optimized living

We’re in the process of purchasing a home, and several friends have asked how I went about the process. The first thing that I would highly recommend is to scope out the area. Especially when you are relatively new to an area, taking a full day and driving everywhere you think you may be interested is a great first step. You’ll find areas that you thought you’d like, but end up second guessing. More importantly, you may find areas that were slightly off your radar. Location is a very personal thing.

Here are the things that I looked for while searching for a location:

• How far it was from work (both during peak and off-peak times). It’s a good idea to drive a location during peak traffic times as you start to narrow down your search.
• Neighborhood quality and style. Do the houses in the neighborhood look well maintained? How about the area immediately surrounding the neighborhood. A few areas that we looked at had really nice neighborhoods in not so great areas. It’s a personal call whether that is acceptable to you.
• School District. Even if you do not have any children in school, what school district within an area has a large effect on resale values.
• Vicinity to stores. Check how far a neighborhood is from a grocery store and any other stores that you frequent. You don’t want to be driving 15 minutes to a store that you go to 2-3 times a week.

I’ll follow up in the coming weeks with additional steps that we took as we went along the process of house shopping.