Living in a house feels liberating after apartment life......

[K1052]

True, but all markets are generally over inflated. Not only is housing demand projected to go down in the long term but the preferences of future buyers are also changing. People are moving back into the city and want livable, walk-able neighborhoods. I have a hard time seeing overpriced huge houses in middle of nowhere maintaining the same level of appeal as they do today.

Some amount of people will want the suburbs when they have kids but urban neighborhoods have definitely been staging comebacks. Particularly with empty nesters and the younger generation who are waiting longer to marry/have kids. Even then they're more likely to move to a decent inner or middle ring suburb instead of the formerly popular exurbs.

 

[PokerGuy]

I can't imagine ever going back to living in apartments. You have to worry about not making noise, others making noise, nasty smells of curry and stuff wafting through the apartments from units.... No thanks, I love my home and don't want to share walls with anyone ever again.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Ehh, I dont like the city or the suburbs really, I want to live in a small town, or in a rural area ... currently in the far suburbs which have a bit of a small town feel to them.

I have lived in apartments in college town, townhouse in suburbs, trailer in suburbs, and in houses in suburbs ..

House is my favorite, but the most expensive.
Trailer is my second favorite, you have many of the benefits of a house, and costs are similar to apartments.
Townhouse was third favorite, still had my own little back yard, shared walls sucked since I heard every time neighbors were going up or down the stairs.
Apartment i did not like, was loud, congested, and had to go far away to get to my car.

 

[z1ggy]

i'm with you too, i guess i'm lucky so far. i haven't had any repairs to make to our house in the 2.5 years we've owned it (knock on wood). the only terrible thing that happened was last summer when our a/c stopped working on friday night of labor day weekend when it was the hottest weekend in the year.

but it ended up only costing me $50 to get someone to come out and look at it, and it was just a fuse. they could have fixed it for $300 (minimum charge for repairs) or i could do it for $10 in parts at lowes. so yeah ... i spent $10.

Also, when ever I have called a repair guy, it may seem odd to him -or people in general- but I watch him work. My furnace stopped working one day. Had no clue what was wrong so called repair guy. Saw him drain the oil line and watched the steps he took (due to some air getting in the line and messing up the pump) so if I happened again, I can try out what he does first.

So far only things that I had had really go wrong were my oil pump stop working (needed to be replaced.. cost about $150) and my fridge stopped a few times. The fridge I fixed myself, but the pump I had a guy install. Could probably install myself though since I watched him do it, if it happened again.

 

[TwiceOver]

First thing I did put a big ass hole in the wall and mount my TV.

 

[dpodblood]

Yup. Just bought my first house a year ago, and being able to hook up my sub and crank up the home theater is awesome. I never want to share a wall with neighbors ever again.