It’s a good thing, too, as I wound up completely uprooting my life a couple of years ago – all the major changes I made would have been impossible if I’d gotten into the real estate market at the wrong time in my life, just because my emotions were telling me to do it.

Everybody so far has gloated about how well they did and how much self restraint they showed, so
I guess I’ll be the one to fess up to having too much house. We built a custom home during the housing bubble and the cost of materials and labor was outrageous. Nobody would stand by their bids/estimates and our house ended up costing waaaaay more than we expected.

At least we did over 50% of the work on it ourselves, so we aren’t upside down like ALL of our neighbors. Now those houses are going into foreclosure and our home value has dropped by hundreds of thousands of dollars. We can’t really sell the house and we can barely afford it. We are house poor; no doubt about it.

For those of you out looking, heed Trent’s advise.

(okay, on the flip side, we have a gorgeous, energy efficient, passive solar home on acreage with views. It’s not all bad and it will all work out.)

And I disagree with Bill. A house that you’re buying as an investment, either to flip or rent out should be totally businesslike. But a house that is meant to be a long-time home for your family should be something you’re attracted to and become attached to. Otherwise you may as well just live in a hotel suite or something if it’s totally impersonal.

That’s not to say that you throw caution to the wind. It has to work financially too or you’ll never see the house you love because you’re too busy working 70 hour weeks. But don’t buy a house you don’t really care about (or can’t see potential in).

Nice post.

There is a saying in our local language (Marathi) that “See the size of your bed and then spread your legs”

Simply means – See your budget and then decide

I think it is important to stick to a budget. I also think you need to get what you need out of a house and not settle for something when you feel like buying. I am currently in the process of buying my first home home. We took a really long time to find a place that met our needs and fell within our budget. It was possible, but it took 3 years of searching to find the right place. If we’d bought the first year we looked (we put an offer on a large 1 bedroom condo) we’d really regret it now that we have kids and I work from home. If we’d gone over our budget that would have been awful too since I took a year of maternity leave.

My sticking points were a three bedroom house or condo, with parking, near a public transportation line or metro station, with a small space for storage, and a functional kitchen. Where I live this is very hard to find for under 200,000, which was our budget.

I would say, definitely buy within your budget but don’t settle when you buy. Its better to rent a place that isn’t perfect and move next year without having to sell it, than to buy a place that isn’t what you really need.

I’ve noticed on the home-buying TV shows that they always show homes over the buyers’ budgets, too, no matter how high the budget is. They can say their budget is $1 million, and the realtor will show them houses that are $1.2 million. Just an extra $200k, like it’s pocket change.

I grew up in a big, older (pre-WWII) house – bathrooms the size of closets, no built-in closets, bizarre plumbing and electrical issues.

It was fun to live there as a kid when I wasn’t the one paying the bills.

I now live in a house half the size, which is cheap and easy to maintain.

Today, people are suffering because they are literally and figuratively (and financially) attached to homes they can no longer afford.

It’s the other side of this coin. People often bought conservatively and carefully, but as values declined in their areas, etc., and their own income declined or they lost jobs, they can now no longer afford those homes. Nor can some of them even afford to downsize and move, because nothing else affordable is available.

Nobody really talks about how it is on all levels (emotional, financial, etc.) to be in that situation today. But a lot of folks are in it thru no fault of their own. We personally know two families of very fiscally conservative folks who had the bad luck of living in the wrong area at the wrong time AND losing their jobs.

You worked hard. You paid the mortgage. now, you have to walk away, losing it all. With nothing to show for it and possibly nowhere else to go.

Watching people go thru this is gut-wrenching and nobody (govt) is really helping.

And yet, those guys in the banks are still getting their bonuses aren’t they?

Yea. It’s a great situation for hard-working people who are now royally screwed.

We need more affordable homes and rental apartments and less greed by developers, etc.

Off-topic, but reading this reminds me of the real world today where people don’t have the luxury of checking out homes they aren’t in the market to buy because they’re too busy looking for jobs, trying to not be foreclosed on, and looking for somewhere to live.

I have told my partner I will never move again if I can help it- that’s how much I love my house!

100% amen to this. Having just bought a house I thought I had caught most of the things that would have bothered me, been difficult. Now that I have lived in the place for 6 months I am wishing I had known more and spent more time evaluating things. Heck even the counter top colour drives me insane because it hides dirt and spills (seems like a great feature until you try to clean it or stick your elbow in a big splotch of sticky catsup that you cant for the life of you see, but can feel).