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i compromised on the granite countertops and stainless steel in our kitchen. i love the cabinets, and we can always upgrade later, we got black built-ins that came with it... so it's "do-able" until we can renovate how we want.
i also compromised on the jetted tub in the master bath, since we got a hottub with a tv out in our backyard!... and the space in our bathroom is hugeee so we can always upgrade our tub if we want.
FI sacrificed on the 3 car garage and the finished basement!
@missjyc--I think that just goes to show how hard it is to get advice on houses! Our price ranges are so far apart it's hard for me to imagine finding a house like yours here! I guess a better question might be how do you decide if you're settling or if you're compromising. Because we're looking at a house that feels like "compromising but with a lot of really good trade offs."
I compromised on location (kinda), on wood floors, and on the yard.
I knew exactly which 'burb I wanted to live on and we are RIGHT on the line for it. We have their schools, but city (cheaper) taxes. So monetarily it works out perfectly because we have lower taxes but still great schools and we're less than 10 minutes from my ideal area. But, its still a compromise because it isn't exactly where I was hoping to be.
I compromised on wood floors because FI promised me that we could upgrade within 3 years for the main level. Honestly though, after living here for a few months, I'm not sure its worth the money to me anymore. I love my house :)
The yard was maybe a bigger compromise... its teeny tiny. I ideally wanted to live in a place with a decent yard and a 6' fence (or ability to fence). I found out though that you can't get a newer home with a 6' fence because almost everything here has HOAs that only allow 4' fences. Also, our yard is only .1 acre total. i.e. TINY. It definitely feels weird to me to be so close to my neighbors but the upside is that we have less to maintain, and its still big enough to have a nice little back yard for the dog.
The reason I was willing to compromise on this and it didn't feel like settling is because the house is better than I EVER thought we could afford. It's way bigger than I planned (2600 sq feet), 4 bed, 2.5 bath, with awesome vaulted ceilings in the great room and bedroom, tons of natural light, and an already finished "man cave." It is honestly perfect for us and the things I compromised on don't bother me at all.
@CorgiTales--that sounds more like the house we're looking at! The house itself is great, and if it were one block away from where it is, we would have put in an offer right away. But it's on a busier road than we'd like. Not a 4-lane, divided highway, but a "gee, in rush hour it takes a long time to be able to pull out of the driveway" road. And there's no on-street parking. A year ago, we probably wouldn't be considering it, but the house is fantastic and I can see us living there and loving it!
@erin- the biggest thing i would be concerned about is property value in that situation. will the location on that street hurt the value? Is it priced accordingly considering the street? I.e. is it a nicer house than you could afford 1 block over? I think if the money works out, do it. I don't regret our compromises at all. :)
I think the house is probably underpriced as it is. We would add central air conditioning, so I think we could resell the house for at least it's current price in 10 years. Yes, we'd be out the cost of the air conditioning, but we'd have lived "rent-free" for 10 years too.
We sacrificed on the whole house pretty much! LOL! We saw the lot (we're right on a river) and decided what the house was like inside didn't matter to us. It was underpriced and we knew the value would go up drastically, especially after we renovate. We're both handy people (I'm an interior designer, FI is a contractor) so we knew we could make cosmetic fixes inside until we could save up enough for a big reno. Thankfully the kitchen was pretty nice and our master bedroom is WAY bigger than what we need, but here's what I don't like and will definitely change when the time comes:
Keep in mind that a lot of changes people get stuck on while house hunting are really cosmetic. You can paint, change the flooring, replace light fixtures and appliances really easily and can find great bargains for all those items if you look around. Look for a house with "good bones" so you can slowly change it to the way you want it as budget allows.
Don't compromise on things like location. A house on a busy street with always be a house on a busy street and that will affect your property value. Try to think down the road to what will happen when you want to sell it and get a house that suits your future lifestyle/family situation. What are the factors that are going to impact your resale value?
We are getting a basically brand new house but a smaller yard closer to neighbors than we would like. But we already met the neighbors and they seem nice, so we have that going for us. We wanted at lkeast 10k sq foot year, but got 7.2k instead. We reasoned that it is only our starter home and not the forever house, so for now it will work
We compromised somewhat on neighborhood (still one we like a lot, but in our "second tier" of choices---totally priced out of the first tier!), backyard neighbors (apartment buildings on the lot behind the house, which is why a lot of people didn't bid on our house; we're working on screening them, but it's probably the one compromise we might reconsider doing it over); and size (doesn't exactly count as a compromise since we knew from the beginning that we could never afford a 3BR in the neighborhoods we wanted to live in and feel lucky that we wound up with a 2.5BR since most of what we looked at were straight 2BRs, but all else being equally we would have preferred three).
We looked for nearly a year, though, so we had a good sense of what we were giving up---getting the quality of house (historic bungalow with very few bad things done to it) and size of lot that we wound up with in our top choice neighborhoods would have been an extra $200K, which wasn't money we had in an already exorbitantly priced market. One thing we did wind up with that wasn't on our radar at all, though, was a garage (technically two-car, but I call it 1.5-car)---didn't matter much at the time, but we've really come to appreciate it and especially how uncommon it is in our neighborhood. (Older urban 'hood, so houses predate cars and very few have garages unless they've been raised; ours is one of only three nearby with freestanding garages.)
This does remind me of how regional all of this is, though. Our lot is .13 acres, which is considered big in our neighborhood---many lots are half that! So @CorgiTales, it was funny to read about how tiny it is where you are. :)
I wouldn't worry too much about compromises inside the house (other than layout); you really can change all of that over time. Like bakerella said, location is really the one thing you can't change, so if you compromise on that, you need to be sure a) you're okay with it, and b) the house price takes it into consideration. (In our case we got a better house for our budget in exchange for apartment neighbors, but those buildings aren't going anywhere, so we know that when we sell, future buyers will consider that too. Not a big deal as long as you factor it in and don't overpay on the front end, though.)
Thanks guys! We went back and stood in the driveway of this house for a while this afternoon. I think we're going to pass, and I feel a lot better about that now. I'm just getting really frustrated about how long we've been looking and that my husband is able to just decide and get over a house, where I fall in love and get heart broken over and over again.
ErinMarguerite, I understand your frustration, but your house is definitely out there, you'll find it soon enough =) It sounds like you made the right decision to pass up on the house, especially if it feels like you're settling. House buying is too big a purchase to risk buyer's remorse.
As for our house and what we compromised on:
What we got:
It took us awhile to make sense of our floor plans, but after writing countless lists (thanks to the Bees) everything made sense! I love our house and can't wait to move in (9 more weeks to go)! Now that the snow has melted, we realized our yard is actually bigger than we originally thought, especially after we take down those crazy bushes! The kitchen is still tiny, but we can always expand it later. I love the town it's in and our location is just getting better and better the more we explore the neighborhood. It'll be our forever home and I'm now convinced we got lucky in finding it when we did! I'm so glad we didn't pass it up ... and I was about to!
We compromised on some of the interiors. The bathrooms and kitchen of our house are very 70s. Also, the yards needed a bit of work. The thing that we would not compromise on was neighborhood. You can always fix up a house but you can't move it to a better neighborhood.
@Vitsippa--I've been following your housing posts for a while. I'm so glad you guys are moving in relatively soon (although if it were me 9 weeks would still seem like forever!)
Thanks all for the great advice!
Ok, we knew what we DID want within reason... i.e.
We needed at least 3 BR, 4 would be best
A good size kitchen, doesn't have to be state of the art, but at least a good space we can move in
A garage
A good neighborhood, not a lot of cars parked on street
Decent yard for the dog and future kids.
----
What we wound up doing, was sacrificing on the "move in ready." We found a foreclosure, in an amazing neighborhood with 4 BR, a Laundry Room (that was on the bonus list), 1.5 car garage, great sized kitchen.... and the important things, location, layout, and bones couldn't be better for us! Now, the house needs a lot of updating, there was horrible wallpaper, carpet, a dated bathroom.... but we can change all those things.
Our Number 2 house had a GORGEOUS master bath... jetted tub, ahhhh.... The kitchen was eh... but overall, the house presented SO MUCH BETTER. However, the neighborhood wasn't where we wanted to be.
----
Location needs to be a big deciding factor. If it's on a busy road, I would first find out if it's within the area that the city can basically buy from you to widen the street... The street may be busy now, but what about 5 years from now? 10?
That could affect your life or resale.
We made a list of must haves, would be nice, and do not want at all. We knew going in that we were sacrificing on the town, because we are moving further away to be able to afford a decent house (gotta love Massachusetts). We also only have one bathroom, which is a negative but we have the ability to add another one in the future.
What we got that I consider a bonus is a huge yard (it's a double lot), a huge deck, a finished basement, and in a great neighborhood which is on a quiet side street.
We did make some sacrifices but we ended up getting a better house than we thought would be possible in our price range.
We just thought about things we were able to live without in our first house. After all, can't have everything in your very first home! So we sacrificed on a third garage, linen cabinets/closet space, kitchen cabinets (we still have a large kitchen but it's not as large as I'd like) and backyard. And the master bath is only a shower+toilet. It's not a large bathroom by anymeans. OH and the basement isn't a walk-out, which we DID want but found they were also very expensive.
All in all, we felt like none of these "negatives" about the house would make it too hard to sell down the road. It's in a nice neighborhood with a great school district and lots of families.
Also the home is very "old-looking" with lots of brass fixtures, ugly carpet, pink linoleum, etc. Things we knew we could update in a year or two.
Oddly enough, we compromised by getting a nicer house and spending more than we had originally aimed for. (We were originally looking for a fixer upper and wound up with a turnkey.) Also, hardwood floors didn't make the cut even though I'm not a huge fan of carpet. Surprisingly, like Corgitales, I don't mind it as much any more and don't feel the need to replace it. J compromised on having a basement. I don't really care for them but he really wanted one.
Something we refused to compromise on was a good yard for the dog and space for the horse. We passed up some adorable places that were $30-40k less because they were in town. Oh, and also resale value. It's likely enough that we'll have to pick up and move in the next few years and so we needed a house that we could easily sell for at least as much as we paid for it.
In the end, this place was a rocking deal that we couldn't pass up. (It's the only stickbuilt [not manufactured] house in the area with acreage that we saw for less than $200. Well, there was one other one but you would have had to immediately put at least $50k into it.)
We decided that a garage and getting a single family home was not worth the added expense. In general, getting a garage in our neighborhood would mean giving up a few hundred sqft and paying at least 100k more. Single family homes are over 1.4mil on our street, and since we're only willing to live maybe a 5 block radius with any major traffic streets out of the running, finding anything was really lucky.
But we got everything else we wanted, really, so I feel like our compromise was really minimal. We'd already accepted that in order to live where we want to live, we wouldn't be getting a single family. Mr. GB was sad about the garage, but since the location was absolutely perfect, he said it was worth it.
Honestly, the timing was poopy. So maybe the real compromise was buying when we knew we couldn't sell our current place and would have to become landlords. But even though the timing in our lives was not the best, we couldn't have bought at a better time for prices of homes in San Francisco.
We compromised on a huge master bathroom. Ours is small and it actually works just fine for us...we both dont like to take baths and a bigger bathroom=more cleaning for me. We also dont have granite or stainless steel appliances in the kitchen...and our countertops are a hideous dark green color. with due time we can have all of that worked on.
We DID NOT sacrifice and therefore have: LOCATION (big one!) two car garage, walk in closet. HUGE backyard (for a dog in the future) big master bedroom...as you see there are more positives in our eyes then negatives...and I think thats what its all about :) So we ended up with a 3 bed 2 full baths...which is perfect as one of the extra bedrooms is an office and one is a guest bedroom.
The house we ultimately picked was the house that had a little bit of everything that we wanted...not just one thing we really liked. There were some things that we knew we had to have...and others we could live without.
We compromised on a "new home". We got a fixer-upper.
We would no sacrifice on location, size of house, size of lot/lawn, school district, 3 br, 2 bath, 2 car garage, pool, fireplace, basement and room to grow up or out.
Boy did we get a lot of wood paneling, hee hee....
Here is why I am not doing much DIY stuff for our wedding:
rebuild3.jpg (22 KB, 32 downloads) 2 years old rebuild2.jpg (18.7 KB, 36 downloads) 2 years old rebuild1.jpg (16 KB, 34 downloads) 2 years old Demo1.jpg (19 KB, 35 downloads) 2 years old 
I don't know if we compromised.. we're not from the area we're moving to (military dictates where and when we move) but the condo we bought is a great first place. Located in a great area, vintage brick building, and a great price. The one thing I'm not thrilled about is the color of the wood floors and the builder grade tile and counter tops in the kitchen and bathroom. I'm feeling a DIY project while my husband's at sea.. it will either turn out great or a complete disaster!
We had to compromie on the size of our dining room and master bedroom, but our wonderful location and everything else about the house makes up for that right now! :)
We compromised for location. We really didn't want to live in far north Dallas, we wanted to be more central. So with the great location we got a smaller kitchen, smaller MB, dated counters & bathrooms. But, we have a nice sunroom AND we back up to a great park with tennis courts & sand volleyball! LOL having tennis courts in your backyard really sold us!
BUT, one thing we refused to compromise on was a nice outdoor space with a pool & a hot tub. We HAD to have a pool & a hot tub, and our outdoor space is beautiful!!
What is great though is that hubs got a bonus so we can update the kitchen counters as soon as we move in!
@PinksparkleGirl: out of curiousity, are ya'll ripping out all the wood paneling? Or, painting over it? Our living room is the only room with WP and we arn't sure which direction to go with.
We compromised on pretty much everything except location and a yard. We found a house that has a solid foundation and is in a great neighborhood with a good school system and nice size yard. I do not have huge bedrooms or an amazing kitchen or a hot or any of that, but there is so much potential so I hope to have it one day and know that this is an area that I want to raise my kids in.
We wanted to move back to our hometown to be near family, so location was our prime concern. Unfortunately, our hometown is small, and there aren't many homes to choose from. After looking at a few houses, we decided to build in a new neighborhood that was just popping up. I fell in love with the model for the community. To me, it was the perfect floor plan. To my husband, it was too much house. In the end I made what I feel like was a huge compromise and went with a smaller floor plan instead of the one I loved. I gave up a huge master bedroom, a huge closet, a jack-and-jill second bathroom and a fourth bedroom. I have some days that I'm a little bitter, but we haven't moved in yet and we've had lots of problems with the build, so I think part of the bitterness is my frustration with the process. I'm trying to focus on the fact that I'm getting a brand new house that I can decorate and upgrade how I want in a town that puts me five minutes away from all of my family.
@AnnieAAA - we are removing the wood paneling in order to modernize the house.
In most cases the wood paneling in glued onto the wall. Removing the paneling also destroys the sheet rock. Therefore to remove the wood paneling we have to rebuild all the walls (see image Demo1.jpg above - this is after we took down the paneling and entire wall).
After taking down a few walls we noticed that there is no insulation in the house (or there is 1950's grade insulation). So we will be taking down every - single - wall in our house to add insulation.
Example...
Before
During (Surprise! No insulation and big hole to the outside! wink wink)
Almost done
Painting the wood paneling is certainly nice, we just wanted plain walls.
Almost_Done.jpg (14.5 KB, 34 downloads) 2 years old During1.jpg (11.4 KB, 35 downloads) 2 years old Before.jpg (14.3 KB, 39 downloads) 2 years old
We plan on removing paneling in the future... it's only in 2 rooms though.
My biggest suggestion is NOT to sacrifice location. You can't change where your house is, the neighborhood, and to an extent, layout and size... you can always get stainless appliances... you can always put in a granite counter... you can always remove wood paneling or plastic shower liners and drywall/tile.....
At the time, we were sooo excited to find something so nice in our price range, but looking forward, what we want in our next house: A better laid out kitchen, a larger back yard (so we can put in a pool and still have a yard) and a 4th bedroom. And possibly look at getting a brick house.. those would be our requirements. We aren't looking for anything much bigger than what we have.
I compromised in a 1 1/2 bath house, instead of a 2 that I wanted. In the price I wanted to pay, in the county I wanted us to live in, and the year I wanted the house to be, that's what I got. I could have went to a neighboring county and got a 4bed 3 bath, but the school system sucks and the county is in the dumps. I took location over 2 extra bathrooms. We'll add on to that bathroom later though.
You guys are so fantastic! Sorry I haven't been chiming back in occasionally. I stopped getting email notifications that there were new posts.
Thanks for all the responses!
We compromised on a few things:
I wanted a porch. Our house does not have one, but it has a nice garden area in the back.
DH wanted a big bathtub. Maybe we will put one of those in in the future.
Most of the things that we really wanted we got in our house. We wanted an older house 1926, in an awesome location. We also wanted to be able to walk to things like bars and grocery stores, which can be difficult in Austin.
@Jooly, I definitely understand how hard it can be to walk to bars and grocery stores! Sounds like you guys found a fabulous place.
We're still just renting but we signed the lease on a new place the other day.
What we wanted:
What we ended up with
I compromised on a yard. I wanted a real house with a yard so badly. But I ended up with a condo right across the street from where I work. It was a steal of a foreclosure and will provide me with a nice rental income when I do finally buy my dream home.
@ ErinMarguerite:
We lived in Chicago for a number of years! We really miss not having to take the car everywhere. It makes a big difference in our quality of life, just to be able to step out and grab something.
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We've been house hunting for 7 months, and I am definitely the time to get emotionally invested in a place too quickly. The house we looked at yesterday is great, but it will require some compromise (and I know any place we can afford will too). So what did you compromise on? And how did you decide between "compromise" and "settling"?