square feet, so we had right around 1,500 finished, livable square feet. We had two 3/4 baths upstairs and a powder room on the main level. We did have a spare room, which was nice when my cousin and his wife came to town and my grandparents could not take guests at their home, anymore. Until we turned it into an office/guest room, though, we almost never went into the spare room. Unless we had people over, we used the guest bathroom infrequently.

We did not have a yard, but we did have two decks: one off the main level and the other off the master bedroom. We hosted an occasional family party (usually about 15 people), mostly on the 4th of July because we had a spectacular fireworks display practically in our backyard which we could view from the decks. We had plenty of storage space as the house contained multiple closets and even an attic. At the time we bought the house, we did not have any pets. Eventually, we ended up with two cats and two dogs. We did not have a yard, which became more of an annoyance once we had dogs than it was originally. Overall, for a first home, the size was comfortable for us.

How many levels should the house have?

Do not underplay the importance of having all the essential functions of living (i.e. bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, laundry) on a single level. One really needs to take into consideration the importance of the ranch-style home. I did not appreciate the concept, either, when we first began looking at houses. Young me, filled with hubris, never considered stairs to be a problem. That is, until I tore my ACL.

After my ACL repair, I developed a large amount of scar tissue in the knee joint, reducing my range of motion to 14 degrees. The average person needs 90-120 degrees of flexion to climb stairs. I slept on a mattress in the living room for a few months while I worked very hard to break up the scar tissue and regain flexion. Ranch style houses are not just for the elderly.

Similarly, don’t skip awesome bathroom amenities.

I know most people don’t really think about the height of their toilets, but my husband is 6’4″ tall. His entire family’s average height is 6′ tall. They appreciate the value of an ADA toilet. Post-knee surgery, I did, too. They are taller than a normal builder grade toilet. I didn’t have to wonder, when sitting down for some me time, if I was going to end up on my butt on the floor.

Similarly, walk-in showers are the bomb! In the townhome, we only had those tub-shower combo thingies. My husband literally had to lift me into the tub to get a shower because I didn’t have the flexion or space in the tub to climb in. The most comfortable shower I had during my recovery was the one I took at my grandparents’ house. That house has a lovely ADA accessible walk-in shower with a bench and a movable ADA shower stool. I did not have to stand on my weak leg for the 15 to 20 minutes of showering, and I just hobbled right in on my crutches.

My parents’ house has kitchen height cabinets in the bathrooms. My mother regretted up until the day she died that they did not also put in ADA toilets. I joke with my family now that we should trade. They can have my lower height bathroom vanities to go with their short toilets and I will take their kitchen height vanities to go with my ADA toilets. Although not a deal-breaker for me, I do hate that even at a shorter 5’6″ I have to bend over at the waist to wash my hands. I can’t even imagine how my husband feels.

Save your eyes! Lighting is important.

Have you ever been in an older house that does not have ceiling light fixtures? Oh, sure, they have a plug in the wall that might control a bedside lamp from the wall switch by the door. Over time, though, that gets annoying. If your SO, kid, or guest turns off the bedside lamp while in bed, the next night you might flip the switch as you walk into the room only to discover you’re still in the dark. Already installed ceiling light fixtures is a nice amenity to have built into a house.

I love lots of natural light in a house. If it is the middle of the day and I have to turn on a light in the house to feel comfortable reading, sewing, cooking, etc. then there is not enough natural light in the house for my taste. A house that has plenty of natural light can also save on energy bills. However, I also recognize that natural light is not to everyone’s taste, so this one should be taken with a grain of salt.

Homes with a lot of natural light typically come with a lot of windows. This should be taken into consideration as a home maintenance expense, as replacing windows is not cheap. We had to replace the townhome windows almost immediately because we had smiley face windows. We replaced 7 or so windows and the sliding patio door for around $10,000, but that was after taking advantage of manufacturer discounts. If you are constantly closing your blinds to prevent neighbors from looking in, it defeats the purpose of the windows in the first place.

A proper pantry and counter space.

If you like to cook, bake, or otherwise make meals at home, you will appreciate a proper pantry and counter space. As you get older, it will probably become necessary to cook at home more, if not for budget reasons then for changing dietary needs. Plenty of counter space and a pantry to keep some staples on hand will become cornerstones of your kitchen.

The previous owners converted the front coat closet into a pantry. While I enjoyed the “pantry”, we installed coat hooks by the front door because we did not have a coat closet. Although this house had a bigger kitchen and more counter space than many of the other townhomes we viewed, we eventually built a kitchen island out of a dresser in order to gain more counter space.

Location, location, location.

Although not a new piece of advice, location is still key to satisfaction with your home buying experience. Our townhome was within 15 minutes driving distance of three of the city’s main interstates and within walking distance of the city’s historic district and public transit hub. In the time we lived there I worked as far south as the Denver Tech Center, as far north as the city of Boulder, and at the Denver Federal Center. The location of the house made the commutes to my workplaces easier and I was able to apply to more employers when job hunting.

We could walk to a large public park just ten minutes from the house. The park attached to a larger trail network and greenway. The only downside is that the sidewalks in our neighborhood were slim or nonexistent. We almost always walked in the road with the dogs. We had less of a problem doing that, though, because our neighborhood was quiet in terms of traffic. Eventually, it was nice to move to a neighborhood with actual sidewalks.

The developer built our townhome complex right next to a train track. This might have been the only real downside to our townhouse, and we did worry it might affect what a buyer would be willing to pay for our house down the line. Luckily, my husband and I like trains, and it did not turn out to be as much of a barrier to the sale of the townhome as we thought.

Be aware of how the county designates your housing type and what is included in your HOA fees.

When buying a home in an HOA, be sure to check in with your realtor on how HOA fees might affect your purchase price and what is covered under the HOA contract. Mortgage lenders often do not account for HOA dues when they determine how much you can safely spend on a monthly mortgage payment. It is not uncommon, now, to have HOA fees topping $200 a month. Our townhome HOA dues were $220 a month. Fees rose twice in the four years we lived there due to the rising costs of asphalt maintenance, trash hauling, and landscape services (including snow removal). We also had an incompetent property manager, so that is something to ask around the neighborhood about. See what your potential neighbors think of the HOA management company and board. Check if you can talk to the HOA board and management company before deciding to purchase.

When looking at buying a property, check with your realtor or with the county how a particular property has been designated. Even though the realtor marketed the house as a townhome, the entire complex shared water pipes. What I mean is, the same water pipes that delivered water into our house delivered water into ALL the houses on the row. This means that the county designated the property as a condo, giving it different realty rules in terms of buying and selling. We did not know that until we went to sell the house since we originally bought the house with a traditional mortgage. When we sold, we could not accept VA, FHA, or any other mortgage type besides your good old traditional mortgage (or cash), which not everyone can swing in such a hot market as Denver. Though this may not be a problem in your area, it’s something to look out for.

Appearances aren’t everything.

Good bones are still the most important piece of the puzzle when buying a home. Do not skip the home inspection. My brother passed on three houses that he loved because the home inspections turned up an average of $30,000 in critical maintenance that would be needed in the next year. If you are looking at a row home where one of the shared common elements is the roof, ask the HOA board when they last replaced the roof and what the circumstances were surrounding the replacement. Ask about siding and repainting the buildings. Ask about special assessments. Even if you love the property, you must discuss issues with yourself and your partner and determine if you can swing it or if you have to walk away.

I really could go on and on about this topic, so I will stop here before I bore you. We learned a lot when we bought our first home; it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Take a deep breath, get your ducks in a row, and enjoy the process. What is meant for you will be for you in the end. Happy house hunting!