What do you look for in a place to live?

[Chaotic42]

I'm planning on buying a house in the next six months to get out of my apartment and my new neighbor helpfully reminded me that I hate living next to people. I'm torn between a house on a lake, which will provide me with daily fishing, and a house in the absolute middle of nowhere which will provide me with silence which I love.

If I was rich, I'd buy a house with hundreds of acres of land, but that's not an option.

So I ask you, what do you reasonably look for in a place to live? Condo downtown? Good schools? Complete solitude?

 

[highland145]

Quiet.

I live next to a funeral home. Quality doings....

 

[Svnla]

Make a list of what you "must" have in a house then pick the one with the most "pros".

I live to have some space but not solid solitude so if it was me, I would pick the house on the lake.

Remember, no house is perfect.

 

[lxskllr]

If I were buying, I'd look for a house ≥100 years old, and in the country. In fact, if you have $650k, I can hook you up. I happen to know of a sweet 62ac property on a quiet road with a refurbed farm house, and numerous outbuildings. It's pretty much a turnkey farm. Add animals, and you're ready to go.

Granted, you get problems with old places, but imo, it's worth it for the character. You can see the cheapening of houses over the years, starting in the 19th century. By the late 1950s, everything was stripped down to its most boring, utilitarian core.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I honestly never gave any of these points any thought when I bought my current/first house. But things I would look for more closely if I was to do it over again:

- Tax rate. I'd want to find a place with a lower tax rate. You can pay off a mortgage, you can fix an ugly house but you can't do anything about a tax rate that is too high.

- Rules/regulations. Would find out what kind of limitations I have on what I can/cant' do in that particular area as sometimes it varies. I like to look at land for fun, and a lot of land has really stupid rules, like you're not allowed to build something bigger than so many square feet, or not allowed to cut certain types of trees, or don't get mineral rights etc. This is more specific to land I guess, but I'd want to make sure that if I bought land I would have full freedom over everything. This is something that is kind of hard to do though as it would pretty much entail living further from town/work if you want full freedom. You more or less want an unorganized township for that and those properties don't come up often.

- Flood risk: I would want to make sure I don't end up buying in an area that is prone to flooding. I guess that's kinda hard info to find out but perhaps inquiring at disaster recovery companies might give you some clues. Not sure if they would or are allowed to disclose that kind of info though. I did ok with my house though so far... touch wood! Not that we really get flooding here all that much, but there are some places at higher risk than others. There was a flood in the 90's that did damage quite a lot of houses.

With my current house I did not necessarily do bad mind you, except for tax rate. I never realized that different parts of town had such drastic tax differences and I happen to live in one of the areas where the rate is really high and it goes up every damn year. Had I known I probably would have concentrated on looking at houses where taxes are cheaper. Even if I don't necessarily like the house itself, it's something I can change.

 

[RLGL]

Away from busy roads and rail, flat driveway

 

[Thebobo]

Low latency online game playable Internet access.

 

[Zanovar]

I wanna go back to the 60/s70s and kill every architect again and again and again.

 

[K1052]

City condo with good access to a large international airport. Other things are negotiable. Never going to give up my 10 minute walking commute.

 

[olds]

At least:
3 bedrooms
2 bathrooms
2 car garage
Gas (natural or propane)
Spot for hot tub

Would like:
RV parking
3 car garage
1+ acre

Wary of:
Abutting two story home (will only buy single story home)
Homeowner additions or upgrades
Sky lights
Yards that slope towards house, especially garages

Deal breaker:
Poor prior maintenance
Bad roofs, fascia or foundations
Very near school
Kitchen island with a sink in it

I like using Realtor.com to search. In fact, when bored, I just look all over the country to see what is what.

 

[BoomerD]

If I were buying, I'd look for a house ≥100 years old, and in the country. In fact, if you have $650k, I can hook you up. I happen to know of a sweet 62ac property on a quiet road with a refurbed farm house, and numerous outbuildings. It's pretty much a turnkey farm. Add animals, and you're ready to go.

Granted, you get problems with old places, but imo, it's worth it for the character. You can see the cheapening of houses over the years, starting in the 19th century. By the late 1950s, everything was stripped down to its most boring, utilitarian core.

Maybe I'm mis-reading your point...but the 1950's (and 100 years ago) would be in the 20th century...the 19th century would be the 1800's...

 

[Muse]

Affordability
Convenience (close to whatever, transportation available)
Reasonably quiet!
Beautiful surroundings
Simpatico neighbors
Accommodates your life style

 

[Darwin333]

I'm planning on buying a house in the next six months to get out of my apartment and my new neighbor helpfully reminded me that I hate living next to people. I'm torn between a house on a lake, which will provide me with daily fishing, and a house in the absolute middle of nowhere which will provide me with silence which I love.

If I was rich, I'd buy a house with hundreds of acres of land, but that's not an option.

So I ask you, what do you reasonably look for in a place to live? Condo downtown? Good schools? Complete solitude?

Wow, you really are setting roots way up there. Figure you'd want to move back to the land of crawfish boils and king cakes sooner rather than later.

 

[lxskllr]

Maybe I'm mis-reading your point...but the 1950's (and 100 years ago) would be in the 20th century...the 19th century would be the 1800's...

Correct. The decline started in the late 19th century imo. The 20s-30s were a nice time. They had nice little touches here and there, especially door frames. Things really started taking a shit post war, and nothing after the late 50s was interesting aside from "boutique" houses, and some interesting experimental designs in the 60s. If I had to guess why, I'd say clean spartan lines came into vogue in the 50s, and it is a good look in modern(as a style) architecture, but builders probably figured out is was also cheaper, so you got "clean lines"(read boring) in the average classic house.

I'm involved in a lot of house construction, and aside from the high dollar "manor houses", I don't see anything I'd want to spend money on. Little cookie cutter houses, on cookie cutter 1ac properties. They're virtually disposable. In 100 years, they'll be torn down, and something else put in its place.

edit:
BTW, I pulled the late 19th start of the decline out of my ass. I'm not a student of architecture or anything, I just notice stuff when I'm out and about. I could be convinced otherwise, but I'm firm in the late 50s decline. Aside from bespoke houses, nothing worth a shit was made after that.

 

[DietDrThunder]

5+ car garage with plenty of workshop space
2,000 sqft house
1+ acres of land
High speed internet

 

[zinfamous]

At least:
3 bedrooms
2 bathrooms
2 car garage
Gas (natural or propane)
Spot for hot tub
basket and lotion

Would like:
RV parking
3 car garage
1+ acre

Wary of:
Abutting two story home (will only buy single story home)
Homeowner additions or upgrades
Sky lights
Yards that slope towards house, especially garages

Deal breaker:
Poor prior maintenance
Bad roofs, fascia or foundations
Very near school
Kitchen island with a sink in it

I like using Realtor.com to search. In fact, when bored, I just look all over the country to see what is what.

You forgot something...

 

[bfun_x1]

My last two houses have backed to an open space. That's probably my number one requirement. I can hangout in my backyard without any neighbors looking down on me. My dogs like it too. They sit on the deck looking out over the field to watch rabbits and joggers. My number 2 requirement is proximity to work. I don't want to waste my life away sitting in traffic. I'd rather spend that time on the family, hobbies, or exercising.

 

[tynopik]

high ambient mana
strong defensive wards
bigger on the inside/pocket dimension
not built on any cemetery, crypt, ancient ruins, etc
moat filled with water drakes
wraparound porch

 

[Red Squirrel]

My last two houses have backed to an open space. That's probably my number one requirement. I can hangout in my backyard without any neighbors looking down on me. My dogs like it too. They sit on the deck looking out over the field to watch rabbits and joggers. My number 2 requirement is proximity to work. I don't want to waste my life away sitting in traffic. I'd rather spend that time on the family, hobbies, or exercising.

I would love that too actually. Though for me I sorta have the opposite, I have no neighbours across the street since it's a school field and track. I sometimes go there to fly my drone. Nobody has complained yet so that's good. There are people who just hate seeing drones and will call the cops as soon as they see one, but they arn't really common here so people think they are cool.

One of the first houses I looked at actually backed into mine tailings which would have been neat too as it was not active so it would have eventually just been a forest that is not likely to see any kind of development. The house itself was a big fixer upper though, but I actually did like it and it was two storeys which is kind of cool. Never lived in a two storey house before. Let alone, one that I actually own. Not that I'm unhappy with my current house, and it is much closer to work, but I sometimes look back and wonder if I should have indeed bought that other house. It was the closest thing to camping without being super far out of town. Was a somewhat rural area.

I've been looking at land for fun though, I'd love to build a camp at some point, and then eventually actually retire there. I see 50+ acres go for like 10 grand sometimes. Problem is it's ATV access only, so I don't know how that works, like where do you park your car? I would not have an issue with getting an ATV or even just walking the trail but I'd be worried about how it would work for parking the car as I imagine the road is probably not part of the property so not like I can build a parking lot or something.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Gotta be a least 1/4 mile from any neighbor, must have high speed internet, sufficient power for a large A/C unit and a large freezer for storing frozen dinners and pizza, easy for food delivery people to find, with good mounting locations for video cameras to monitor the grounds.

That's about it. If you can find all that, then you can have your own survival shelter and gun vault built and add an emergency generator and fuel storage.

 

[pete6032]

Absolute must haves: Commute must be under 40 minutes, so access to the subway is essential. After that it's neighborhood (safe, walkable desirable neighborhood), then a modern kitchen and central heat (no radiators) followed by price, and being in an actual neighborhood and not in a high rise.

Nice to have but not essential: central air, close to a major bike lane corridor to get to work, within walking distance of grocery store, gym, and coffee shop, easy parking, in-unit laundry, gas stove.

My current place has most but not all of those. I could probably get all of those nice-to-have items if I paid another $300/month on top of what egregious amount I already pay, but that's not happening.

 

[olds]

Gotta be a least 1/4 mile from any neighbor, must have high speed internet....

Such places exist? When my closest neighbor was 1/4 mile away I had to use dial up or satellite.

 

[shortylickens]

Space.
Lots of it.
I just looked at a house with 2100 square feet of unfinished basement. So I got loads of room for a workshop and storage and a game room and sex dungeon and



wait.
I've said too much!
SHIT!

 

[Mayne]

I skipped over the whole thread. What do I for in a place to live? hmmm....hmmm. uhm if I want to live alone, i've done it for 3 months now almost. novelty will never wear off. If I won the lottery i would definitely buy a cabin in the woods.

 

[Mayne]

probably the best 3 months of my life.