When we were looking, interest rates were around 18%. We didn't have a house to unload, since it was our first. Quite a buyer's market, because nothing was moving at those nasty interest rates. How the hell were we to afford anything? Plenty of them on the market, but nothing affordable for us. To make it even harder, I would NOT settle for any locations outside of three that we circled on a map near where we worked, and our family's lived. All within a mile or so of freeway spurs, shopping and good schools.
We didn't saddle ourselves to one agent either. We just told the ones we ran into that we were looking for houses in those three spots. To not even bother mentioning any other homes outside those areas. You may have heard it mentioned in the Real Estate business, the three most important criteria are location, location and location! We stuck to our guns, and found a seller willing to write up a land contract for
only ten percent interest.
We actually only looked at a very few houses. Not many met that strict criteria. No sense looking at anything that didn't. Twenty years, and many improvements later,
the location still can't be improved upon.