When you look for a new place to live, what is at the top of your list?

I looked for space, privacy, and nature. I don’t want neighbors right on top of me. I bought a 10 acre field and then put up a modular home that I custom designed exactly as I want. It has a big open living room with plenty of light. I hate small dark spaces. Plus it’s only 6 miles from where I work. I don’t want a long commute either. I don’t need a castle. Just give me room and open space and I’m happy.

I always used a realtor and tried to get it all. Specific attributes of the house, location, commute, culture, restaurants, recreation et al. The commute would be the first deal breaker. If everything else was perfect and the time spent getting to and from work was too much, I would keep looking. If the commute was perfect and I had to sacrifice my desires on the house and other things, I’d keep looking. It is a give and take.

I hope you get just what you want, @JLeslie. Take care of yourself physically through this move. It can be very, very stressful.

@Adirondackwannabe summed up what is most important for me. Neighbors can make your life miserable. I like to have a large yard and neighbors far enough that I need to drive to their house if I want to visit. Proximity to my husband’s work is also a must. He traveled over 40 miles each way for many years. Now we live less than 5 miles from his work and it has made our life much easier. He’s gained almost 2 hours of personal time now that he doesn’t have that long commute.

After settling for less the last few times, I’ve become very picky. It must be in the right location, have plenty of space, including large bedrooms, have an indoor utility room, a big kitchen, an oversized pantry, and have a backyard large enough for my kids to play. We think we’ve found the perfect house, so we’re pinching every penny we can for the down payment.

@bkcunningham The biggest problem so far is what I really want doesn’t exist. LOL. At least not that I have found yet. If I had a million dollars to spend and little worry of whether I lose money at resale, then I could more easily make it happen, but I don’t have that luxury.

When we were younger we really sought the house we loved. Our last move we bought a house I have never loved, and it has bothered me for seven years living here. On this move I want my husband to have a short easy commute, but I want to have the top few things in the house I really want, which I compromised on all of it the last time. Plus, add in, we are not sure if we want a house, townhouse, or condo. We are all over the map.

I have a number of criteria. I want a neighborhood where people will be like me. Liberal, into reducing our footprint on the planet, and artistic. I want a neighborhood where the architecture is beautiful. I want a good bicycle commute, so there have to be roads that are friendly to bicyclists. I want lots of restaurants, especially ethnic ones. Lots of coffee shops and book stores. I want to be near a park where there are lots of cultural events. I also want quiet, so that means away from the main roads. I also will not live in a flood zone.

If I have kids, schools are important, but that’s not your issue.

I like some green space, so I can do a little gardening, but I don’t need sunshine for vegies, although that would be nice. I can do shade. Which is even more important to me in the hot climates. I require quiet, which usually means not in a multiple housing unit. Either that, or some extensive interviewing of neighbors. I did interview my current neighbors before we moved in, and while that turned up a lot of good things, they didn’t tell us they would be having meetings where people would be yelling a screaming—some sort of do it yourself therapy. But it doesn’t happen often, and usually only around dinner time. It’s sort of funny once you get used to it. It makes you want to heckle.

As to the house itself, I need a lot of space. I need an office. It needs to be high up in the trees or with a view. If I get an office, then so does my wife. We need rooms for all the kids and us. And if I were moving again, I’d have a music and dance room in the house, where we can put on performances and just move around. I like big rooms with character. I’ve lived in old houses all my life, except for growing up in an architect designed one-of-a-kind house, which, though it had interesting rooms, really wasn’t as nice as my house now, which has bigger rooms with higher ceilings. It was built in 1896. It has Chestnut trim, which you can’t get any more.

Anyway, I believe you can get what you want if you know what you want and you work hard at it. It must be there somewhere. At a reasonable price, too.

Neighbourhood above all else – which includes considering commute time. I prefer to live as close as possible to where I am working, because I don’t want to devote time, energy, and cost towards commuting every day. I’d rather spend that time living.

Regarding a home, I consider privacy, light, practical or pleasing layout, and condition (these include things like good water pressure, but also making sure the place has hardwood floors, high ceilings, and a decent clawfoot tub), pretty much in that order. I am an apartment-dweller, so I look for places on the top floor (I don’t even look at tall apartment buildings or large complexes – small brick or stone buildings only), and I listen for noise. Things like paint colour I can change, so I don’t much care about that.

Add to that the fact that there’s no such thing as an easy commute in this area, if you work normal business hours. Seriously, it’s ridiculous.

A beautiful view! and quiet neighbors not sure if I am asking too much?!

@JLeslie, can you contact someone at your husband’s place of employment who is currently living in the are where you are moving? If you can contact a secretary or someone and ask about the area it may be a big benefit to you in terms of having an inside track of commuting, neighborhoods, shopping, crime, etc.

We have made friends with a couple who live on our cul-de-sac. They are snowbirds. As we’ve gotten to know them better she has confessed that she hates Florida and the only way she agreed to move here was if she got certain things in the house that she wanted.

For instance. She wanted a third bedroom just for her crafts, sewing, whatever. She got it but said it is much smaller than she expected and when the grandkids come she has to put her things away so they won’t pilfer.

She wanted a yard with no maintenance. Well, to anyone looking in from the outside, she got it. We all live on a golf course. Their backyard is mostly a big screen bird cage with no grass. Their front yard is beautifully landscaped in slate, granite slabs, river rock and little garden gravel.

She sits in the gravel and picks out weeds and polishes the granite stepping stones and complains about the yard work she has to do.

I say all this to remind you to make sure about what you want and to be happy with what you have.

@bkcunningham Sounds like that woman would never be happy. I bet wherever she lives she complains. I just spent a couple weeks there checking out various areas and house hunting a couple days. When I lived in FL previously every communty I lived in had a large heated pool, which is important to me, I’m a lap swimmer. Many of the houses very near to where my husband’s place of employment is are older FL homes so no community pool. There is a country club very very close to his work called Feather Sound, @Seek_Kolinahr might know it, and I like the area ok, but the country club for the area has a pool that is not heated. The apartments my husband is living in now have nicer amenities than this country club from pool to exercise room, it’s ridiculous and frustrating. That country club is a consideration, but in a weird spot surrounded by business not other residential communities. But, the development itself is quite large with several subdivisions of single family, townhouses, and condos.

All my houses in FL overall I was extremely happy with. Little things I would have preferred to be different, but overall happy. But, they were all out in the suburbs type set up, newer, planned subdivisions developed by Lennar or GL Homes. I really like the convenient fabulous amenities in the neighborhood, but I am not so sure I want a house. I’d like a condo, but then most of them feel small, parking is a problem for all of my husband’s cars.

I won’t be back for a few weeks, so my husband will have time to explore and talk to coworkers.

And Feather Sound is right next to the airport. Ick.

Biggest problem is that Hubs is going to be working in Pinellas County, which has been built out for over 20 years. Nothing new going up, so even the fancy-pants communities have old amenities.

@Seek_Kolinahr Exactly. The newer stuff built close to the water, places like Marina Bay that are more south, easy access to the highway so the commute isn’t terrible, the townhouses are built with the garage the entire main floor because there is no floo insurance for the first floor, so that actually works really well for my husband’s cars. Easily fit 4 cars even in a townhouse. The other option is to tear down an old single family and build new, and can make the entire ground floor for cars. Then I might be able to fit our trailer and everything. But, that would probably be very pricey to do, and I am not sure I would get my money back. that could be done in Feather Sound, or maybe Snell Island area? My husband’s boss lives in South Tampa, expensive and he would have to deal with a bridge, although the Gandy Bridge seems to not be bad for traffic.

Someone mentioned Safety Harbor to me. I haven’t been there yet.

I’d check the HOA restrictions at Feather Bay and other localities before making a decision about the vehicles and and trailer. I doubt the trailer will be allowed in most places with an HOA or POA.

@bkcunningham I’m talking about inside the garage. I don’t want trailers or trucks in driveways myself.

I wish I could be of more help. I can give you general info on the area, but you’re looking way outside my lifestyle, and I’m just not familiar with neighborhoods in particular

@Seek_Kolinahr You have been very helpful :). I actually would prefer to not spend a fortune, that is part of the difficulty. It is basically why we ruled out South Tampa and downtown St. Pete.

I’ve lived in neighborhoods where you wouldn’t have been able to garage one. The reason being you would have to pull it in and out and load and unload the vehicles and people would complain about the noise and appearance of a trailer coming through the neighborhood. Good luck.

@bkcunningham I have never heard of a problem with one there for a few hours, but I will watch for that. Work and service trucks come through neighborhoods to tend to lawns, move people, I don’t see how they can have a problem with it for a couple hours a few times a year. There isn’t really any noise associated with it. But, like I said, I’ll look carefully at the HOA docs. Thanks.

I wish Brandon wasn’t a hundred million miles away from where you want to be. Or Sun City Center. Both are awesome, relatively inexpensive, and totally in the wrong county for you.

Close to husband’s work and public transportation, close to shopping.

Peace and quiet.

We always rent for at least 6 months before buying or long term rental. That gives us time to assess the area, explore the neighborhoods and see what amenities are where. It is hard to just go in, look around for a little bit and make a major decision.

@rooeytoo Luckily, this time my husband is more in that frame of mind. Usually he feel like he needs to get things done, it’s his personality. Our house will probably be difficult to sell, so that has slowed him down a bit, he wants to free up the money from our current house first.

Do you look at houses at all the first few months? I think I need to stop looking altogether until we are ready to buy.

The first four times I have had to do this, we (there were two of us), we always started with what we could afford (including the secret stash). Then we factored in an easy drive for both of us, since we worked at the same place and often went back and forth more than once a day, as did the children, who were attending school at our place of work.

That narrowed things down considerably.

The last time was a dream since I was no longer working and my then-husband loved to drive and the roads and highways were pretty empty.

There is a site here called realestate.com and I look there and at the sites of the major real estate agencies. If we see a house we really like, we will go have a look. If you get a rental with a six month lease and you find a house you really like, then you can usually get the seller to agree to a six month contract. Actually I like to look at houses and see how the prices are going so I look for fun even if I am not in the market at the moment!

I hate packing and unpacking, but I love moving to new houses and towns!

If money was no object I would only consider places close to big lakes/lochs or the sea! The house itself would need to be fairly small/cosy as I am not a fan of big houses in general.