Offbeat Home Hunters: The “Yukon, ho!” edition
We are a single-income family of two (plus our pet rats), and while I’m the only breadwinner, I am fortunate to make a comfortable salary. We’re pretty handy and not afraid to tackle home projects (as evidenced by the sort of places we were looking at in Ottawa). We’re environmentally-conscious city-center dwellers and wouldn’t be comfortable in the suburbs. We didn’t have much time to house hunt, so we decided to see every place that met our requirements, which was a total of 9 houses. Two were about to fall down on top of us, and four were almost an hour walk from my office, which left three potential homes…
Offbeat House Hunters: Our experience home shopping on a budget
Who here loves HGTV’s “House Hunters”? Let’s play the Offbeat Canadian Home version with three houses for $150,000 or under.” Which one will they choose!?
What can we buy, build, or make to commemorate our first home?
I’ve been looking for a way to commemorate buying our first home together — something I can buy, build, or make.That way we can keep it forever, and whenever we look at it we’ll know we’ve had that since we moved into our first home.
3 ways to cope when you didn’t get the home you wanted
My partner and I just bought our first house. We love it. However, we didn’t get the first four we tried for, and we almost didn’t get this one at least 372 times throughout the process. I found myself on an emotional rollercoaster where I had to constantly prepare myself for a possible “it’s just not going to work.” To make the potential hard blow softer, I started searching for ways to make that situation a learning experience.
How do we buy a house when we can’t agree on a location?
I was looking at houses in Georgia (where I am from) and noticed houses that are gorgeous and are cheaper than where we are currently living and looking to buy in Alabama. Why is the price so different? I don’t know, but I am willing to move from one state to another. The problem: my husband isn’t willing to move. How do you buy a house together when neither of you agrees on the location?
Home buying: What if what’s right for our budget isn’t right for us?
My boyfriend and I decided to buy our own house. We knew it was going to be difficult but we didn’t think it would be this difficult. We had found the perfect house, but with costly repairs needed. Suddenly my boyfriend wants a townhome, or a small house as a starter home, or even a condo. Sharing walls is not the long-term solution, but is it the short term solution? Should I be more worried about what’s right for us, than what’s right for my wallet? Or would what’s right for my wallet eventually be what’s right for us?
10 tips for buying your first home from a Homie in the trenches
This should really be titled “things I wish someone had told me before we tried to buy a home.” So, because no one told me, I wish to tell you, in hopes that it will help.
Snap a photo of a house to learn everything about it
When we were searching for a house, Zillow was a GODSEND. It makes so much relevant housing data available at your fingertips. But I’ve found something even better: HomeSnap — an iPhone app which uses GPS data, combined with the nifty hardware inside your smart phone like readings from the gyroscope and accelerometer, to give home shoppers instant access to data on a neighborhood, a home’s value, its trending value…all based on a photo you snap of the house.