If only there was a way to guarantee great neighbors! I’d like to make that a non-negotiable.
@katliamom When you say “no suburbs, ever” what kind of suburb are you envisioning, and what about it do you strongly dislike?
I do love opening bedroom windows on the second floor and able to leave the house. Half an acre could work if it is xeriscape.
Naturescape… Huge Douglas firs do not need watering or much upkeep. 
A major one I forgot -> No. More. Grass. Here in the PNW, grass is either too dry or too soggy.
Forgot to add on my non-negotiables list: direct-vent gas fireplace. Push the button, fire comes on, warms the house and is rated as a furnace, vents all the gasses to the outside and recirculates and heats interior air and looks like a real fire - albeit through a glass… sort of a fire TV. Got one of these - love it!
When we lived in Hargeisa, Somalia. The three of us kids all shared a bedroom. (There was another room we used as a playroom though.) There was an outhouse in the backyard. A truck delivered water. We recycled gray water for our garden. We took baths with buckets. Despite everything that was our favorite post.
I’d love an attached garage with a mudroom between it and the kitchen, but I love our neighborhood more. It was mostly built in the 1920s. Some houses have basement 1 car garages, but more common is a 1 car garage in the back.
We live in a suburb, but it’s an inner ring suburb. We can walk to stores and we’re a 10 minute walk to the commuter rail. Lots in our part of town are less than 1/4 acre. There are tall buildings downtown. Anytime we want the city we can hop on a train and be in NYC. It’s easier to get to the city than from some parts of Brooklyn and Queens.
When we looked for our retirement home in Florida we had a wish list. The one nonnegotiable thing was a single story house. We actually made one offer on one with a second floor bonus room but thankfully our offer was refused. I was prepared for many compromises but a great house became available during one of our search trips (we did a lot of online looking, with questions for our real estate agents about factors). We wanted to be close to the university- H audits classes. I wanted rom for flowers.
Other than the single story our parameters were met by houses available in our chosen area and size/price range. I was willing to compromise on the kitchen but current house has a great one. Being in a very good library system was key (investigated that first location and would have paid $100 each per year to use the current system libraries).
I prefer upper cabinets to bending for lower ones- height matters (mother-in law needs the step stool when I don’t).
Never had a gas stove but was willing to have one. Our neighborhood was not built with gas lines, fine with me.
Interesting how some things come with houses that never get used. A sauna, fireplace and outdoor spa attached to the pool (not worth heating it) in hot Florida. The sauna means storage and an outdoor showerhead- less cleaning… We did not require a pool but love having it. Did not require a pond view but it is great. Four bedrooms means one for us, one for guests and one each for computer et al. The guest bedroom (by definition bedrooms have closets) was intended as a den/study but we traded rooms after the first year or so to each have good light and a bigger size. Guests don’t matter as much as our day to day living.
Compromises. A house with more storage would mean a too big for two of us place. We saw several and realized this. One had a too upscale kitchen- left it for someone who would make use of the many luxurious amenities. To have the perfect house it would need to be too big, wrong location, yard. An example is our walk through to the garage (primary exit/entrance for us most of the time) laundry room with a laundry tub. Perfectly functional if not my ideal. Didn’t need the formal dining room and living room but they are open to the rest of the house and add a sense of spaciousness instead of hallways.
House hunting really shows you what is most important to you. And that changes with region and stage in life. We found that our taste in home style is common in an area we want to live in. Never expected to live in a stucco (brick fronted- not fond of the orangey colors) house but stucco is common here. I still remember shaking my head at a chief OR nurse who moved to Wisconsin from Texas and had her custom built house covered in stucco. The only one in the city, area I’ll bet. Wonder how many skilled people around to do it- and maintain it.
Basements are regional. They give so much storage space and extra space to be active. I needed to get used to garage space taken up by the water heater (softener outdoors! and heat pump in the attic space).
It pays to be willing to remove must/must not haves from your list of houses you are willing to look at. We learned a lot about what works well that had never occurred to us by seeing houses.
When I/we are elderly (I consider 60’s to be old, over 80 elderly) it will be time to move again. I love houses and seeing/hearing about them. I have already thought about a few changes for later in life. No yardwork- hired or us. Less space to clean. No pool of our own. Probably more walkable to places area (our good grocery store in close but major street to wait for the light).
I have a notebook that I’ve filled for decades with sketches of the perfect house. For me there are a lot of things that could potentially work, so the details are always negotiable (and have changed over the years in the sketchbook).
Probably the non-negotiables are location, condition, and price (I know, boring).
This is our, um, 6th house (counting rentals, not counting apartments), so I know what I like and what I can’t live with, and most stuff I can live with (probably because this house is my dream house and we’ve been in it for 10 years, so I don’t remember a lot of the stuff that drove me up a wall with the other houses)
Oh, wait, yeah. Low ceilings. That’s a dealbreaker. Tall people need tall houses, lol.
@Consolation: what do I dislike about suburbs? That they’re not more urban!
I’m just a person who likes city life: hubub, walkability, easy access (meaning, not car dependent) to shops, restaurants, bars, movie theaters and bookstores. I tend to prefer older homes that don’t look alike. I dislike curlicue streets and cul-de-sacs (those of you who know French, who on earth would want to live in a cul???) I really thrive in areas with high degrees of economic, racial and ethnic diversity. And I don’t want to feel like I’m the only Democrat/leftie on the block, I need “blue” neighbors, and urban areas are much more likely to attract them.
I’m eager to hear the story of how your mother went from a six-child, two-bedroom, no-indoor-plumbing house to college. I am sure that’s a story.
This was our non-negotiable list when we downsized this year to a condo (so different kind of list than many here):
●two bathrooms
●two-car covered parking (we even settled for detached)
●laundry room on same level as bedrooms (in our previous house we had the laundry room on our second floor)
●we are allowed to have our Big Green Egg smoker outside on our balcony (or if we had ended up on a unit with a deck)
●pets allowed
Other than those things, we were open to looking at almost anything as long as it had three bedrooms.
This is so interesting. I thought I was fussy, but apparently I’m not. If I’d had this many nonnegotiables when we moved 4 years ago, I’d still be looking. For example - of course I wanted laundry on the first or second floor. But just about no houses in our neighborhood have that. My realtor told us that even the most expensive homes - million dollar+ homes - have laundry in the basement and if we renovated and moved the laundry it wouldn’t necessarily improve our home value.
My nonnegotiables are very high walk score and a floor plan that makes sense. I also need lots of storage (large closets) and bookcases, but if the house didn’t have those, they have to be easy to add.
I’ve never bought my perfect home. But I’ve bought houses that I was able to renovate so they could come close. There are many things I dislike about my home, but it does have my 2 nonnegotiables.
I’ve lived in the country. Never again. I’m a city girl. I prefer walking or public transit. Right now I’m in a very walkable area, but with limited public transit so it’s not ideal. Suburbs or country houses with no sidewalks, where you have to drive everywhere - not my thing.
We custom-built our house in 1999 in a neighborhood of already established homes that had been built by a developer. There were a couple of lots the developer never bought or built on, so we bought one of them, just over ten years after the neighborhood had been finished. When we listed it last year, we had 22 showings in 17 days; we heard over and over again how excited people were about the second-floor laundry room (yes, among other things). We also had four offers, one being over listing price. It wasn’t all the laundry room, but when you have one, and are trying to sell, it can be a huge feature to tout.
Our ideal location will have a walk score in the teens… with a walk score 100 area within a mile from where we live.
I thought of another non-negotiable - I want a neighborhood with sidewalks.
Our old neighborhood had a walkscore of 77 - which was fine - a deli, several take out restaurants and a CVS all within a block. Current neighborhood is 60 - the truth is we tend to drive for errands though we could walk - there’s good food within half a mile and a good grocery store within a mile.
I agree that while few houses have second floor laundries they are a big plus. We added one to our house and I just love it.
I said never a split, but we bought a “colonial split” which is great as the master is up just a couple of stairs and we have the kitchn/LR/DR/family room leading to a deck all on one floor.
I would like to say I’m non-negotiable on having a one story house in the future. That might not be practical, but if we ever move again, we are not buying another house with the master bedroom upstairs.
Mr. B is just the opposite - needs a bedroom upstairs. He says I need to beef up a bit so I could carry him up and down when he gets too old for stairs. Lol.
@katliamom, I am with you on the curlicue streets and cul de sacs, as well as liking old houses with character. Luckily, the “suburbs” where I’ve lived have been in New England, where housing is usually very diverse, and not confined to subdivisions. My town is technically a suburb, I suppose, but it is really semi-rural small town. The population is only about 7,000. Our house was (re)built in 1913 after a fire, the one across the street is 1790 post and beam colonial, the one next to that the 1820s (Greek Revival) and so forth. The acreage of our neighbors ranges from about 2 or 3 to 20+ . There are also a couple of more recent subdivisions of about 5 houses each, but every house is different. We can walk to 2 restaurants, a “convenience” store with takeout food and a great wine selection, all of the schools, and the public library. And the Apple Barrel, an orchard/seasonal store run by our neighbors whose family has lived on that farm since 1812.
I never know how to classify this when surveys ask whether we are suburban or rural.
ETA: my closest neighbors are all Democrats, lol.
@BunsenBurner, why does your DH prefer that? Just curious.
In my area, a downstairs master is a big selling feature.