Four Factors I considered when choosing a home, Part 5

An article titled “The Cheapest Generation” stirred up a conversation about what led some of our young professionals to choose their current or future homes. We’re pleased to present this series, Four Factors I Considered When Choosing a Home, to shed light on what homebuyers may be looking for. Feel free to share your own factors or thoughts in the blog comments section!

Name: Brooke Scott
Hometown: Midlothian, VA
Current: Mechanicsville, VA
Education: Bridgewater College
Job Title: Program Liaison in Executive Services

Four Factors I Considered When Choosing a Home

My husband and I purchased our first home as a couple in April of 2013. He was already a homeowner and I was a first-time homebuyer. In many ways, I was glad to have someone by my side who knew the ins and outs. We ended up buying a short-sale (that’s a whole different blog post). The four factors we considered when choosing a home were: affordability, location, charisma and room.

Affordability: Our real estate agent referred us to several mortgage lenders. We contacted a lender for a mortgage pre-qualification so we would know about how much we could offer on a house. Though we were pre-qualified for up to a certain amount, we set our own budget after factoring other anticipated expenses.

Location: Location, location, location. It’s not a revelation. We didn’t want to commute more than 45 minutes to work, he felt strongly about staying in the town where he grew up, and we want our future children to attend quality schools. For that reason, Hanover County was our only option.

Charisma: I’m a feelings person. Literally, I am an ENFP on the Meyers-Briggs Personality Type. So a home has to feel and resemble me. Some people can turn anything into a beautiful living space. I don’t think I have that talent, so the bones of the home mattered. We like nature and having space to breathe. We used Zillow and the MLS to look for homes. All it took was a few photos to determine if it had our names on it. When we saw this house, we knew it was “the one.”

Room: We needed room to grow. Sharing 900 square feet was fine for a brief moment, but, for our sanity and to one day have a family, we knew it was important to move somewhere with space to fill.

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