February 25, 2011
Sandy McAlpine wrote a post this morning about house hunting being a long process and I agree completely with her. Sandy's first step in the home buying process was the needs/wants assessment. This step is vitally important any time you purchase a home and never more so than when you are buying a fixer or handyman's special.
Before you even look at MLS you need to sit down and assess exactly what you want your home to do for you. Architects use a bubble mapping space planning method to determine room function and layout but you can do something similar just with a pen and a piece of paper. List each room in your current house and what you do there, then list any activities that you do on a regular basis that you don't currently have a space for that you really need. For instance, if you are a quilter and you quilt on your dining room table which is the same place you eat all of your meals then you have a space planning issue that needs to be addressed. Be brutally honest in this assessment, if you currently have a formal dining room but you only use it once a year you probably don't need it.
Once you've determined the minimum number of rooms you need to fit your lifestyle you are ready to begin your search. Look for rooms not square footage because square footage means nothing, 1,000 efficiently laid out square feet can feel much larger than 1,500 square feet with a large foyer and a lot of hallways. For instance, I need 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2 offices, a living room, family room, and a large kitchen area. So on my MLS search I would look for 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, I would input this criteria as a minimum so that more bedrooms and bathrooms in my price range would also show up. This will bring up quite a few more options than searching only on 4 bedrooms or 3 bedrooms plus an office. Remember, if you are looking for a handyman's special all of the rooms are flexible, so if a 2 bed 2 bath came on the market that had a formal dining room, a parlor, and an unfinished basement, that could suit my needs perfectly. I might also consider looking at a 2 bedroom 1 bath if the pictures on MLS looked like there was a good place to add a 2nd bathroom.
In my next post I will discuss what to look for after you've come up with a list of possible homes and you're ready to see them in person.
Tamara
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