For other parts in the House Hunting Series–Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Josh and I have been living with my parents for almost 3 months now. While that’s been great for us savings wise, it’s not exactly the ideal situation for a newly married couple to be in. We’ve been looking for a house since November and after 5 months of searching, we have found the house we want to buy! Yay!!!

Finding and buying a house is a huge undertaking and there are so many things you need to know before you find your house, make an offer, get a mortgage, and buy the house. Over a couple of blog posts, I’ll chronicle our journey towards home ownership and give you the look into the whole home buying process.

Part1: Narrowing Down Your Search

So you want to buy a house? Ok, where do you want to live? What’s your price range? What type of building do you want to buy—a townhome, single family, duplex, etc.? How many bedrooms? How many square feet? How many bathrooms? Do you want a garage? Do you want it attached or does it matter? What features are you looking for—updated kitchen, finished basement, his-and-her closets? What lot size are you looking for?

Those are just a few of the questions that you’ll need to answer before you find your house. Pinterest (here’s my Home board) is probably your best and worst friend when it comes to figuring out what you want in your house. You’ll definitely get some ideas on what your dream house would be, but remember to be realistic when you’re starting your search. This is basically what we were looking for-

Just Kidding…

I’ll start with what we were looking for when we started:

We wanted a single-family home on at least a quarter acre with an attached garage. We wanted at least 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. I really wanted an updated kitchen, because I love to cook. Josh really wanted a bigger lot size, because we didn’t want to be living right on top of our neighbors. We wanted a house with at least 1750 square feet. We were flexible on things like a finished basement and bonus rooms.

We knew the elementary schools that we were interested in, which helped us narrow down the neighborhoods we would look in. Since we were from the area, we knew the landmarks that we wanted to be close to.

We knew how much we had saved and an estimate of what we thought we could save before buying a house, so we had a good idea of the price range we would start looking in.

So we began our search through realty websites like Zillow and Trulia. Through a series of filters we were able to input what we were looking for and where we were looking. We looked at well over 100 houses. We started favoriting houses that fell within our search with photos that looked appealing.

The next step was to go look at some of the houses we had favorite, which is where I’ll pick up with the next post.

If you’re in the market for a house, recently bought a home, or want to own a house in the future—leave a comment and tell me about your experience or let me know if you have any questions!

Be on the lookout for more blog posts about house hunting and buying your first home.

–Mrs. Dominico

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