Well, I've officially gotten the ball rolling as far as house hunting in Florida. Yes, I'm probably crazy but I am just so excited! I contacted one of the guys who Garrett met during his interview a year ago, and his wife and I have been emailing back and forth with house hunting stuff. She is going to get me a list of all the other residents who are going to be selling their homes this Spring. Ideally, we'll be able to buy a home from a graduating resident but we'll see. It's still a bit early to really start looking, but I want the graduating residents to know about us and contact us before they list their houses with a realtor.
We still haven't talked much about what our budget will be. It's hard because that all depends on what interest rate we get, what kind of down payment we have, etc. We know how much we are comfortable spending per month, but we don't know what kind of "big number" that will give us. We also need to hunt around for physician loans - special mortgages available to physicians. They usually have very good interest rates even without a down payment. (Don't be jealous... it has cost us almost $200k to earn that physician loan!)
Like most people who are house hunting, I have a lot of ideas for what kind of house I want to buy and what I want it to look like. I have compiled a list of "must-haves" and "wishes".... let me know what you think.
And let me note that Garrett has not seen this list because he's on call right now, so... it may change dramatically once we actually sit down and discuss things (although, I do think we are in agreement about most of it):
Must have:
At least 3 bedrooms
A garage or shed (preferably a garage!)
No pool (I am not interested in owning a pool! I know, I'm crazy)
A dishwasher
Laundry hookups
More than 1 bathroom
Wish list:
Fenced-in backyard (with a nice fence)
A large-ish backyard (half an acre?)
Community pool
Community gym
Stainless steel appliances
A laundry ROOM (rather than a closet)
4 bedrooms!
Big closets and storage areas
Wood (or laminate) floors
White kitchen cabinets
Nice counter tops
A sunroom (these are pretty popular in FL so it shouldn't be too hard to find)
2 car garage (preferably one that DOESN'T stick out way into the front of the house, but I'd rather have a garage that sticks out over not having one at all)
front porch
NOT tile floors everywhere (tile seems to be popular in FL but I don't really like it in the living room)
A big pantry (walk-in a plus)
On a cul-de-sac
A citrus tree or two or three (how neat would that be??? Growing up in New England, I was always so fascinated by citrus trees... probably because I'd never seen one in real life! Same with palm trees... I think I was 20 before I saw either)
Avocado tree
Not an all-brick house (I really love siding)
10 years old or less
In one of the neighborhoods where most of the other resident families live
So clearly I have a lot more things on my wish list than my must-have list. I obviously need to have all the things on my "must have" list, and I would like to have at least 6 or 7 things from my wish list, but it doesn't matter which ones. Wouldn't it be great if we could find a place with most of our wish list items?? Crossing my fingers... :) Sometimes I feel like my wish list is way too long, but the reality is that I've seen lots of houses for sale in Florida that have many of these characteristics, and some of them are even in our budget (I think?). So I don't think I'm too off base... I just doubt we'll get them all in one house. We probably won't even get half. That's okay though.
What do you think? Anything I'm missing?
Showing posts with label house hunting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label house hunting. Show all posts
Sunday, January 9, 2011
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