{"id":16881,"date":"2017-05-04T11:27:27","date_gmt":"2017-05-04T18:27:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.homeyohmy.com\/?p=16881"},"modified":"2017-05-04T12:48:43","modified_gmt":"2017-05-04T19:48:43","slug":"house-hunt-part-2-open-houses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homeyohmy.com\/house-hunt-part-2-open-houses\/","title":{"rendered":"House Hunt Part 2: Open Houses"},"content":{"rendered":"

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What fun is house hunting if you don’t go to some open houses?? \u00a0None, I say! \u00a0In a constant effort to determine\u00a0what we absolutely want and need for our first house, we spent a Saturday visiting a few open houses to answer\u00a0some questions we had like what’s it like around that neighborhood, or is 850 sq ft as small as it seems? \u00a0In partnership with\u00a0Realtor.com<\/a>, I’m sharing\u00a0part 2 of restarting our house hunt and\u00a0what we’ve learned from our day long open house escapade.<\/p>\n

We decided on three open houses to visit based on neighborhood, square footage, and outdoor space, all in turnkey condition which we decided long ago would be\u00a0ideal for our first house.<\/p>\n

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I used the Realtor.com app<\/a> to input our criteria and checked off the “Open Houses Only” filter to find open houses in the areas we were interested in checking out. \u00a0Out of curiosity, we tried the same with other real estate listing sites and Realtor.com consistently provided\u00a0the most\u00a0listings for our search results. \u00a0That was pretty cool to find out, and it put me at ease knowing that solely using the Realtor.com app would give me the most updated and\u00a0comprehensive search results.<\/p>\n

Each house we visited was set to answer a specific question or scenario we’re contemplating, mostly regarding what we’re willing or not willing to compromise for out first house. \u00a0Let’s see what they were.<\/p>\n

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Open House #1- Can we overlook a not so great neighborhood if the house is near perfect?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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First thoughts when I walked in: whoever styled and renovated this house did an amazing job. \u00a0It was hard to not admire the design details! \u00a0I loved the dark hardwood floors, the beautifully renovated kitchen and bathrooms, and the LIGHT.<\/p>\n

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Lighting has always been important to me, but this made it official for our house hunt: our future house must have good lighting. \u00a0This home had lots of windows and even better, french doors everywhere.<\/p>\n

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I felt like I was going to cry over the french doors and had no idea before I felt so strongly about them. \u00a0These are absolutely a dream home detail. \u00a0There were french doors opening up from the dining room to the small front patio, from the kitchen to the backyard, and from the bedroom to the backyard. \u00a0They gave a really open airy feel to the place, making it a non-issue to me that this house is on the smaller side.<\/p>\n

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A backyard is a rarity in LA, especially one of this size, and to top it off this one comes with a fire pit area and…<\/p>\n

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A studio. \u00a0!!!!!!!!! \u00a0This is the dream. \u00a0Didn’t think it could get any sweeter, then through that back door there was even more backyard and we simultaneously thought that it would be perfect for planting a vegetable garden in. \u00a0I’m done.<\/p>\n

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Sure there’s a downside, and it’s the biggest one. \u00a0The neighborhood isn’t great. \u00a0Schools aren’t good, not very walkable, doesn’t have a reputation for being safe, and not much prospect on improving. \u00a0Walking around the neighborhood, I didn’t feel a peace of mind about it either. \u00a0So to answer the question of this open house, no, a dream house in a bad neighborhood is not an option.<\/p>\n

DARN!!<\/p>\n

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Open House #2-\u00a0Can we live within\u00a0850 sq ft if it’s in an “up and coming” neighborhood?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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A lot of our search results were for homes less than 1000 sq ft, which we immediately wouldn’t consider, but then we saw that the neighborhoods we most wanted to be in seemed to only offer this amount of space for our budget.<\/p>\n

Of course we want\u00a0to make a return on their investment, and with neighborhood being a major, if not THE determining factor on that, we wanted to get a feel for what living in 850 sq ft would be like.<\/p>\n

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Verdict: it’s very small. \u00a0It felt cramped everywhere and it also didn’t help that this house didn’t have good lighting.<\/p>\n

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The house\u00a0was still very cute though and I think they really made the best out of the space. \u00a0I appreciated the renovated bathroom and kitchen and even more so, the backyard space.<\/p>\n

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The outdoor space and lawn\u00a0was a pretty good size and I had hoped it would be enough to off-set the size of the house, but the conclusion for this one is that 850 sq ft is too small for us, even if it means being in a cool\u00a0neighborhood.<\/p>\n

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Open House #3- Can we give up outdoor space for a small condo in a good neighborhood?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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We’ve predicted for a while now that this type of option is probably most our speed, though it isn’t our first choice simply because outdoor space is so important to us.<\/p>\n

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What I liked most about this place is that it was built about a year ago, meaning everything is brand new and the overall style is modern. \u00a0Living in a\u00a0brand new build with prospects of having little to no functional problems with the home sounds really nice and that’s probably the most enticing thing about this option.<\/p>\n

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A big reason we’re so adamant about having an outdoor space is because we want to entertain guests there, but above that I’d say it’s because we want to barbecue. \u00a0While the patio here is tiny, it would be enough to house a grill, which is our bare minimum desire for an outdoor space.<\/p>\n

The view was also beautifully\u00a0lush and green, that was a nice surprise!<\/p>\n

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This one is\u00a0a solid option, though in complete honesty doesn’t excite me that much, and\u00a0I wonder if that’s too picky of me. \u00a0It’s sensible and I’d be happy to live in a place like this,\u00a0but this is a big decision and I wonder if I’m holding too tightly onto all the things we want. \u00a0It’s hard not knowing if or when “the one” will come along!<\/p>\n

So we wait, and we’ll strive for super-human patience as\u00a0we hold out for the house that’s for us, or for the market to change!! \u00a0Since seeing these houses and realizing repeatedly how I wish I could design every detail to our liking, I’ve started contemplating the option of looking for fixer uppers instead of turnkeys. \u00a0I say that without any experience in the kind of work that would go into a project like that, but that possibility excites me. \u00a0Anyone following or have followed this road?<\/p>\n

Conclusions: we cannot compromise being in a good neighborhood, our house must have good lighting and be larger than 1000 sq ft, seeing houses and neighborhoods in person helps a LOT, and french doors are the dream. \u00a0It was really worthwhile\u00a0take a day hashing out what we’re looking for in our first house, and Realtor.com helped and continues to help us find some great options in places we wouldn’t have been inclined to checkout otherwise. \u00a0I’m staying hopeful and confident we’ll find the right place!<\/p>\n

Fellow house hunters, try using\u00a0Realtor.com<\/a> or download their app<\/a>\u00a0to help with your search, and let me know how it’s going or what your past experience has been. \u00a0My favorite part about writing part one of our house hunt was the advice and insight you shared. \u00a0I really appreciate it!<\/p>\n

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This is a sponsored conversation written by me and brought to you by Realtor.com\u00ae.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What fun is house hunting if you don’t go to some open houses?? \u00a0None, I say! \u00a0In a constant effort to determine\u00a0what we absolutely want and need for our first house, we spent a Saturday visiting a few open houses to answer\u00a0some questions we had like what’s it like around that neighborhood, or is 850 … Continue reading “House Hunt Part 2: Open Houses”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16889,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[169],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homeyohmy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homeyohmy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homeyohmy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homeyohmy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homeyohmy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16881"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.homeyohmy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16940,"href":"https:\/\/www.homeyohmy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16881\/revisions\/16940"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homeyohmy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homeyohmy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homeyohmy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homeyohmy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}