[ilovemyglo]

My fiance and I bought a house two months ago. my mom is a realtor so I got to use her MLS to search for potential homes.

My must haves originally were:
3 bedrooms (but wanted 4). I work from home and one bedroom was going to be an office
2 baths
Prefer hardwood floors but not complete deal breaker
2 car garage
Brick exterior (maintenance free!! and great for heating/cooling!)
Closet space....

The house we purchased was on hte market for over a year. There were some minor issues, we even had a structual engineer out to look at the house to make sure they weren't huge, and the house was empty when we looked at it.
The thing about the house we bought is it had great potential but horrid choices made for it.

For example-
The family room has paneling that had been painted. At some point we will replace it, but honestly it was painted a creamy color which emphasized it was paneling. There is one wall of windows in that room, so I painted it a chocolate color and it de-emphasized the paneling and made the room much more cozy and intimate.
The kitchen was blood red. Hideous!! The knobs on the drawers and cabinets were tomatoes, carrots, peas and peppers... as were the light switch plates. Even though that isn't a huge thing, we had to spend over $140 to replace them because they were so ugly. The cabinets were painted white so we went with plain chrome ones, they were the cheapest and it still cost that much!!
The closets had the bifold doors and at some point she had removed all the doors- (I hate bifold anyway) but now our closets are all wide open. We are making curtains to use until after the wedding at which time we are getting sliding closets doors.

Little things, like updated doors (6 panel doors look much better than flat ones) and knobs (brass looks old). Little touches would have made the difference in this house. Instead of getting the additional 10k they were asking for it we got the house for a steal and are doing work on our own. So long as the bones are there you can make the house work for you.

That being said, we are a young couple- know your market in your area. If it is going to be a couple with a few kids they won't want to do the work we have to make the house how they like it.

And keep the yard minimized if you aren't going to upkeep elaborate plant and landscape designs. Our yard was overrun and we had to basically pull everything up.

Not sure if that helps, but I am still working on getting our house to be home. It's going faster than I thought but very time consuming!

eta- Also as for neighbors/neighborhood- when we bought the house, next door the house was only mostly taken care of, but there was chipped paint and a gutter falling down. It looked awful. Within two weeks of us working on our house the guy living there gixed both issues!!! And his son moved out which menat fewer cars next door!