Does your realtor have any suggestions for you about the "bad timing" issue regarding seeing the other house (the one coming on the market)? The house you put an offer on - is there a contingency for "your review and acceptance of the home inspection" written into it? I've seen the home inspection contingency written where the buyer gets to walk simply by reviewing and not accepting the results (instead of the more typical scenario where any repairs are negotiated). It will cost you $ the home inspection, at least, but it may buy you some time.

Some sellers see that language and strike it out. Your agent should be able to argue for it.

For someone who's top priority is location you still sound awfully reticent. You say you're "95%" sure but your language doesn't back that up.

Is there anything you love about the place besides the location?

You really don't seem to even really "like" this house, let alone love it. And your husband doesn't really seem on-board with much remodeling and $50,000 won't do a lot.

It's your decision but is the location that great that it will trump the house itself?

Good questions.

We have an option and can cancel the contract for any reason until the option expires. So we can get out of the contract if I want to get out of it.

As for the greatness of the location - yes, it is really great. It isn't just the closeness to amenities although that is excellent. It is the town itself. We have pets and this town is very pet friendly. We have specific pet requirements that not every town meets. Also, this town is highly desirable for many reasons and is extremely unlikely to be subject to future decline. Since we plan to make this our retirement home that is a huge factor to us. I've seen my mom's neighborhood decline over the years (even though it was a great neighborhood years ago) and I don't want to experience that. It is also close to people that I know. So of all the town's in this area this one most meets all of my location criteria. And, the location within the town itself is great.

Do I love anything about the house other than the location? Yes. I love that in many ways this house is a blank canvas. There is a lot that could be done to it. And because of how the house is configured some of this stuff is less expensive in this house than it would be in other houses. . Many houses in this area are very chopped up and have closed off kitchens. This house is fairly open although the kitchen is closed off from the formals. However, due to the configuration of this house it can be opened up pretty inexpensively and it would not require reconfiguring the entire kitchen. The overall kitchen layout is fine and would not need to be changed. I love the fact that I could open up this house much, much, much easier and more cheaply than other houses we looked at.

In the master bath I want to rip out the tub and put in a large shower. The things I want to do layout wise in the master bath can be done and I mostly don't have to move around a lot of stuff. So, yes, there is an expense but it is much less in this house than many other houses I looked it.

There is a covered patio that is enclosed on three sides. I love the fact that it would be very easy to enclose the 4th side given my cats a nice, safe area to lounge in. This was a huge plus for me.

In my last house, my master bedroom had a tray ceiling with rope lighting which I liked. Most houses I look at don't have it and it would be hard to get. This master bedroom has a ceiling configuration where it would be very easy to do.

So many houses I looked at had been updated or were recently built and they were nice but not exactly the colors or materials I would have chosen. For example, there was a house that had a really beautiful granite in the kitchen. It was of much higher quality than I saw in most houses. And, there was a ton of it (very large kitchen). I liked it a lot. I would never have spent any of my money to change it. But...I never in a million years would have chosen that granite if I bought that house.

On the other hand, this kitchen also has updated granite. But, neither DH nor I like it at all. The kitchen itself is smaller. Also we would want to redo the island anyway to change the raised bar to counter height. So I would spend the money to change the granite and would get exactly what I wanted. I love that idea.

While we only have $50k that we can spend on upgrades right now, there is a good likelihood we could do more later. And, I do love the fact that due to how this house is configured some thing that would be very expensive in other houses we looked at would be less expensive in this house.

I do think that over time we could make this a gorgeous house. The two things that I really miss from this house -- I wish it had a larger master closet and I wish it had one more room to it. About 90% of the layout problems would be solved with one more small room.

I have considered extending the covered patio and making it a larger room. If I could add another 3 or 4 feet to it that would come pretty close to making this house perfect (well, except for that closet). But -- I would definitely need more than $50k to do that and the other work I want to do. But, that might be possible in the future.

As far as the location trumping the house...I remember my last house. I loved that house. It was a beautiful house with an ideal layout. Toward the end (after kids were gone) it was a little large but I wouldn't have sold it just for that reason. There was some remodeling I would have done had we stayed, but it was all doable. No house that I buy in the new location will be as nice as that house. Why? Location. That house was 20 minutes from a grocery store. 30 minutes from any kind of major shopping. Over an hour from the really big city. And, I hated that. I loved our subdivision. It was wonderful and beautiful. But, I hated where the subdivision was located in relation to everything else.

I think part of my struggle is that every house I look at doesn't measure up to that house. Not in the least. But, that house in this new location would cost probably $300k more than what I just sold it for. And, that is due to the difference in location. To have a house like that here...I would have to have a location an hour outside of the big city and I don't want to live in that kind of location any more. The driving 20 or 30 minutes to go anywhere wasn't really a problem for DH and I now. We are in good health and can drive. But, I think about 10 or 15 or 20 years from now when it might be a very different story.

The other day we were at the new house and went out to eat afterwards. Within 5 minutes were at least 10 restaurants of the type that we would like to eat at. The veterinarian that was recommended to us by the friends our dogs are staying with is 3 minutes away from this house. My closest friend from high school lives in this town. I mean the location couldn't be better.

So, yes, my initial post did focus more on the negatives of the house. I think it is that I really want everything. I want the great location and a great house. And, having just had a great house, it is hard to go to something that just isn't great.

The thing is that I can't have both great location and great house. I know that. I think what I am most struggling with is that I know that another house in the same great area that meets our criteria is coming on the market. It is more expensive than the house we are buying but it mid-range for our budget. But, because it is more expensive it might have a better layout, larger closet, etc. But, I don't see a way to get there. That upcoming house isn't going to be "great" house either. But, it might be closer than the house we have under contract.

The problem is that to get that house I might have to let this house go and if I don't end up getting that house (very good possibility I wouldn't) then I would end up losing both houses and might not be able to get a house in this area at all.

I think that is what is bothering me most. I was fine with the house we have under contract until I saw something else in our price range that meets our criteria coming on the market and realized that even if I liked it more....I might not be able to afford to try and get it because I can't let go of the bird in the hand or I might end up with no bird....

Thanks, Jane. That is so helpful. Yes, it really does sound like a similar situation. We have had our inspection and are in the negotiations on that now. Leaving aside any possibly of cancelling this contract we might ask for an extension anyway as we might want to get some quotes on some things and get some additional more detailed inspections of a couple of things.

If we let this house go, hard to know if it would be available. There were some other houses available in this one area we really like (after over a year I think with none available). But they have all sold now. Two of them we never had an opportunity on. One of them we almost did buy but we didn't win out. So now it is just this one house left.

But, yes, if we can get an extension we will. Also I wrote my agent and asked her to find out if there are any interior pictures of the upcoming house. I've seen exterior pictures and the listing but no interior pictures. If I saw interior pictures I might find out that I wasn't interested in the house at all...

What you describe of how you felt about the renovations resonated with me. I mean we have different specific issues but a similar sort of thing. The difference is that for a variety of reasons I can't spend a year looking.

At this point, I think I am going to see if I can get an extension. Also since I am still in my option period and can inspect I am trying to get a designer out to the house so I can get a better feel for the possibilities. If I got an extension I would definitely do that. That could potentially go a long way toward resolving my reservations.

I tried to read it all. Why don’t you just tell your realtor you need to extend your option to purchase a few more days? Amend the contract. They will likely do that, especially if you pay for it.

Yes, we are going to try to do this.

Here are two suggestions.

Get dressed up. Go the house that you want to see and knock on the door. Introduce yourself and explain your dilemma. Nicely ask them to intercede with their realtor and allow you to preview the house so that you can eliminate it. They may invite you in.

If this house has been bought and sold in the last 10 years, there should be pictures in an old MLS listing. Get your realtor to pull these up on their computer for you to see. While old, they may be enough for you to make a judgment.

This thread has a lot of great advice and suggestions! I wish I had something to add, but I don't really. I can relate, however, to the frustration of low inventory, of nothing being perfect, and of not knowing if it's better to go with something that is mostly right or with holding out for something better. Good luck and keep us updated!

We had a slightly similar situation but with a second home. We had sold the one we had and wanted one in a quieter location and better suited to aging. It was to be the last move ever. We looked for over a year and were down to the point we had to be out in a month. We went back and looked again at a place that had been on the market for five years that we rejected because of the marshy waterfront. Loved the nearly perfect house - didn’t love the lake which is kind of important for a lake property.

We did some analysis of the likelihood of finding a “perfect” place and decided it could be a very long time before we’d find it if ever. So we bought the property. I still don’t love the lakefront but we are finding ways to work with it. I still love everything else. The big point is that I’ve continued to read the listings now for three years. The perfect place has never come on the market. I’m now very happy we made the decision we did, especially since the market has improved and prices are rising. For 95% of what we do here, the waterfront has no impact. Your master bath could be the same situation.

I bought a house in a neighborhood I loved. It was a complete gut job, but I dont regret it at all. I love the proximity to everything.

Can you ask the bank about a home equity loan to upgrade the home to what you want? Are homes in the neighborhood going up in value? Are the older homes being torn down for new home builds? If so, the rising prices might justify doing more work to this house than 50k.

The thing is that if you pass this house up, it sounds like you might not get into the neighborhood in your time frame. I was driving around my city today. I saw some beatuiful mountains that I thought would be great to build a home on. But the neighborhoods were not very nice. And they are far removed from the nicer part of town with restaurants and shopping. I know that people who have done built homes in these areas have a harder time selling and do not get near as high a price.

I’d call the realtor and see if you can get into that other house. I’d also talk to your husband about finding a way to make this house into something youre excited about through financing.

I don’t think this house is the one for you. It’s totally not home sweet home to you ........I don’t see any love there.

In a hot market, and your circumstances, I'd go with bird in hand.

^This, bird in hand, especially if you can't get into see the other one. Also, as mentioned above, your agent should be able to send you historical pics of the property if it has been on the MLS in the last decade or so. It may not be the same but the historical pics may answer enough of your questions about that coming soon property. Your agent should be able to get you in for a sneak preview too.

I have never had a buyer client that missed out on a home to not find something later just as nice or better. It just may take a while.

To my ear, your objections to the bird in hand aren't that strong. You have already noted that you will have an extra bedroom that you can use for your offseason items (exactly what I do, btw, in my 1000sf house). You listed many things that you DO like about the house, and potential that you see in it.. I say keep your eyes on the positives.

I do wonder if you spoke to your agent and explained how much you want to see the other house before your deadline, if he would approach the other realtor and get you in to see it. Around here, in our hot market, a certain amount of pre-listing marketing goes on and houses are sometimes sold without ever hitting the MLS.

And no harm in knocking at the door, either, and explaining your early interest. All they can do to you is say no.

Ncrealestateguy - I agree with you. But not sure it would be in the time frame relevant to me under my circumstances.

rockybird - don’t need home equity loan. That is we could have the cash to do it. It is more an issue of what we want to spend on this than it is inability to get the money. It is possible though that we could do more beyond our $50000 later.

Raee- oh yes our agent knows. I have asked her to try to see if other agent has pics and to get info about the timeline on when the house will Be available. Sellers were moving out this past weekend. Just waiting to hear back info on this. We know sometimes house get sold before going on MLS. It is how we sold our house. But we were in different market.

You have way too many doubts and are actually answering your own question. When in doubt, don't. Your husband is correct. Let this one go and wait for one you will love. It doesn't sound as if you are in an emergency situation where you have to move immediately.

Tell your agent to assertively explain this situation to the other Realtor, that this may be a quick sale in hand but you have to see it immediately due to your option constraints.

If that doesn't work, request a 10 day extension of your option.

See the other house. Or go talk to neighbor who has been in it. Maybe you will want it or maybe you will get over this waffling. You can't change location, so that's the most important thing. I don't know how hot your market is though.

I did that once being in same predicament - knocked on the door and asked if I could get a quick walk thru - I doubt I was in there even 5 mins. Gave me all I needed to know (visually) to get my agent in to look at it and eventually made offer and bought the place. The seller was a bit annoyed but let me in. I certainly wouldn't push it and I framed it as "you don't have to do this but it would help me a lot"

It never hurts to ask, and alls fair in love and real estate. A year later, the prices in this particular n'hood had risen so much I wouldn't have been able to afford it.

Location is the one thing you cannot fix or upgrade. For fifty grand I could redo the bath, bath door to ADA and kitchen. If you can't get a day extension, cancel and pray.

You are downsizing. You can dump some of your clothes and make the smaller closets work. Same with the bathroom stuff. Easier to take care of, while you live your retirement dream.

kats meow, am interested to hear what happens. Please keep us updated...

Even though your option period is coming to an end, you could still cancel the contract after that, and pay a penalty, no?

I'd consider keeping this one, continuing to explore options for renovating the parts you don't like (post in Remodeling or Bathrooms or Kitchens, as appropriate), seeing the other one as soon as you can, and then making an offer if you like it.

How much earnest money would you lose for dumping the first house? Would it be worth that price to exit, if the upcoming house checked all your boxes?

Also, the floor plan may be available in the local assessor's office.

Thank you. This was all very helpful. This is sort of a long explanation of what happened during this busy week.

So here is what we decided to do. We did ask for an extension on the option which we received. Actually, we would have asked for the extension even if we weren't considering looking for a different house. We had some repair issues with the seller that couldn't be resolved fully in the time period of the option. So even if we were totally committed to the house we would have wanted an extension.

At the time we got the extension I figured we would work on the repair issues and see if the upcoming house became available to look at during the extended option time. I also figured that if I didn't like that house that I would go ahead and keep the house I had a contract on. Bird in the hand and all.

But then a surprising thing happened. On one day 3 houses came on the market that were close to our criteria. This was totally astonishing as I have been following this market for months and rarely do houses come on the market that meets our criteria.

One house was the upcoming house in the same subdivision as the house we had under contract. The other two were houses slightly older than we wanted by 3 to 5 years but both had been completely updated. They were in the same town we wanted to be in but in a different location in this town. Those houses also had a great location close to lots of amenities.

We went and looked at all 3 houses. The upcoming house that started all of this was the third one we looked it. It was an interesting house. It had a fairly unique layout that would have actually worked fine for us but I think a lot of people wouldn't have liked. House needed a lot of updating but I did feel it had a better layout than the house we had under contract. It would have been harder to update but I felt it had a better overall layout for us. I think we would have likely preferred it to the house we had under contract but it was actually a close call.

The 2nd house we looked at was 35 years old but it had been updated fully. It was a gorgeous house with lots of special features. There was some outdoor stuff I didn't like as well (for example, we would have to get a new fence which would be expensive as it was about half an acre). I did find out it had multiple offers on it that day and the deadline for offers is on this weekend. I didn't feel it was likely we would get this house for an acceptable price given the offers and market. Also, this house had a better layout than the house we had under contract but it was the least ideal of the 3 houses. I liked this house better than the house above right now, but I felt the one above long term met our needs better once it was updated.

The third house was the one we saw first. It was 3 years older than I wanted, but had been fully updated. One of the nice things was that the updates were entirely to my taste. That is, they were literally what I had intended to do in any house we bought. Of any houses we had seen during this entire process this one came the closest to meeting my wish list. It wasn't perfect. There is still a tub in the master bathroom that I will want to come out eventually. There are two closets but each one is sort of small (still better than the one closet in the house we have under contract). The master bath is not huge, but is adequate. There are some things I would like to be a little different in the kitchen but it is acceptable. Still it had so much that I loved. This house was actually a coming soon house but they were starting to show it. Anyway, long story short, the house did get multiple offers but we ended up with the contract.

Oh - one other thing. Remember how I said that we were going to keep the contract on the existing house if we didn't find something we liked better during the option period? After we offered on the house we now have under contract, I realized that would have been a mistake. I didn't feel about the first house anything like how I feel about the new house. I love a lot about the new house right now -- not just the location or potential. I realized I just wasn't "feeling it" for the first house. I wasn't enthusiastic about it. I think we could have remodeled it to make it look nice and to be functional. I don't think I would have been miserable there. I would have loved the location. But I think it would have been a mistake to buy it. Despite the logical reasons to buy it and despite my time issues -- I just wasn't thrilled by the house. It didn't make me smile.

Congratulations. I hope you enjoy your new home.

Congratulations! You have had a very busy but productive week. I'm glad you found one that speaks to you.

Great update! I've been looking at homes for over a year and none of them have given me that feeling. I thought maybe none will, but your story makes me think maybe we may haven't found the right one yet.

Good for you! It's amazing how sometimes things work out just when you've given up hoping you'll find what you want.

I was concerned about your keeping the house in the first post, since it was so obvious you actively disliked it. I'm so glad you found one you like.

melle_sacto - It is really hard I think to just keep looking and not finding. I think if we hadn't won out on the offers on this house that I would have cancelled the option on the other house anyway. Just on the ground it really wasn't the right house. And, yet...it is easy to say that now. I am not 100% sure what I would have done. Of course, we had reasons to need to buy sooner rather than wait indefinitely. If you can wait for the perfect or nearly perfect house then maybe you can get everything.

The problem is that perfect doesn't usually exist I said we could get 2 of: house, location, budget. We got most of them. On house itself, the biggest compromise was that the house of 3 years older than my age cutoff. But, that was semi-arbitrary and mostly it just meant I wanted an updated house. This one met the criteria. On location, this has a great location (my most important criteria). As for budget, well we went over the opt end of what we wanted to spend by about $4k or so. We were always able to spend more than the top end of our budget and I knew it might be necessary. So the amount we went over is fairly trivial in the end.

Yay! So glad it all worked out!

Congratulations!

Congratulations! Glad it worked out in the end.

I’m sooo happy for you!

Jane