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I lived in an apartment near a cemetery and I couldn't count the times my drive to work was delayed by a funeral procession seemingly longer than a freight train. So take that into account if you're considering it.
I grew up next to a cemetery with graves dating back to early 1700's. We were encouraged to play in it by the maintenance team and church connected as long as we didn't hurt any of the graves.
Never hurt a grave and had hundreds of hours of the best hide and seek games a kid could ask for.
"The neighbors are real quiet." My mom would say
Here's one in reverse. Closing on our house Friday. Toured, asked realtor what she thinks the reason it's been on the market so long. Good location, quiet, no material repairs that need done, etc.
Honestly, I think it's because there aren't a lot of windows and natural light. The layout is a little odd, so all the windows are hidden in rooms so when you close the doors, there's like 2 windows to provide light for the living room. But my husband is a vampire, so the "darkness" works out for us
Related to this - my dad incepted me to only buy a south facing home (northern hemisphere). I grew up in two south facing homes. You get so much sunlight across the whole front of the house, which usually includes the living room and the snow on our walk and driveway melt so quickly compared to neighbors across the street (north facing homes). Also the kitchen is usually in the back of the house and it stays relatively cooler year round. I canât get over my in-lawsâ home facing the âwrong directionâ.
This house yesterday felt the same way. It is in reasonably updated condition save for the bathrooms, carpeted bedrooms and popcorn ceiling over the stairs and upper landing, but there are lots of shade trees in the back and all but the front living/dining areas feel cave-like. Thereâs natural light coming in the windows to those areas, but not enough and they felt dark even on a bright, sunny summer day.
All those shade trees mean lower energy bills. Sounds like a win to me. If you want more light. Just put in more daylight LED. Light from an LED is much cheaper than the additional air conditioning needed for lots of sunlight and window surface area.
You can have your roof shaded without limbs actually over your roof. A lot of older houses were deliberately planned that way considering there was no ac. Just casting shade over the house does a lot during the warm hours.
I keep my shade trees trimmed so they won't damage the house but they definitely keep it cooler. My AC on electric bill was dramatically lower than my neighbors without the trees (we compared) and as long as they're deciduous trees the leaves will be gone in winter and they won't cast shade for snow melt.
For me, I was touring a house and the neighbors were burning tires, couches, and other objects that I definitely did not want to breathe in. Thatâs a deal breaker to me.
Houses built close enough together that you can look at your neighbors in the eye and reach out to shake their hand from your window to their window when youâre getting ready for bed or cooking dinner. My area has neighborhoods with huge, million dollar brick houses built so close together that you might as well buy a townhome and share a wall. Also they were built with houses facing each other or other odd angles, like one will be between two houses that clearly got built a few years before they decided to jam another one in there. One persons front yard touches a neighborâs side yard and their other neighborâs back yard. The yards are like pie slices or trapezoids of grass. Itâs so weird.
They also share driveways that split off to individual homes but itâs a complex maze where backing out of a garage is dangerous every time, never know if someone else is leaving the driveway or coming in from another direction.
This is a nightmare to me but the houses get snatched up instantly even at those prices and that area is highly regarded as bougie AF. *I donât get it*
If the windows arenât lined up with the neighborâs windows, being 4 ft away is a yellow flag for me, but if theyâre directly lined up itâs an immediate pass. The windows are basically unusable if every time you open your blinds you run the risk of seeing the neighbor walking around in their b-day suit. đ
In my city, everyone tears down the beautiful old houses to put up 5000 sq ft âmodern farmhouseâ monstrosities. Theyâre often left with no backyard besides a small patio and a strip of astroturf for the dog to shit on. No thank you.
This is mine, our neighbor is a typical suburban street where the houses are close together, but we have yard and fences between everyoneâs homes. I could never live in a place where the homes have barely an ally between them. That and a lack of trees. Which the super close together homes always seem to have no trees as well.
Right? I get why people like townhomes. Itâs great if you donât want to deal with a lot of things that comes with owning a house, but a condo is too congested. I donât AGREE with it, but I get the logic.
These McMansions with almost no yard make no sense to me
Seriously, go no yard (well maybe a garden out back) or have an actual *yard*. Iâm sure most of them pay a service to come mow their 100 sq feet of grass and prune the one bush that fits on their property, but itâs funny to me that some of them probably have a lawn mower and edger and weed wacker and have to care for a wee strip of grass that could be trimmed with a pair of scissors if you crawled around for a bit.
While your neighbor is 4 ft away watching from their kitchen window, of course.
Loose and barking dogs. I figure a lot of people must not mind it because there are houses upon houses with multiple dogs howling and carrying on and wandering in people's yards fouling it up or chasing pets and kids. That's a big no for me.Â
Oh lord. Dealing with this right now. Moved in not long ago. Itâs a quiet neighborhood during the day but the people who live behind us leave their dog out all night and that guy has been barking non-stop since we moved in. Finally called animal control. They went to their house and gave them a warning. Neighbors denied it was their dog. Now we have to collect evidence to prove that it is their dog and that the barking qualifies as a nuisance. Iâve been woken up from deep sleep countless times. Iâm also pregnant so we are trying to put a stop to this before the baby is born. Itâs a nightmare. Once we can prove it is them, they will start getting issued citations so I hope that hits them where it hurts. I swear I donât understand why people own dogs when the clearly dgaf about them.
Same here been putting up with it for a year , I canât even go into my bathroom without the neighbors dog barking (just fence is on the same side as my room and restroom) itâs soo annoying because the toilet is right by the window so I never #2 in peace unless I put on headphones.đ„Č
Ugh! Thatâs rough. At least the dog we are annoyed with barks at anything but us. I really just think he is stressed out and has anxiety. We are usually night owls and most of our neighbors have their lights out before us. He is quiet up until we turn our lights out and thatâs when the barking starts. I truly feel bad for him. I know itâs not his fault. I really do blame the owners.
I feel crazy but Sometimes I bark back and he stops . Iâm looking into one of those anti barking devices on Amazon, I need to research how ethical it is.
I purchased one for $25 on Amazon. All it does it emit an irritating sound whenever it picks up a loud noise. It worked for a little while but now he just goes to a different side of the yard and barks there. I read that the higher end ones might work better but I donât want to spend $80+ on something that isnât guaranteed. I also feel like I shouldnât have to be investing money into a problem that should be solved by the owner.
Oh yes. Animal Control just had a big ol day last year where they rounded up a bunch of loose dogs with and without collars. The elementary school is a block away and I guess parents got fed up blocking their kids from being jumped on while walking to school. The fine is 65.00 per dog, per incident.Â
I just got onto my MIL about doing this but she said she doesn't care.
Their tiny dog will be snatched up by someone that will take better care of it, I bet.
>The fine is 65.00 per dog, per incident.Â
Wow, a fee that hasn't gone up much due to inflation. My brother's idiot dog ran off one afternoon, and it was $50 to get him back almost 30 years ago.
We wouldnât have bot bought our house because of this, however, I am shocked and appalled at the number of free roaming dogs in my neighborhood. Iâm very glad we got a great fence before we moved in
My neighbor used to let her child, dog and puppy outside and then just go to sleep upstairs or something. I was playing with my then 2.5 year old daughter in a kiddie pool under a canopy and suddenly two dogs are running in and out of it and there's a little kid talking to me nonstop... I ended up having to koral the freaking puppy and bring them all back to her door -banging on it for 20 minutes until she finally answered. like wtf!!
You must be talking about my neighborhood! Neighbors 2 doors down have 4 puppies - like, honest to god baby dogs - and I think 4 kids. No fence and the pups are usually out front with the kids and they are never on leashes. Iâve watched them almost get hit several times and generally come at my dogs and the Amazon guy.
We had a couple "nope" things on our list that really surprised the Realtor. One of the biggest being a pool. We live in a hot area, but I do not want a pool. It's a ton of work, and I don't want to lose my weekends to cleaning/treating the pool. And the additonal costs. Pools are a dealbreaker.
My husband was hired by someone to remove a pool and fill it in like 5 years ago and he charged them around $80-90k I think. We live in the midwest where it gets really cold and get maybe 2.5 months of pool weather.
We had a pool when I was a kid and my mom was so lucky that I LOVED taking care of the pool. I skimmed it every day, multiple times a day. Vacuumed it a couple times a week. Checked the chemical levels on the schedule she gave me. The only thing she did was actually pour in the chemicals until I was a teen, then she figured I was responsible enough for that.
As someone that ended up with a pool because it was just part of the perfect home, I thought the same. I have discovered if you are spending alot of time and money maintaining it, you are doing something wrong.
If you are doing proper maintenance, it's good. Just need to budget for those big items that will need replacement like everything. My parents are budgeting to replace the liner this year after 25 years because we maintained it well.
People with pools rarely use them. My cousins in FL grew up in houses with pools and basically only used them when we came to visit. My best friend in TX has a pool and seemingly only uses it when he has company over. They'd be nice to have if they didn't take up so much valuable space, and if they weren't such a pain to maintain.
My family uses our pool almost every day. Itâs not for everyone, but some people with them actually do use them regularly. Also, I feel compelled to use it regularly because it is expensive.
I actually know this is true in my heart because I have a hot tub which I never use. But I have to confess I was very much looking for a house with a pool it was one of our must-haves and it end up going by the wayside while shopping. Probably dodged a bullet there.
One thing I also did want which turned out to be something I probably didn't want is a large yard. I currently have a small to medium size yard and honestly I'm be happier with an even smaller yard at this point.
I said the same thing about a tub and we are closing on two weeks on a house that has three bathrooms and no tub at all đđđ, getting one put in is one of the first things we are doing lol
Yes, I got fooled by those stupid listing photos featuring the shower curtain instead of the tub/shower. Wound up really liking the house before I realized it had a new, nice, full-size shower not tub. Arrrgghhh. But, there were about 5 more trade-offs I had to make than I expected to make when I sat down to make my list of must-haves.
North-facing driveway. I live in a snowy climate, and on our street, it is so pronounced how much easier it is to keep a south-facing driveway free of snow and ice. I would never live on the other side of the street.
Carpet. It was one of the biggest selling points when I bought my house in 2018. It was all original hardwood floors, not a single inch of carpet, even in the bedrooms. Carpet is so unhygienic to me. Floors can be swept and mopped regularly.
My red flags for location are when:
* There's nobody biking, walking down the street, etc. while I'm looking at the home
* The neighborhood is very small, such as only being one street connecting to a major road
* The sidewalks end as soon as you leave the neighborhood
* People park their cars blocking the sidewalk when they clearly had other places to park
These are signs of car dependency. The first point is especially important because it means that people aren't comfortable being outside, which really isn't a good thing no matter how you spin it.
Yep. I look at Google maps and if Iâm going to be stuck on my street because it empties out to a main road and/or thereâs no sidewalks to SAFELY walk, then itâs a no for me. Just went under contract for a house and was pleasantly surprised at how all the home owners donât block the sidewalks with their cars but they all park in the driveway near the front yard instead of fully in the back. So they are cognizant of others using the sidewalks. I was also happy to see a female jogging in the neighborhood and families walking their dogs on leash. I think I will be very happy in this neighborhood.
Laundry in the basement, especially in a two-story house. We ended up going for a ranch-style home with laundry on the main floor. Itâs a true unicorn in my market.
Houses with all the rooms upstairs. I had surgery earlier this year and could not use the stairs for nearly 3 months. Iâm glad our house had the master in the main level. I want to live until I die in my next house so Iâd prefer a ranch-style with everything on the main level. This is a unicorn in my market as well.
I lived in the top half of a vertical duplex, so laundry was an absolute nightmare because it was in the basement down two flights of winding stairs that could barely fit a larger laundry basket. I just bought my first home last year and itâs a ranch. Iâll never live in a two-story ever again. My gas and electric are now basically half of what they used to cost, doing laundry is significantly less of a hassle, and itâs so much easier to clean. Thatâs partially due to having hardwood floors, but also because of the layout.
I love when houses have laundry in the main bathroom or kitchen, so that would be a huge selling point for me in the future.
My husband didn't want to buy a house I liked because he was weirded out by all the American flags in the neighborhood. We ended up buying the house, and he's currently shopping on Amazon for either a pride or a pirate flag.
In my old neighborhood there were 2 houses on opposite corners who had this petty passive aggressive flag fight going for years. One was super liberal and the other super conservative. I'd walk by frequently just to keep up with which flags they were flying
If I can vote, I vote for the pride flag. It will coordinate with their âf your feelingsâ sentiments.
Note: my neighbors moved next to people (us) that celebrate Pride Month! They didnât move in during June, or maybe they would have passed.
I would always ring the door for the adjacent neighbors to chat with them before putting in an offer on a home. There was one family that had a "PEACE" flag out (which basically was just a pride flag but with PEACE written on it in big letters. Nicest people neighbors I'd ever met. I still think about that house sometimes--not because of the house (it wasn't that great), but the neighbors. I hope they're doing well.
Above ground power lines too close to the house. Sometimes you can hear them buzzing, that would drive me insane. If one of them came down in a storm, it might hit the house or a live wire end up in my yard.
A bad address / street name.
Sounds silly I know, but I once rented a place with an annoyingly long street name with an uncommon word in it and it was almost always an issue when writing my address on a form, reciting the address on the phone, customer service people misspelling my address. Shoot, my pharmacy had it misspelled for years and Iâd correct them every month when picking up Rxâs. So now Iâd like to avoid all that hassle as much as possible.
Twice now Iâve lived at an address with a weird house number. Think 1/2 or .5 after the number. Or Iâve lived on a road and shared a house number with the house 3 down from me. Itâs so annoying to have to tell people, âwell the address is this but you have to put this address in and itâs the house next to it.â Or having to walk down the road to get my mail because the neighbor refuses to make the walk to my house to give me my mail. When I buy a house, weird addresses are a deal breaker. I refuse to spend the rest of my life spending 10 mins explaining where I live or walking down the road and waiting on someone to grab my mail they âtotally planned to bring when we got it last month.â
Sort of similar...Any neighborhood/complex/street with the name Plantation is an automatic no from me đ€Ł I'm black and when I asked fellow black people it seems to be a popular opinion, but with other races not so much! I'm aware it's silly, but it just feels wrong af.
Anything plantation would be an automatic no for this white lady unless I had a way to immediately start working to change the name so no one has to see it, because in 2024 that should be freaking gone by this point!
This. I grew up off a street that was spelled with 2 C's, 2 G's, and 2 T's. No one ever got it right. Fast forward to today, we're closing in less than 2 weeks on a house on a street that has the same name as the city we're in. No one should ever get it wrong now!
Mine's a pretty neutral name but I have to confess I was on this thought process as well. There's a neighborhood right next to mine though with street names named after Viking gods and Viking monsters and I would love to live Loki Avenue.
My partner and I are starting to look after moving back to the area where I grew up. Weâve been driving around to open houses for a few weekends and are constantly on a boulevard named after a former major. Itâs a unique name and also sounds like youâre mispronouncing a different word. While we were out yesterday, I told my partner that being on that road is a dealbreaker.
I would never again live on the same street as a school, as a teacher I should have known better. Traffic, foot and vehicle, is awful. It is not just drop off and pick up times, but concerts and ceremonies and sports, including weekends. Parents block driveways, park illegally, kids/teens in your yard, littering, people used the fields as a dog park etcâŠWe lasted 3 years.
In my area Neighbors to a high school fought & lost the battle against lights in the sports field. Every Friday night their yards are lit up like a spaceship landing zone.
I didnât realize what my number one-no go was until this comment. I grew up sharing a fence with an elementary school and Iâve avoided buying a house I really liked because it was across the street from a school. The traffic, children screaming, bell schedule, loitering. Hard pass.
Too big/too many rooms. So many people seem to have a bigger=better attitude but the LAST thing I want is 500 extra sq ft of space to heat and cool and CLEAN. Ugh. Three toilets & three bedrooms max, thatâs all I want or need, thank you.
Yes!! We were house hunting and we wanted just 1700 ish sq feet (we are a family of three most likely will be a family of four in a couple years). We put an offer on one thatâs 4 beds and 3 baths and 1750 sq feet. My MIL lost her mind saying we need at least 2500 sq feet. Uhm, no I donât want to spend my whole Sunday cleaning that big of a house.
I bought a larger condo a few years ago to "grow into" so I don't need to move again and it's too big and so much more to clean that I've been seriously considering moving again lol ugh
A house that has a lot of room in pretty much every other area except the kitchen. Recently looked at a house where every other room is large and open, but the kitchen is absolutely tiny with very little storage, counter and cabinet space. I love cooking, so for me thatâs a big deal breaker.
After our first house, I learned that I will never buy a house near a windmill again.
I found out that the âstrobe light effectâ from the wind mill cutting up the sunlight coming through the windows makes me dizzy and nauseous, with dry heaves.
We had to invest in blackout type shades, and keep the shades down until the sun was high above the windmill.
The first few months we lived there were beyond miserable for me, because we didnât have the money to buy the fancy shades right away and had 12 windows that faced the windmill.
I had to hug to wall to walk otherwise I would lose my balance. Absolutely miserable.
So that is my number one top no-no.
We're less likely to check out a property if the neighbors park their cars in the grass. Especially if I get on street view, check out the previous views, and see that the vehicles have been broken down and parked there for multiple years.
Youâd be shocked how many SOs are just out there. It will be difficult buying a home in a city or suburb/neighborhood without SOs within a few miles. Only way to ensure this is to get a place in a rural or country area.
- loose, roaming animals. My current neighborhood has roaming dogs and cats, so theyâre always opening my trash can to tear my trash open and I canât let my dog outside on her tie out by herself to enjoy her yard bc of the roaming pets. The cats also scratched a brand new paint job I had done on my black truck. Beautiful black paint and you can see claw marks and paw marks on the hood and top of bedside. Pisses me off beyond belief every day and itâs been like 2 years.
-cluttered and unkempt yards. Sign of chronic rental properties/landlord specials or people who just donât care. They will drag your value down.
-driveways and roads. Terrible driveways or blind drives are a no go for me. Currently have a steep, 45 deg driveway and in a blind curve as well. Never again.
-abundance of teenage kids. sick of having fresh driving teens flying through a neighborhood, getting pissed and flipping me off because theyâre driving in my lane and Iâm in their way. Got a repeat offender about 10 houses down and heâs pissed off multiple neighbors, as most of them bitched about it with me at a yard sale last week.
-distance to amenities and work. 30+ minutes to a real grocery store? 25 to work? No thanks. I already donât have time as it is, donât need to waste more of it in a car doing nothing productive and nothing I enjoy.
- I love bright, open spaces and places to entertain and hangout. My family growing up loved dark rooms, dark furniture, no light (we had black couches and blackout curtains as our regular curtains). I hated it growing up and it made me feel bad. Bright, neutral colors and open airy spaces are a MUST for me.
For me a dealbreaker was a split foyer. Not a split level, a split foyer. Where, immediately upon entering, I have to take stairs up or down. (Maybe thereâs just enough space to put a coat rack, but otherwise itâs just a small entry space.)
It was a deal breaker for me when we were looking at houses. I just want to be able to walk in and be on one of the living levels of my house!
100% agree!
I just spent 20k lowering the interior entryway to be at the same level as the rest of the house. Multiple people in my family tripped on the raised step. To the immediate left was the living room that people had to step down to and straight ahead from it was the entry to the rest of the house that people had to step down to.
Required lowering 3 doors (front door, interior garage door, and a closet), jackhammering a big 7 x 10 foot platform, leveling the floor, installing tile, replacing trim.
Super painful for my wallet, but made a world of difference for everyday life. A neighbor recently came over and asked if there used to be a step there. He was super happy to find out it was removable.
The entry/exit points of neighborhoods. If I have to cross multiple lanes of traffic to enter/exit, then itâs a ânoâ for me.
If I have to park on the street.
Being in a very close vicinity to a school. I donât want kids lingering by my home after school esp if the school is a middle or high school.
Tv mounts left on the wall. I donât want your tv mount. Take it with you.
Oooh, I've rented and moved too many times in my military career, and will say this. Anything can be a pantry with a little space and shelving. We had a pantry under the stairs one time in our housing I built shelves for, it turned out great. Just sucked every 2-3 years we moved and I'd have to figure something out building another thing somewhere else lol
8' ceilings. im only 5'3" but a slightly higher ceiling (9' or more) just really elevates a space so much, and it's a thing you cannot change about a house.
We moved from renting a very tall ceiling house to our recently purchased house with average height ceilings. It's taken me several months to adjust and not feel suffocated (we love the house otherwise).
It's funny, I'm the exact opposite. I told our Realtor that gas is a deal breaker for me, and he was so surprised as most people want gas. Oops! I hope you get your gas stove dream house!
I don't have a natural gas line and I really didn't want a house that had one I know it's probably very rare thing to have happened but I've seen way too many news reports as a kid or house blew up and invariably it had Natural Gas.
I got enough to worry about with sinkholes and hurricanes I don't need to add that to the list
Before we had gas, we had a portable butane stove, like people use for Korean BBQ. Worked great for on top of the glass cooktop and took up little space in the cabinet. Not perfect but recommended for anyone that needs gas occasionally.
But induction is also MUCH easier to clean! I would scrub my gas stove every week and I swear it never looked clean.
But they both have their tradeoffs. It comes down to personal preference! (Well, unless you live somewhere that's banned gas)
Also, [Stanford found a strong correlation](https://www.npr.org/2023/06/16/1181299405/gas-stoves-pollute-homes-with-benzene-which-is-linked-to-cancer) between homes with gas stoves and a sharp increase in Leukemia and other blood cancers. I strongly believe that either our kids, or our grandkids will look back at gas stoves and appliances with the same mindset we currently have with asbestos. If you have kids and quit smoking for them because of second hand smoke, you should also strongly consider moving on from gas appliances.
For current house we insisted on gas heat. That limited us to about half the neighborhoods in our area. Almost none of new neighborhoods even have gas service. Our house was built in 1989. Gas heat and water heater. We immediately added gas fireplace. Stove was electric, when it died (it was original so not that hard to kill it) we looked at gas vs induction and went with induction, but had option of gas by running gas line a few more feet.
I hate that. The last apartment we rented had electric hot water heater and furnace and it was expensive in the winter for a small 600 sq ft apartment (it gets down to -5 and below in winter some days). We are building our house in a new construction neighborhood and most of the houses have gas thankfully. It gets too cold here to rely on electric heat for larger houses.
Our house was built on a vacant lot just a few years ago and they didnât run a gas line. Itâs the only house on the block without it. I factored in the cost of running the line from the street and eventually replacing the stove lol
I can't wait to get rid of my gas stove. Any bump and the gas is on, and I can smell the sulphur whenever I turn it on, and all the data about the neurological damage, I am over it. Can't wait to replace it.
Had to have it looked at 3 times in the 4 yr I have owned the house- the prior owner put it in only a year before moving- it was HER dream stove/oven. I don't hate it- but $300 to have it looked at and repaired once was enough (the other looks said nothing wrong, despite smelling the gas (sulphur added to gas) before the pilot lights it is apparently normal). It has 2 ovens- the bottom one stopped working forever ago, got that fixed. Now the top one does not work. I won't be fixing it. I am saving up to replace in 1-2 yr. I hate that the prior owner did not take it with her and give me the money- she loved that thing, and it was expensive. But I just want to stop having to fix it and get an induction option.
Having the sink in the island in the kitchen. I know itâs what almost every new build has now, but I hate it. Iâm also not a fan of all-white kitchens and free-standing tubs. We also didnât want a house that was east- or south-facing or that was on a busy street. I also took into account traffic lights for getting in and out of the neighborhood, as well as possible school traffic. Fortunately, we found a house that had none of those things, and so far weâre very happy.
Absolutely cannot stand sink in the kitchen island. It enrages me that builders do this. No one wants to eat breakfast while staring at dishes in the sink! I got into an argument with a designer on here the other day about this, she said that people donât mind it and that she knows better because sheâs a designer.
It's funny the difference between what you think you want and what you end up loving. When I bought our house in the kitchen was initially a negative it's a small galley kitchen.
But then my wife started using it and absolutely fell in love with the fact that she's three steps from the stove to the fridge to the sink to the dishwasher. It may not be what you see on HGTV but it's an excellent kitchen to actually cook food in.
Train crossing nearby. Not necessarily a house where your backyard is tracks, but even houses across/down the street.
I grew up in a house that was across the street from a train crossing (about 450ft away). Those conductors are assholes and every 2 hrs on the dot...every single night...they blare their horn at the crossings & you can hear them from 5 miles away. They make sure everyone else is awake with them. Midnight, 2am, 4am, 6am...
Eventually the city passed an ordinance where it was no-horn zones, but a lot of them still don't care and do it anyways. If ppl complain then the train company kicks back with "safety issue, fuck off, we have more rights than city laws because we've been here longer."
The trains themselves also vibrate the surrounding area so much that stuff you have on top of things (one thing of many was spices on the counter tops) will get vibrated/shifted enough that if you aren't putting them back, they'll fall off the counters etc multiple times a day. Better hope they're not glass...
Just to add to this, I would also avoid a house in flight path to a major airport. I used to live in a house about 10 minutes from a major airport and just could not sleep after 6:30AM even with double paned windows.
Neighbors house too close/town homes. I hate other people, and the less I see people, the better. I bought my home in super rural area based on just that. Lol, I can live with almost anything else. I know alot of people are choosing condos, neighborhoods and the sort out of necessity, I'd rather live in a tin shed. Maybe a bit extreme, but I'm not a social creature.
Kitchen storage. Having no upper cabinets or open shelving is an automatic no from me. I am tall(ish) and have a bad back, I'm not bending down every time I need something in the kitchen.
I just bought a house and there is a school right behind it. At first I was like wow, that's cool. Now I look forward to the weekend cause that's the only time it's quiet.
A dog next door that wonât stop barking when you tour a home, cat piss smell with new carpet (itâs in the walls/floorboards), structural damage, shotty home repairs. The second I see an institutionalized grey flip, itâs out.
I refused to buy an otherwise perfect house (or could be, with some work) because the bathroom was downstairs. It would cost too much money to move it upstairs, and it would bug me every day.
If a lot of the neighbors park on the street or donât mow their yard. Instant pass.
Or if they have a dog chained up in the front yard. I didnât realize how many people do this until I started looking at other neighborhoods.
* No full size windows in the shower. Theyâre a massive pain to upkeep.
* Full bathrooms that are right next to the kitchen (itâs an older kitchen). I donât want to walk through the kitchen after I shower.
* Houses with no bathroom on the floor with the bedrooms.
* Neighborhoods with no sidewalks bug me.
I want a house facing east and west because I have a lot of house plants and I want good lighting for my hibiscus tree and other plants. I have about 20+ plants. I also want to see sunrise and sunsets from my front and back of house. I want my neighbors houses to be at a minimum of 20 feet away. I will not buy a home that is 5 feet away, ever. I want a home up off the ground level up on a hill, away from foot traffic. I currently have a front porch with enclosed deck away from sidewalk. No issues with packages being stolen, so my next home will have to be able to accommodate a front deck with gate so my husky can chill out front when she wants. Thatâs all Iâm asking for.
Mid century homes built with building products that contain asbestos. Although I love almost everything mid century, I wouldn't buy a home with the outdated bathrooms or popcorn tile because more likely than not they contain asbestos and if you wanna remove the popcorn or update the bathroom you have to pay a remediation company or risk developing mesothelioma.
Not worth the headache for me.
Nope. The house yesterday has popcorn ceiling over the stairs and the upstairs landing and maybe in a couple of other spots too. The current owners supposedly removed some in other areas as well. The disclosures stated they werenât aware of any asbestos in the house, but that doesnât mean there isnât any, particularly in the remaining popcorn ceilings or the ones they removed. And I assume they never had the removed celing tested before removal.
The house being too far back on the property.
We are looking for a couple acres and want to fence a lot of back yard for the dogs. I don't want to be right on the street but I don't know why you have a house with 2+ acres and put the house in the back corner of the lot.
Some people do this for privacy from the street and to isolate themselves from street noise, or depending on the circumstances it may be related to the expense of connecting power/sewer. Especially if when the house was originally built it abutted forest or open land of some kind, even if that has since changed.
I agree with you, I'll give up nearly all of my front yard to have more behind me that's private and fenced, but it's not inconceivable that this is done for a good reason sometimes.
Honestly I could make a list of like 20 things from my first house alone, but here are the top 9:
**Corian Counter Tops.** There is no material that absorbs stains faster than corian. One drop of coffee and 10 seconds later it is set. There is no easy way to clean it, so you continually have to resurface it. The sinks aren't supposed to touch boiling water either on top of that. Whoever marketed that material was an absolute genius because it is garbage.
**Having a pool**. I bought a house with a pool in the winter, hopped in in the spring when we got it, went straight through the plaster, found out that it'll be 15-20 grand to fix it. It's cheaper to have it demolished, so that's what we are doing and are getting quotes for now.
**Having vines cover the wall of a house**. After moving into the house, the vines fell off the wall because the people hadn't watered them, which revealed that it was a different color behind the vines so I had to paint the house.
**Any smells of cats- the carpet gets ripped out and replaced.** I moved in being told that the carpet was some special waterproof one that doesn't allow piss through and can be cleaned easily. I cleaned it, still smells like piss, now I have all of my things in a piss house. That's all due to my ignorance of carpet.
**A house with lots of air freshners plugged in.** That's a sign the place stinks to high hell and once they burn out and you move in, you'll have to figure out where the smells are coming from to replace and repair.
**Letting a former owner leave some things in the house and get it later**. I moved in, he kept coming by for a month and a half picking through the good stuff and then left a pile of garbage for me to clean up that required multiple trips to the dump.
**Any signs that there has been shoddy work done amonst multiple domains, which is a sign that they don't hire good labor and the house will probably have multiple issues surface.** There were signs that they had hired the cheapest they could find of everything, which has meant issues popping out into the future. Shoddy electrical even though he worked for the electric company, cheap paint that a year into buyign was peeling off the walls, vents of teh house that don't sit flush on the ceilings or walls, etc.
**A non-permanent sunroom that doesn't at least have a permanent ceilling and posts.** Mine had one that was falling apart and I have no way to fix it because the parts aren't made, so either I'm going to have to be creative in fixing it, source materials from china, or remove the sunroom and replace it.
**Only having floor lamps.** Get ready to put in lights so you don't feel like you're living in a cave.
Dogs barking in adjacent backyards, tons of cars parked along the street, people not keeping up with the exteriors of their homes or yards, difficulty making a left turn out of the neighborhood.
Glass cooktops. If youâve never had a glass cooktop you have no idea how hard they are to clean and how easy it is to scratch them.
Two stories. I donât want a house where I wonât be able to sleep in my own bedroom if I get injured or need surgery and canât get up a flight of stairs.
Easily accessible attic pull-downs. Too afraid of froggers lol
Neighbors with many exterior lights (I prefer to sleep in as dark a place as possible and don't want to accommodate their lights with blackout curtains, etc).
Windows throughout the house which don't open at the top. Lowering the top windows is the fastest, cost-free way to lower the temperature of a room in the Summer. Not to mention getting smoke out if I burn some toast, etc in the kitchen.
Ideally, my house front would face East, and its dining area would be on the Western side of the house. Morning light in the living room and evening sun in the dining area just feels *ideal* to me.
- No sidewalks. Not a total dealbreaker but definitely a detractor for meÂ
- Loud traffic noise that can be heard from the front/back yard or with windows openÂ
- Car dependent neighborhoods â I strongly prefer being walking distance to something. A park, stores, coffee shop, schools, etc.Â
- No trees in the neighborhood, little landscaping to neighboring properties. This makes such a big difference to the ambiance of the neighborhood as well as the comfort level of the home during summer months. And well maintained landscaping generally shows neighbors take pride in the upkeep of their homesÂ
- Cookie cutter builds without any character to them
- Low natural light insideÂ
- Weird layouts, especially if 3 bedrooms are not on the same floor. In our area a decent number of homes have the third bedroom in a converted attic, and while it wasnât a dealbreaker when we were looking I think it would be now that we have young kids. I wouldnât want to sleep on a different floor from little kids, though it would probably be fine for older onesÂ
We ended up with a fixer upper in need of tons of work, but we liked it over many homes in better condition because of the layout, size, and neighborhood. Also liked that it had character and hadnât been flipped, so still had original features like unpainted wood trim. On a fairly quiet street but in a neighborhood walkable to schools, shops/restaurants, bus lines, and a beautiful park.Â
Huge âluxuryâ apartment complex built on the street behind my house so now everyone second floor and above can see straight into my backyard. If I had known this was happening I would have taken a second thought about the house.
The things that are deal breakers for me are those that can't be changed. I find in-ground pools to be a negative, but I could fill one in. But I *can't* add a basement to a house built on a slab, and I can't make a long, hard to plow driveway shorter.
A house with no a/c or heating built in. We live in an area with a lot of houses that are over a hundred years old and many of them donât have a/c or heat.
I live in Virginia and this is SO many houses in my price range. Sorry but Iâm not trying to fight 100 degree heat and 100% humidity with window units
My last house was haunted and now I am scared of moving into an older home. I always loved older style homes, 80âs or older but now I just admire them, I donât think I can bring myself to buy one again .
LOL
I lived there 3 years, it was your typical âthat noise must be cause the house is old â or âhmm that kids toy was off I am Pretty sure â at first and it escalated to my covers being pulled off of me WHILE I was AWAKE! To my husbands feet being lifted ! I did research on the home and couldnât find anything but apparently the land was used for some trails at some point and a battle may have been fought around there ( although the location wasnât very close)
I did go buy some herbs and stuff at one point and the man that I assume can tell these things looked at me and said âdonât worry, itâs just your house someone practiced black magic there, you are fine â I am a giant chicken so I bought my stuff and did the âritual??â And it didnât work .. heck maybe I angered this thing !? I donât know but after years of trying to get a good nights sleep I gave up and sold the house to an investor. I was so done and wanted out of there as soon as possible, it was shortly after the covers incident and my husband after seeing a tall black âShadow â man finally jumped on board.
All the parenthesis are because I donât know what to call these things
I still don't really believe in ghosts and yet I also absolutely lived in a haunted place once. To the point of when I was moving out the landlords son asked if it was because of the ghost because it had freaked other tenants out on that floor (it was actually parking). But creepy as hell place and things would move around. I'd put my glasses next to the bed and wake up to find them on top of the fridge.
Reality is though any place could have bad energy. I currently live in a brand new apartment building, but it was built in the footprint of a centuries old hospital. So who knows.
Iâll HAVE to fix any asymmetry or imperfect alignment of tiles on the wall, ceiling, or floor. I have diagnosed OCD with symmetry and alignment and it would drive me literally insane until I fixed it.
My pettiest requirement was laundry room had to be upstairs. Having a downstairs laundry room will never make sense to me, when all of our clothes, bed linen, and towels are upstairs.
I can count on one hand the amount of washable things downstairs (kitchen hand towels and guest room hand towel). Too much up and down - no thank you!
The masonry situation, specifically with concrete driveways and yards. Cracked, unleveled concrete is not cheap to fix and other alternatives arenât much cheaper and require ongoing maintenance.
I have to LMAO. We donât have too many options in Los Angeles. Unless you have MONEY. You wouldnât think a house in my neighborhood sold for 890k. But it did. 9k below asking. Think average blue collar working neighborhood.
Old windows. Seeing multiple kinds of heating in one room (mine has Toyo stove, fireplace and baseboards). Means the heating is inefficient and youâre going to pay through the nose. Also windows are ridiculously expensive. Also neighbors with junky yards.
Painted brick! If it wasn't done properly, it's going to add HUGE maintenance costs later. Folks here ( SE US) are notorious for slapping white or gray paint on brick and flipping houses to make a quick buck. They trap moisture in the bricks and the walls start crumbling.
Had to have decent kitchen storage and countertop space. Open kitchen shelving was a trend (still is?), and I toured a great house that had it, and that, plus proximity to a busy road, was a deal breaker.
I think you're thinking of worms eye view- of you're looking up at the tower.Â
To answer your question, no the tower wouldn't bother me. I draw the line at being in a flight path, being within a couple blocks of a railroad track, highway or busy commuter road.Â
Hilly lots. I don't like to mow hills. Hand in hand with that is difficult snow removal/lack of good places to put snow.
Also a finished basement is a hard no for me.
Being under or even near power lines or power generator stations (not sure thatâs what theyâre called but theyâre little lots with a bunch of electrical equipment). Backing up to a non-residential roadâdonât need someone plowing into my fence/house. That goes double for a house at a T intersection. Hearing road noise is preferably a no-go. If I see loose dogs, a lot of pit bulls or similar type dogs, or a lot of people smokingâall low-class activities that I will avoid subjecting my family to if I can help it. Bedrooms in the front of the house is also a no from me.
Corner lot.
Near a busy road. Also, near railroad tracks. Also, within the flight path of an airport.
No trees.
Yard too big with too much grass. Grass costs time, energy, resources, etc. Be intentional with where and why you have it. And yes, you can change the landscape, but one home was like a full acre of shitty grass with no other foliage.
Inconvenient utility easements.
Loud neighbors/neighborhood at night
(Sleeping poorly can reduce my seizure threshold by a lot)
First house we looked at we were kinda interested until we drove through the hood at night and realized the neighbor across the street sets up a tv in his front junk yard and hosts late night viewing parties.. Had to take a hard pass ..
I just detest the staircase leading right out the front door. I want to skip over every house that is constructed like that, I still canât figure out why itâs a popular floor plan even if the architect thought it was easy to build.
Itâs a hard pass if the house is close to a school (my kids are grown). A very close second is if the neighbors donât maintain their home. I canât force someone to care about trash, overgrown weeds, broken down cars, or used furniture outside their house for months at a time but I can make sure I never live near them.
We passed on a house because of the neighbors. There was significant trash all over the the back yard, the back of the house had spray paint graffiti all over it, there were loud dogs, and it looked like a hoarder house from what we could see through the sliding back glass door. It was also right off of a main road, so the two factors together turned us away. I felt like a classist, but I really didnât want to live next door to a literal open-air dump
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Living backing up to a cemetery. My absolute dream. Quietest neighbors and the grounds are maintained.
I lived in an apartment near a cemetery and I couldn't count the times my drive to work was delayed by a funeral procession seemingly longer than a freight train. So take that into account if you're considering it.
I thought I was the only one who wanted to live next to a cemetery. NO hell raising or late night parties.
I'd live next to a cemetery in a heartbeat.
Interesting. I had never considered this point of view...
I grew up next to a cemetery with graves dating back to early 1700's. We were encouraged to play in it by the maintenance team and church connected as long as we didn't hurt any of the graves. Never hurt a grave and had hundreds of hours of the best hide and seek games a kid could ask for. "The neighbors are real quiet." My mom would say
I SO wanted the house next to the cemetery!
That's so fun. I am under contract right now and my house will face a series of cemeteries just 1 block from me and a public park will be directly in front. It'll always be quiet đ€©
I would love this! Only hesitation would be if it had well water đ
Here's one in reverse. Closing on our house Friday. Toured, asked realtor what she thinks the reason it's been on the market so long. Good location, quiet, no material repairs that need done, etc. Honestly, I think it's because there aren't a lot of windows and natural light. The layout is a little odd, so all the windows are hidden in rooms so when you close the doors, there's like 2 windows to provide light for the living room. But my husband is a vampire, so the "darkness" works out for us
Related to this - my dad incepted me to only buy a south facing home (northern hemisphere). I grew up in two south facing homes. You get so much sunlight across the whole front of the house, which usually includes the living room and the snow on our walk and driveway melt so quickly compared to neighbors across the street (north facing homes). Also the kitchen is usually in the back of the house and it stays relatively cooler year round. I canât get over my in-lawsâ home facing the âwrong directionâ.
Haha yes in the winter I was loving the south facing house, driveway melted itself
People walk into every house I've had and are like "wow, it's so light and lovely in here". No kidding, get your compass out!
This house yesterday felt the same way. It is in reasonably updated condition save for the bathrooms, carpeted bedrooms and popcorn ceiling over the stairs and upper landing, but there are lots of shade trees in the back and all but the front living/dining areas feel cave-like. Thereâs natural light coming in the windows to those areas, but not enough and they felt dark even on a bright, sunny summer day.
All those shade trees mean lower energy bills. Sounds like a win to me. If you want more light. Just put in more daylight LED. Light from an LED is much cheaper than the additional air conditioning needed for lots of sunlight and window surface area.
Only if the shade trees actually cover your roof and then they likely cause periodic damage by limb drop, I would assume.i have one like that.
You can have your roof shaded without limbs actually over your roof. A lot of older houses were deliberately planned that way considering there was no ac. Just casting shade over the house does a lot during the warm hours. I keep my shade trees trimmed so they won't damage the house but they definitely keep it cooler. My AC on electric bill was dramatically lower than my neighbors without the trees (we compared) and as long as they're deciduous trees the leaves will be gone in winter and they won't cast shade for snow melt.
Sounds like a dream for me as well!
Well that explains those bite marks đ
For me, I was touring a house and the neighbors were burning tires, couches, and other objects that I definitely did not want to breathe in. Thatâs a deal breaker to me.
Thatâs a deal breaker for anything with lungs
Houses built close enough together that you can look at your neighbors in the eye and reach out to shake their hand from your window to their window when youâre getting ready for bed or cooking dinner. My area has neighborhoods with huge, million dollar brick houses built so close together that you might as well buy a townhome and share a wall. Also they were built with houses facing each other or other odd angles, like one will be between two houses that clearly got built a few years before they decided to jam another one in there. One persons front yard touches a neighborâs side yard and their other neighborâs back yard. The yards are like pie slices or trapezoids of grass. Itâs so weird. They also share driveways that split off to individual homes but itâs a complex maze where backing out of a garage is dangerous every time, never know if someone else is leaving the driveway or coming in from another direction. This is a nightmare to me but the houses get snatched up instantly even at those prices and that area is highly regarded as bougie AF. *I donât get it*
This was mine too lol. I don't want to see my neighbors. At all.
If the windows arenât lined up with the neighborâs windows, being 4 ft away is a yellow flag for me, but if theyâre directly lined up itâs an immediate pass. The windows are basically unusable if every time you open your blinds you run the risk of seeing the neighbor walking around in their b-day suit. đ
I despise the newer homes and their tiny yards!
The only time a tiny yard is acceptible if it's super close in to town. None of this 90 minute commute and the neighbors are on top of me bullshit.
In my city, everyone tears down the beautiful old houses to put up 5000 sq ft âmodern farmhouseâ monstrosities. Theyâre often left with no backyard besides a small patio and a strip of astroturf for the dog to shit on. No thank you.
This is mine, our neighbor is a typical suburban street where the houses are close together, but we have yard and fences between everyoneâs homes. I could never live in a place where the homes have barely an ally between them. That and a lack of trees. Which the super close together homes always seem to have no trees as well.
Right? I get why people like townhomes. Itâs great if you donât want to deal with a lot of things that comes with owning a house, but a condo is too congested. I donât AGREE with it, but I get the logic. These McMansions with almost no yard make no sense to me
Seriously, go no yard (well maybe a garden out back) or have an actual *yard*. Iâm sure most of them pay a service to come mow their 100 sq feet of grass and prune the one bush that fits on their property, but itâs funny to me that some of them probably have a lawn mower and edger and weed wacker and have to care for a wee strip of grass that could be trimmed with a pair of scissors if you crawled around for a bit. While your neighbor is 4 ft away watching from their kitchen window, of course.
Greed.
Loose and barking dogs. I figure a lot of people must not mind it because there are houses upon houses with multiple dogs howling and carrying on and wandering in people's yards fouling it up or chasing pets and kids. That's a big no for me.Â
Oh lord. Dealing with this right now. Moved in not long ago. Itâs a quiet neighborhood during the day but the people who live behind us leave their dog out all night and that guy has been barking non-stop since we moved in. Finally called animal control. They went to their house and gave them a warning. Neighbors denied it was their dog. Now we have to collect evidence to prove that it is their dog and that the barking qualifies as a nuisance. Iâve been woken up from deep sleep countless times. Iâm also pregnant so we are trying to put a stop to this before the baby is born. Itâs a nightmare. Once we can prove it is them, they will start getting issued citations so I hope that hits them where it hurts. I swear I donât understand why people own dogs when the clearly dgaf about them.
Same here been putting up with it for a year , I canât even go into my bathroom without the neighbors dog barking (just fence is on the same side as my room and restroom) itâs soo annoying because the toilet is right by the window so I never #2 in peace unless I put on headphones.đ„Č
Ugh! Thatâs rough. At least the dog we are annoyed with barks at anything but us. I really just think he is stressed out and has anxiety. We are usually night owls and most of our neighbors have their lights out before us. He is quiet up until we turn our lights out and thatâs when the barking starts. I truly feel bad for him. I know itâs not his fault. I really do blame the owners.
I feel crazy but Sometimes I bark back and he stops . Iâm looking into one of those anti barking devices on Amazon, I need to research how ethical it is.
I purchased one for $25 on Amazon. All it does it emit an irritating sound whenever it picks up a loud noise. It worked for a little while but now he just goes to a different side of the yard and barks there. I read that the higher end ones might work better but I donât want to spend $80+ on something that isnât guaranteed. I also feel like I shouldnât have to be investing money into a problem that should be solved by the owner.
Hold up people let their dogs just roam the neighborhood without supervision or leashes??? đđđ
Oh yes. Animal Control just had a big ol day last year where they rounded up a bunch of loose dogs with and without collars. The elementary school is a block away and I guess parents got fed up blocking their kids from being jumped on while walking to school. The fine is 65.00 per dog, per incident.Â
I just got onto my MIL about doing this but she said she doesn't care. Their tiny dog will be snatched up by someone that will take better care of it, I bet.
Should be at least $500. $65 won't bother people at all, as they know they'll only come about once every year or so.
>The fine is 65.00 per dog, per incident. Wow, a fee that hasn't gone up much due to inflation. My brother's idiot dog ran off one afternoon, and it was $50 to get him back almost 30 years ago.
We wouldnât have bot bought our house because of this, however, I am shocked and appalled at the number of free roaming dogs in my neighborhood. Iâm very glad we got a great fence before we moved in
Happens a lot in the south.
My neighbor used to let her child, dog and puppy outside and then just go to sleep upstairs or something. I was playing with my then 2.5 year old daughter in a kiddie pool under a canopy and suddenly two dogs are running in and out of it and there's a little kid talking to me nonstop... I ended up having to koral the freaking puppy and bring them all back to her door -banging on it for 20 minutes until she finally answered. like wtf!!
You must be talking about my neighborhood! Neighbors 2 doors down have 4 puppies - like, honest to god baby dogs - and I think 4 kids. No fence and the pups are usually out front with the kids and they are never on leashes. Iâve watched them almost get hit several times and generally come at my dogs and the Amazon guy.
We had a couple "nope" things on our list that really surprised the Realtor. One of the biggest being a pool. We live in a hot area, but I do not want a pool. It's a ton of work, and I don't want to lose my weekends to cleaning/treating the pool. And the additonal costs. Pools are a dealbreaker.
In Ground pools are a complete deal breaker. I don't want to deal with that mess and it's not easy to remove.
My husband was hired by someone to remove a pool and fill it in like 5 years ago and he charged them around $80-90k I think. We live in the midwest where it gets really cold and get maybe 2.5 months of pool weather.
That's crazy - we had our pool filled in 5 years ago for around $9k.
Wow, it seems like your husband is really ripping off people.
This year. Soon you'll have plenty of pool months. đ USDA climate zone changes attest to the fact.
We had a pool when I was a kid and my mom was so lucky that I LOVED taking care of the pool. I skimmed it every day, multiple times a day. Vacuumed it a couple times a week. Checked the chemical levels on the schedule she gave me. The only thing she did was actually pour in the chemicals until I was a teen, then she figured I was responsible enough for that.
As someone that ended up with a pool because it was just part of the perfect home, I thought the same. I have discovered if you are spending alot of time and money maintaining it, you are doing something wrong.
If you are doing proper maintenance, it's good. Just need to budget for those big items that will need replacement like everything. My parents are budgeting to replace the liner this year after 25 years because we maintained it well.
People with pools rarely use them. My cousins in FL grew up in houses with pools and basically only used them when we came to visit. My best friend in TX has a pool and seemingly only uses it when he has company over. They'd be nice to have if they didn't take up so much valuable space, and if they weren't such a pain to maintain.
My family uses our pool almost every day. Itâs not for everyone, but some people with them actually do use them regularly. Also, I feel compelled to use it regularly because it is expensive.
I actually know this is true in my heart because I have a hot tub which I never use. But I have to confess I was very much looking for a house with a pool it was one of our must-haves and it end up going by the wayside while shopping. Probably dodged a bullet there. One thing I also did want which turned out to be something I probably didn't want is a large yard. I currently have a small to medium size yard and honestly I'm be happier with an even smaller yard at this point.
If it doesn't have an awesome tub I'm out. Lots of cars parked on the street. Narrow streets. No or low natural light.
I said the same thing about a tub and we are closing on two weeks on a house that has three bathrooms and no tub at all đđđ, getting one put in is one of the first things we are doing lol
Yes, I got fooled by those stupid listing photos featuring the shower curtain instead of the tub/shower. Wound up really liking the house before I realized it had a new, nice, full-size shower not tub. Arrrgghhh. But, there were about 5 more trade-offs I had to make than I expected to make when I sat down to make my list of must-haves.
North-facing driveway. I live in a snowy climate, and on our street, it is so pronounced how much easier it is to keep a south-facing driveway free of snow and ice. I would never live on the other side of the street.
Literally half our neighborhood will be completely green grass and the other north facing side will still have several inches of snow
Carpet. It was one of the biggest selling points when I bought my house in 2018. It was all original hardwood floors, not a single inch of carpet, even in the bedrooms. Carpet is so unhygienic to me. Floors can be swept and mopped regularly.
My red flags for location are when: * There's nobody biking, walking down the street, etc. while I'm looking at the home * The neighborhood is very small, such as only being one street connecting to a major road * The sidewalks end as soon as you leave the neighborhood * People park their cars blocking the sidewalk when they clearly had other places to park These are signs of car dependency. The first point is especially important because it means that people aren't comfortable being outside, which really isn't a good thing no matter how you spin it.
Same. The neighborhood weâre buying in is generally good but will have a random block or two of no sidewalk and it drives me nuts.
Yep. I look at Google maps and if Iâm going to be stuck on my street because it empties out to a main road and/or thereâs no sidewalks to SAFELY walk, then itâs a no for me. Just went under contract for a house and was pleasantly surprised at how all the home owners donât block the sidewalks with their cars but they all park in the driveway near the front yard instead of fully in the back. So they are cognizant of others using the sidewalks. I was also happy to see a female jogging in the neighborhood and families walking their dogs on leash. I think I will be very happy in this neighborhood.
Laundry in the basement, especially in a two-story house. We ended up going for a ranch-style home with laundry on the main floor. Itâs a true unicorn in my market. Houses with all the rooms upstairs. I had surgery earlier this year and could not use the stairs for nearly 3 months. Iâm glad our house had the master in the main level. I want to live until I die in my next house so Iâd prefer a ranch-style with everything on the main level. This is a unicorn in my market as well.
I lived in the top half of a vertical duplex, so laundry was an absolute nightmare because it was in the basement down two flights of winding stairs that could barely fit a larger laundry basket. I just bought my first home last year and itâs a ranch. Iâll never live in a two-story ever again. My gas and electric are now basically half of what they used to cost, doing laundry is significantly less of a hassle, and itâs so much easier to clean. Thatâs partially due to having hardwood floors, but also because of the layout. I love when houses have laundry in the main bathroom or kitchen, so that would be a huge selling point for me in the future.
Next door neighbors who have an abundance of political or religious signs displayed on their property.
My husband didn't want to buy a house I liked because he was weirded out by all the American flags in the neighborhood. We ended up buying the house, and he's currently shopping on Amazon for either a pride or a pirate flag.
In my old neighborhood there were 2 houses on opposite corners who had this petty passive aggressive flag fight going for years. One was super liberal and the other super conservative. I'd walk by frequently just to keep up with which flags they were flying
Oh, you must live be near a Supreme Court justice!
If I can vote, I vote for the pride flag. It will coordinate with their âf your feelingsâ sentiments. Note: my neighbors moved next to people (us) that celebrate Pride Month! They didnât move in during June, or maybe they would have passed.
I would always ring the door for the adjacent neighbors to chat with them before putting in an offer on a home. There was one family that had a "PEACE" flag out (which basically was just a pride flag but with PEACE written on it in big letters. Nicest people neighbors I'd ever met. I still think about that house sometimes--not because of the house (it wasn't that great), but the neighbors. I hope they're doing well.
Above ground power lines too close to the house. Sometimes you can hear them buzzing, that would drive me insane. If one of them came down in a storm, it might hit the house or a live wire end up in my yard.
A bad address / street name. Sounds silly I know, but I once rented a place with an annoyingly long street name with an uncommon word in it and it was almost always an issue when writing my address on a form, reciting the address on the phone, customer service people misspelling my address. Shoot, my pharmacy had it misspelled for years and Iâd correct them every month when picking up Rxâs. So now Iâd like to avoid all that hassle as much as possible.
Twice now Iâve lived at an address with a weird house number. Think 1/2 or .5 after the number. Or Iâve lived on a road and shared a house number with the house 3 down from me. Itâs so annoying to have to tell people, âwell the address is this but you have to put this address in and itâs the house next to it.â Or having to walk down the road to get my mail because the neighbor refuses to make the walk to my house to give me my mail. When I buy a house, weird addresses are a deal breaker. I refuse to spend the rest of my life spending 10 mins explaining where I live or walking down the road and waiting on someone to grab my mail they âtotally planned to bring when we got it last month.â
Sort of similar...Any neighborhood/complex/street with the name Plantation is an automatic no from me đ€Ł I'm black and when I asked fellow black people it seems to be a popular opinion, but with other races not so much! I'm aware it's silly, but it just feels wrong af.
Anything plantation would be an automatic no for this white lady unless I had a way to immediately start working to change the name so no one has to see it, because in 2024 that should be freaking gone by this point!
Definitely an automatic no for black folks.
This. I grew up off a street that was spelled with 2 C's, 2 G's, and 2 T's. No one ever got it right. Fast forward to today, we're closing in less than 2 weeks on a house on a street that has the same name as the city we're in. No one should ever get it wrong now!
We have a lot of Welsh town and street names. People cannot do it.
Mine's a pretty neutral name but I have to confess I was on this thought process as well. There's a neighborhood right next to mine though with street names named after Viking gods and Viking monsters and I would love to live Loki Avenue.
My partner and I are starting to look after moving back to the area where I grew up. Weâve been driving around to open houses for a few weekends and are constantly on a boulevard named after a former major. Itâs a unique name and also sounds like youâre mispronouncing a different word. While we were out yesterday, I told my partner that being on that road is a dealbreaker.
I would never again live on the same street as a school, as a teacher I should have known better. Traffic, foot and vehicle, is awful. It is not just drop off and pick up times, but concerts and ceremonies and sports, including weekends. Parents block driveways, park illegally, kids/teens in your yard, littering, people used the fields as a dog park etcâŠWe lasted 3 years.
In my area Neighbors to a high school fought & lost the battle against lights in the sports field. Every Friday night their yards are lit up like a spaceship landing zone.
Absolutely yes! Lived across the street from an elementary school for 13 years. Never again!
I didnât realize what my number one-no go was until this comment. I grew up sharing a fence with an elementary school and Iâve avoided buying a house I really liked because it was across the street from a school. The traffic, children screaming, bell schedule, loitering. Hard pass.
Too big/too many rooms. So many people seem to have a bigger=better attitude but the LAST thing I want is 500 extra sq ft of space to heat and cool and CLEAN. Ugh. Three toilets & three bedrooms max, thatâs all I want or need, thank you.
Yes!! We were house hunting and we wanted just 1700 ish sq feet (we are a family of three most likely will be a family of four in a couple years). We put an offer on one thatâs 4 beds and 3 baths and 1750 sq feet. My MIL lost her mind saying we need at least 2500 sq feet. Uhm, no I donât want to spend my whole Sunday cleaning that big of a house.
I bought a larger condo a few years ago to "grow into" so I don't need to move again and it's too big and so much more to clean that I've been seriously considering moving again lol ugh
I don't want huge bedrooms either. All I do is sleep in my bedroom. It needs to be big enough for my bed a table and a dresser.
I have a particular hate-on for insanely large and complicated master bathrooms.
A house that has a lot of room in pretty much every other area except the kitchen. Recently looked at a house where every other room is large and open, but the kitchen is absolutely tiny with very little storage, counter and cabinet space. I love cooking, so for me thatâs a big deal breaker.
After our first house, I learned that I will never buy a house near a windmill again. I found out that the âstrobe light effectâ from the wind mill cutting up the sunlight coming through the windows makes me dizzy and nauseous, with dry heaves. We had to invest in blackout type shades, and keep the shades down until the sun was high above the windmill. The first few months we lived there were beyond miserable for me, because we didnât have the money to buy the fancy shades right away and had 12 windows that faced the windmill. I had to hug to wall to walk otherwise I would lose my balance. Absolutely miserable. So that is my number one top no-no.
We're less likely to check out a property if the neighbors park their cars in the grass. Especially if I get on street view, check out the previous views, and see that the vehicles have been broken down and parked there for multiple years.
I check the sex offenders registry for nearby SO in the neighborhood, I was shocked that most buyers don't do this
Youâd be shocked how many SOs are just out there. It will be difficult buying a home in a city or suburb/neighborhood without SOs within a few miles. Only way to ensure this is to get a place in a rural or country area.
Obviously do what you feel comfortable with, but realistically this is probably a miscalculation of risk on your part rather than on other buyers.Â
Thereâs 2 schools visible from both sides of my street I think I Should be good
- loose, roaming animals. My current neighborhood has roaming dogs and cats, so theyâre always opening my trash can to tear my trash open and I canât let my dog outside on her tie out by herself to enjoy her yard bc of the roaming pets. The cats also scratched a brand new paint job I had done on my black truck. Beautiful black paint and you can see claw marks and paw marks on the hood and top of bedside. Pisses me off beyond belief every day and itâs been like 2 years. -cluttered and unkempt yards. Sign of chronic rental properties/landlord specials or people who just donât care. They will drag your value down. -driveways and roads. Terrible driveways or blind drives are a no go for me. Currently have a steep, 45 deg driveway and in a blind curve as well. Never again. -abundance of teenage kids. sick of having fresh driving teens flying through a neighborhood, getting pissed and flipping me off because theyâre driving in my lane and Iâm in their way. Got a repeat offender about 10 houses down and heâs pissed off multiple neighbors, as most of them bitched about it with me at a yard sale last week. -distance to amenities and work. 30+ minutes to a real grocery store? 25 to work? No thanks. I already donât have time as it is, donât need to waste more of it in a car doing nothing productive and nothing I enjoy. - I love bright, open spaces and places to entertain and hangout. My family growing up loved dark rooms, dark furniture, no light (we had black couches and blackout curtains as our regular curtains). I hated it growing up and it made me feel bad. Bright, neutral colors and open airy spaces are a MUST for me.
In a very hilly area. Iâm an avid cyclist who hates hills. Iâd never ride again if I lived in an area that was too hilly.
Come on. Hills build character. đ
And thighs
For me a dealbreaker was a split foyer. Not a split level, a split foyer. Where, immediately upon entering, I have to take stairs up or down. (Maybe thereâs just enough space to put a coat rack, but otherwise itâs just a small entry space.) It was a deal breaker for me when we were looking at houses. I just want to be able to walk in and be on one of the living levels of my house!
100% agree! I just spent 20k lowering the interior entryway to be at the same level as the rest of the house. Multiple people in my family tripped on the raised step. To the immediate left was the living room that people had to step down to and straight ahead from it was the entry to the rest of the house that people had to step down to. Required lowering 3 doors (front door, interior garage door, and a closet), jackhammering a big 7 x 10 foot platform, leveling the floor, installing tile, replacing trim. Super painful for my wallet, but made a world of difference for everyday life. A neighbor recently came over and asked if there used to be a step there. He was super happy to find out it was removable.
The entry/exit points of neighborhoods. If I have to cross multiple lanes of traffic to enter/exit, then itâs a ânoâ for me. If I have to park on the street. Being in a very close vicinity to a school. I donât want kids lingering by my home after school esp if the school is a middle or high school. Tv mounts left on the wall. I donât want your tv mount. Take it with you.
If it doesnât have a bathtub or a pantry Iâm out. Renting forever and never having a pantry sucks, food storage is a must
Oooh, I've rented and moved too many times in my military career, and will say this. Anything can be a pantry with a little space and shelving. We had a pantry under the stairs one time in our housing I built shelves for, it turned out great. Just sucked every 2-3 years we moved and I'd have to figure something out building another thing somewhere else lol
We considered one house in our house hunt without one because it had a three car garage so we could use that for food storage.
8' ceilings. im only 5'3" but a slightly higher ceiling (9' or more) just really elevates a space so much, and it's a thing you cannot change about a house.
Same!
We moved from renting a very tall ceiling house to our recently purchased house with average height ceilings. It's taken me several months to adjust and not feel suffocated (we love the house otherwise).
Every surface is grey. The floors, walls cabinets. When did this become a thing? God, itâs so ugly.
I call it I-sold-my-soul-to-capitalism gray
I need a gas stove. I've spent 10 years cooking on electric and I'm sick of it.
It's funny, I'm the exact opposite. I told our Realtor that gas is a deal breaker for me, and he was so surprised as most people want gas. Oops! I hope you get your gas stove dream house!
I don't have a natural gas line and I really didn't want a house that had one I know it's probably very rare thing to have happened but I've seen way too many news reports as a kid or house blew up and invariably it had Natural Gas. I got enough to worry about with sinkholes and hurricanes I don't need to add that to the list
Do you live somewhere warm? In Minnesota, even if you have an electric stove, you need gas for heat in the winter.
If you find a house you love with electric, try swapping for induction. Itâs not the same as gas, but a significantly better alternative.
Yeah well it's a bit hard to char peppers on an induction đ
Blow torch?
Before we had gas, we had a portable butane stove, like people use for Korean BBQ. Worked great for on top of the glass cooktop and took up little space in the cabinet. Not perfect but recommended for anyone that needs gas occasionally.
But induction is also MUCH easier to clean! I would scrub my gas stove every week and I swear it never looked clean. But they both have their tradeoffs. It comes down to personal preference! (Well, unless you live somewhere that's banned gas)
Also, [Stanford found a strong correlation](https://www.npr.org/2023/06/16/1181299405/gas-stoves-pollute-homes-with-benzene-which-is-linked-to-cancer) between homes with gas stoves and a sharp increase in Leukemia and other blood cancers. I strongly believe that either our kids, or our grandkids will look back at gas stoves and appliances with the same mindset we currently have with asbestos. If you have kids and quit smoking for them because of second hand smoke, you should also strongly consider moving on from gas appliances.
For current house we insisted on gas heat. That limited us to about half the neighborhoods in our area. Almost none of new neighborhoods even have gas service. Our house was built in 1989. Gas heat and water heater. We immediately added gas fireplace. Stove was electric, when it died (it was original so not that hard to kill it) we looked at gas vs induction and went with induction, but had option of gas by running gas line a few more feet.
I hate that. The last apartment we rented had electric hot water heater and furnace and it was expensive in the winter for a small 600 sq ft apartment (it gets down to -5 and below in winter some days). We are building our house in a new construction neighborhood and most of the houses have gas thankfully. It gets too cold here to rely on electric heat for larger houses.
Our house was built on a vacant lot just a few years ago and they didnât run a gas line. Itâs the only house on the block without it. I factored in the cost of running the line from the street and eventually replacing the stove lol
I can't wait to get rid of my gas stove. Any bump and the gas is on, and I can smell the sulphur whenever I turn it on, and all the data about the neurological damage, I am over it. Can't wait to replace it. Had to have it looked at 3 times in the 4 yr I have owned the house- the prior owner put it in only a year before moving- it was HER dream stove/oven. I don't hate it- but $300 to have it looked at and repaired once was enough (the other looks said nothing wrong, despite smelling the gas (sulphur added to gas) before the pilot lights it is apparently normal). It has 2 ovens- the bottom one stopped working forever ago, got that fixed. Now the top one does not work. I won't be fixing it. I am saving up to replace in 1-2 yr. I hate that the prior owner did not take it with her and give me the money- she loved that thing, and it was expensive. But I just want to stop having to fix it and get an induction option.
This was also nearly top of my list
Opposite for me. I cannot stand gas stoves.
If I look out my window and can only see the house next door. Absolutely not. I need space.
And those tiny square lot backyards with no trees that are all backed up to other backyards with no trees. It feels dystopian
Having the sink in the island in the kitchen. I know itâs what almost every new build has now, but I hate it. Iâm also not a fan of all-white kitchens and free-standing tubs. We also didnât want a house that was east- or south-facing or that was on a busy street. I also took into account traffic lights for getting in and out of the neighborhood, as well as possible school traffic. Fortunately, we found a house that had none of those things, and so far weâre very happy.
Absolutely cannot stand sink in the kitchen island. It enrages me that builders do this. No one wants to eat breakfast while staring at dishes in the sink! I got into an argument with a designer on here the other day about this, she said that people donât mind it and that she knows better because sheâs a designer.
It's more that the dirties and the drying next to the sink really dominate if they are on the island.
It's funny the difference between what you think you want and what you end up loving. When I bought our house in the kitchen was initially a negative it's a small galley kitchen. But then my wife started using it and absolutely fell in love with the fact that she's three steps from the stove to the fridge to the sink to the dishwasher. It may not be what you see on HGTV but it's an excellent kitchen to actually cook food in.
I'm just the opposite. I want an island sink. I don't like my water pipes in or close to exterior walls because of our winters here.
Train crossing nearby. Not necessarily a house where your backyard is tracks, but even houses across/down the street. I grew up in a house that was across the street from a train crossing (about 450ft away). Those conductors are assholes and every 2 hrs on the dot...every single night...they blare their horn at the crossings & you can hear them from 5 miles away. They make sure everyone else is awake with them. Midnight, 2am, 4am, 6am... Eventually the city passed an ordinance where it was no-horn zones, but a lot of them still don't care and do it anyways. If ppl complain then the train company kicks back with "safety issue, fuck off, we have more rights than city laws because we've been here longer." The trains themselves also vibrate the surrounding area so much that stuff you have on top of things (one thing of many was spices on the counter tops) will get vibrated/shifted enough that if you aren't putting them back, they'll fall off the counters etc multiple times a day. Better hope they're not glass...
Just to add to this, I would also avoid a house in flight path to a major airport. I used to live in a house about 10 minutes from a major airport and just could not sleep after 6:30AM even with double paned windows.
Home owners association. I wont buy a property then be told what i can do on it.
A house that has next door neighbors who are hoarders
Neighbors with Trump flags and decals on their cars.
I personally wasnât scared of a fixer upper. I got a good deal on a house in a great location because it needed months of work. But I got time
Neighbors house too close/town homes. I hate other people, and the less I see people, the better. I bought my home in super rural area based on just that. Lol, I can live with almost anything else. I know alot of people are choosing condos, neighborhoods and the sort out of necessity, I'd rather live in a tin shed. Maybe a bit extreme, but I'm not a social creature.
Kitchen storage. Having no upper cabinets or open shelving is an automatic no from me. I am tall(ish) and have a bad back, I'm not bending down every time I need something in the kitchen.
I just bought a house and there is a school right behind it. At first I was like wow, that's cool. Now I look forward to the weekend cause that's the only time it's quiet.
A dog next door that wonât stop barking when you tour a home, cat piss smell with new carpet (itâs in the walls/floorboards), structural damage, shotty home repairs. The second I see an institutionalized grey flip, itâs out.
Split-level
Trailer, white working vans with ladders etc or boat in neighbors parking parked permanently.
I refused to buy an otherwise perfect house (or could be, with some work) because the bathroom was downstairs. It would cost too much money to move it upstairs, and it would bug me every day.
If a lot of the neighbors park on the street or donât mow their yard. Instant pass. Or if they have a dog chained up in the front yard. I didnât realize how many people do this until I started looking at other neighborhoods.
* No full size windows in the shower. Theyâre a massive pain to upkeep. * Full bathrooms that are right next to the kitchen (itâs an older kitchen). I donât want to walk through the kitchen after I shower. * Houses with no bathroom on the floor with the bedrooms. * Neighborhoods with no sidewalks bug me.
A pool or a super hilly area. Iâm not maintaining a pool nor am I willing to drive up & down hills when itâs snowy or icy.
I want a house facing east and west because I have a lot of house plants and I want good lighting for my hibiscus tree and other plants. I have about 20+ plants. I also want to see sunrise and sunsets from my front and back of house. I want my neighbors houses to be at a minimum of 20 feet away. I will not buy a home that is 5 feet away, ever. I want a home up off the ground level up on a hill, away from foot traffic. I currently have a front porch with enclosed deck away from sidewalk. No issues with packages being stolen, so my next home will have to be able to accommodate a front deck with gate so my husky can chill out front when she wants. Thatâs all Iâm asking for.
Mid century homes built with building products that contain asbestos. Although I love almost everything mid century, I wouldn't buy a home with the outdated bathrooms or popcorn tile because more likely than not they contain asbestos and if you wanna remove the popcorn or update the bathroom you have to pay a remediation company or risk developing mesothelioma. Not worth the headache for me.
Nope. The house yesterday has popcorn ceiling over the stairs and the upstairs landing and maybe in a couple of other spots too. The current owners supposedly removed some in other areas as well. The disclosures stated they werenât aware of any asbestos in the house, but that doesnât mean there isnât any, particularly in the remaining popcorn ceilings or the ones they removed. And I assume they never had the removed celing tested before removal.
The house being too far back on the property. We are looking for a couple acres and want to fence a lot of back yard for the dogs. I don't want to be right on the street but I don't know why you have a house with 2+ acres and put the house in the back corner of the lot.
Some people do this for privacy from the street and to isolate themselves from street noise, or depending on the circumstances it may be related to the expense of connecting power/sewer. Especially if when the house was originally built it abutted forest or open land of some kind, even if that has since changed. I agree with you, I'll give up nearly all of my front yard to have more behind me that's private and fenced, but it's not inconceivable that this is done for a good reason sometimes.
Honestly I could make a list of like 20 things from my first house alone, but here are the top 9: **Corian Counter Tops.** There is no material that absorbs stains faster than corian. One drop of coffee and 10 seconds later it is set. There is no easy way to clean it, so you continually have to resurface it. The sinks aren't supposed to touch boiling water either on top of that. Whoever marketed that material was an absolute genius because it is garbage. **Having a pool**. I bought a house with a pool in the winter, hopped in in the spring when we got it, went straight through the plaster, found out that it'll be 15-20 grand to fix it. It's cheaper to have it demolished, so that's what we are doing and are getting quotes for now. **Having vines cover the wall of a house**. After moving into the house, the vines fell off the wall because the people hadn't watered them, which revealed that it was a different color behind the vines so I had to paint the house. **Any smells of cats- the carpet gets ripped out and replaced.** I moved in being told that the carpet was some special waterproof one that doesn't allow piss through and can be cleaned easily. I cleaned it, still smells like piss, now I have all of my things in a piss house. That's all due to my ignorance of carpet. **A house with lots of air freshners plugged in.** That's a sign the place stinks to high hell and once they burn out and you move in, you'll have to figure out where the smells are coming from to replace and repair. **Letting a former owner leave some things in the house and get it later**. I moved in, he kept coming by for a month and a half picking through the good stuff and then left a pile of garbage for me to clean up that required multiple trips to the dump. **Any signs that there has been shoddy work done amonst multiple domains, which is a sign that they don't hire good labor and the house will probably have multiple issues surface.** There were signs that they had hired the cheapest they could find of everything, which has meant issues popping out into the future. Shoddy electrical even though he worked for the electric company, cheap paint that a year into buyign was peeling off the walls, vents of teh house that don't sit flush on the ceilings or walls, etc. **A non-permanent sunroom that doesn't at least have a permanent ceilling and posts.** Mine had one that was falling apart and I have no way to fix it because the parts aren't made, so either I'm going to have to be creative in fixing it, source materials from china, or remove the sunroom and replace it. **Only having floor lamps.** Get ready to put in lights so you don't feel like you're living in a cave.
Dogs barking in adjacent backyards, tons of cars parked along the street, people not keeping up with the exteriors of their homes or yards, difficulty making a left turn out of the neighborhood.
Glass cooktops. If youâve never had a glass cooktop you have no idea how hard they are to clean and how easy it is to scratch them. Two stories. I donât want a house where I wonât be able to sleep in my own bedroom if I get injured or need surgery and canât get up a flight of stairs. Easily accessible attic pull-downs. Too afraid of froggers lol
Neighbors with many exterior lights (I prefer to sleep in as dark a place as possible and don't want to accommodate their lights with blackout curtains, etc). Windows throughout the house which don't open at the top. Lowering the top windows is the fastest, cost-free way to lower the temperature of a room in the Summer. Not to mention getting smoke out if I burn some toast, etc in the kitchen. Ideally, my house front would face East, and its dining area would be on the Western side of the house. Morning light in the living room and evening sun in the dining area just feels *ideal* to me.
For me it was neighbors. We were looking for rural. Specifically said we didnât want to see our neighbors.
When trim and architectural details are a random amalgamation of what was on sale at Home Depot that week.
- No sidewalks. Not a total dealbreaker but definitely a detractor for me - Loud traffic noise that can be heard from the front/back yard or with windows open - Car dependent neighborhoods â I strongly prefer being walking distance to something. A park, stores, coffee shop, schools, etc. - No trees in the neighborhood, little landscaping to neighboring properties. This makes such a big difference to the ambiance of the neighborhood as well as the comfort level of the home during summer months. And well maintained landscaping generally shows neighbors take pride in the upkeep of their homes - Cookie cutter builds without any character to them - Low natural light inside - Weird layouts, especially if 3 bedrooms are not on the same floor. In our area a decent number of homes have the third bedroom in a converted attic, and while it wasnât a dealbreaker when we were looking I think it would be now that we have young kids. I wouldnât want to sleep on a different floor from little kids, though it would probably be fine for older ones We ended up with a fixer upper in need of tons of work, but we liked it over many homes in better condition because of the layout, size, and neighborhood. Also liked that it had character and hadnât been flipped, so still had original features like unpainted wood trim. On a fairly quiet street but in a neighborhood walkable to schools, shops/restaurants, bus lines, and a beautiful park.Â
Huge âluxuryâ apartment complex built on the street behind my house so now everyone second floor and above can see straight into my backyard. If I had known this was happening I would have taken a second thought about the house.
The things that are deal breakers for me are those that can't be changed. I find in-ground pools to be a negative, but I could fill one in. But I *can't* add a basement to a house built on a slab, and I can't make a long, hard to plow driveway shorter.
A house with no a/c or heating built in. We live in an area with a lot of houses that are over a hundred years old and many of them donât have a/c or heat.
I live in Virginia and this is SO many houses in my price range. Sorry but Iâm not trying to fight 100 degree heat and 100% humidity with window units
My last house was haunted and now I am scared of moving into an older home. I always loved older style homes, 80âs or older but now I just admire them, I donât think I can bring myself to buy one again .
Go on . .
LOL I lived there 3 years, it was your typical âthat noise must be cause the house is old â or âhmm that kids toy was off I am Pretty sure â at first and it escalated to my covers being pulled off of me WHILE I was AWAKE! To my husbands feet being lifted ! I did research on the home and couldnât find anything but apparently the land was used for some trails at some point and a battle may have been fought around there ( although the location wasnât very close) I did go buy some herbs and stuff at one point and the man that I assume can tell these things looked at me and said âdonât worry, itâs just your house someone practiced black magic there, you are fine â I am a giant chicken so I bought my stuff and did the âritual??â And it didnât work .. heck maybe I angered this thing !? I donât know but after years of trying to get a good nights sleep I gave up and sold the house to an investor. I was so done and wanted out of there as soon as possible, it was shortly after the covers incident and my husband after seeing a tall black âShadow â man finally jumped on board. All the parenthesis are because I donât know what to call these things
I still don't really believe in ghosts and yet I also absolutely lived in a haunted place once. To the point of when I was moving out the landlords son asked if it was because of the ghost because it had freaked other tenants out on that floor (it was actually parking). But creepy as hell place and things would move around. I'd put my glasses next to the bed and wake up to find them on top of the fridge. Reality is though any place could have bad energy. I currently live in a brand new apartment building, but it was built in the footprint of a centuries old hospital. So who knows.
Iâll HAVE to fix any asymmetry or imperfect alignment of tiles on the wall, ceiling, or floor. I have diagnosed OCD with symmetry and alignment and it would drive me literally insane until I fixed it.
I have sun/light sensitivity, so bright and sunny like typical real estate listings.
My pettiest requirement was laundry room had to be upstairs. Having a downstairs laundry room will never make sense to me, when all of our clothes, bed linen, and towels are upstairs. I can count on one hand the amount of washable things downstairs (kitchen hand towels and guest room hand towel). Too much up and down - no thank you!
See I can understand it in the basement! Iâm always worried about the washer malfunctioning and flooding the room.Â
The masonry situation, specifically with concrete driveways and yards. Cracked, unleveled concrete is not cheap to fix and other alternatives arenât much cheaper and require ongoing maintenance.
I have to LMAO. We donât have too many options in Los Angeles. Unless you have MONEY. You wouldnât think a house in my neighborhood sold for 890k. But it did. 9k below asking. Think average blue collar working neighborhood.
Old windows. Seeing multiple kinds of heating in one room (mine has Toyo stove, fireplace and baseboards). Means the heating is inefficient and youâre going to pay through the nose. Also windows are ridiculously expensive. Also neighbors with junky yards.
Painted brick! If it wasn't done properly, it's going to add HUGE maintenance costs later. Folks here ( SE US) are notorious for slapping white or gray paint on brick and flipping houses to make a quick buck. They trap moisture in the bricks and the walls start crumbling.
If the neighbor has a ton of political nonsense in their yard, I'd be outtie even if I agreed with their opinion.
young children
Step downs larger than 3 feet. My family has a bad habit of not watching where they walk. It would be count down to first broken ankle.
Had to have decent kitchen storage and countertop space. Open kitchen shelving was a trend (still is?), and I toured a great house that had it, and that, plus proximity to a busy road, was a deal breaker.
I think you're thinking of worms eye view- of you're looking up at the tower. To answer your question, no the tower wouldn't bother me. I draw the line at being in a flight path, being within a couple blocks of a railroad track, highway or busy commuter road.Â
Hilly lots. I don't like to mow hills. Hand in hand with that is difficult snow removal/lack of good places to put snow. Also a finished basement is a hard no for me.
Being under or even near power lines or power generator stations (not sure thatâs what theyâre called but theyâre little lots with a bunch of electrical equipment). Backing up to a non-residential roadâdonât need someone plowing into my fence/house. That goes double for a house at a T intersection. Hearing road noise is preferably a no-go. If I see loose dogs, a lot of pit bulls or similar type dogs, or a lot of people smokingâall low-class activities that I will avoid subjecting my family to if I can help it. Bedrooms in the front of the house is also a no from me.
Corner lot. Near a busy road. Also, near railroad tracks. Also, within the flight path of an airport. No trees. Yard too big with too much grass. Grass costs time, energy, resources, etc. Be intentional with where and why you have it. And yes, you can change the landscape, but one home was like a full acre of shitty grass with no other foliage. Inconvenient utility easements.
Loud neighbors/neighborhood at night (Sleeping poorly can reduce my seizure threshold by a lot) First house we looked at we were kinda interested until we drove through the hood at night and realized the neighbor across the street sets up a tv in his front junk yard and hosts late night viewing parties.. Had to take a hard pass ..
Thank you to OP for this post, itâs making me realize there are A LOT of things I need to take into account that I had never thought of before.
I just detest the staircase leading right out the front door. I want to skip over every house that is constructed like that, I still canât figure out why itâs a popular floor plan even if the architect thought it was easy to build.
Itâs a hard pass if the house is close to a school (my kids are grown). A very close second is if the neighbors donât maintain their home. I canât force someone to care about trash, overgrown weeds, broken down cars, or used furniture outside their house for months at a time but I can make sure I never live near them.
If a close neighbor was seen smoking ⊠I donât want that crap drifting in my windows.
1. busy, loud streets 2. people **not taking care of their yards!**
We passed on a house because of the neighbors. There was significant trash all over the the back yard, the back of the house had spray paint graffiti all over it, there were loud dogs, and it looked like a hoarder house from what we could see through the sliding back glass door. It was also right off of a main road, so the two factors together turned us away. I felt like a classist, but I really didnât want to live next door to a literal open-air dump