Hero Material and I have been busy house hunting. Our place is teeny, not even 600 sq ft, and it’s just too cramped for us now that we have a baby. We don’t care if we buy or rent, though Hero Material seems to be interested in buying.
Recently, we went to see a new condo that’s going up, and couldn’t believe the price. You get about 900 sq ft of space, but the price tag is close to $700k plus $200+ in monthly condo fees. Sorry, Mitsubishi, you have to do better!
I have a list of things I want in a new place:
1. At least 3 bedrooms — so we can use two and convert one into a home office.
2. Sufficient storage space
3. A BIGGER BATHROOM!
4. Excellent insulation — for whatever reason a lot of homes here are just poorly insulated to the point that it’s actually colder inside than outside, etc. in winter (and reverse in summer)
5. Windows that don’t open to the closed hallways (I don’t see the point of having such windows).
6. Sufficient sun
Strangely enough, being earthquake resistant isn’t all that important to me, despite the fact that I live in Japan. I just expect all homes to have basic resistance built in, and we’re not on a major fault line. Also, I feel that if something really big hits where we live (like an m-10 quake or some such unimaginable horror), no amount of “earthquake resistance technology” is going to keep us safe.
So for those of you who went house and/or rental hunting — what things were important to you? Any advice for new parents looking to move?
March 29th, 2012 - 2:34 pm
Good luck with your house hunting! Our house is way too small and every day I wish we had a bigger kitchen and living room. But really, I’d just settle for a small space I could convert into an office!
March 30th, 2012 - 10:09 pm
@Amanda Bonilla: Are you guys not able to move? Here, once you buy a home, you can’t move easily b/c homes depreciate fast (I’m talking 50% or more fall in resale value of homes / condo you bought new or built).
April 2nd, 2012 - 10:41 am
I’ve started thinking about a new house. Probably not any time soon, but if we decided to have another baby… This one would quickly become too crowded.
But I really, really love our house! We have an open field behind us that will probably never be built on (flood plain), and we would have to pay a fortune to find another place like this.
I’m just astounded by the prices people have to pay for houses in some places! I live in Texas, so you can get a pretty huge home here for well less than 300k. I remember when I was in the UK looking at the prices of some of those flats… God, it was ridiculous. I don’t think it was quite as bad as where you are, but I don’t know how anyone could afford it!
Good luck with the house hunting!
April 3rd, 2012 - 1:41 am
@Sandy Williams: Thanks, Sandy!
Yeah, I heard that the UK price is higher than even Tokyo!!! (And Tokyo is outrageous too.)