House Hunting, Part I

As you know, MJ and I began our house hunt around springtime last year.  We had decided right around Christmas 2009 that we wanted to move back to the DC area so at the end of January, I touched base with a real estate agent and began looking into what was out there.  I knew the goal of buying a home in Northern Virginia wasn't going to be very easy to meet so I figured that if we gave ourselves enough time to search, we would find something we loved.  Our original thought was that we would begin seriously looking in June when MJ was home on his leave and hopefully buy a home in October/November during his following leave rotation.

You know how that turned out, right?  I think we fell in love with approximately 547,130 houses (or at least that's what it felt like!).  The more we saw, the more we loved.  I had a list of necessities and wishes as did MJ.   

Here is what our necessities list looked like:

Brick or stone exterior
4 or more bedrooms
3 or more bathrooms
Large gourmet kitchen
Large master bedroom
Attached garage

Good school system

Under $400k

Here is what our wish list looked like:

All of the above, plus...

Hardwood floors

Stainless Steel appliances

Large backyard

Fenced backyard

Established neighborhood/Gated Community

Community Amenities- Pool, Tennis Courts, etc.

Overall, we both had the same must-haves and wants.  The only thing we probably differed on was that I like old homes and he likes new homes.  We bought our first home new and we didn't have a bad experience by any means (especially compared to this one), but there is something about an old, remodeled home-- I love it!

Here are just a few of the homes that we looked at...

I'll show you tomorrow what we ended up buying and how it, and the rest of these, scored against our list!