Our Ideal House

Welcome back to House Hunters. You can find yesterday’s intro post here.

The picture above represents an example of what we’ll refer to as “Our Ideal House.” This house is a new-construction home in a community that offers amenities including a pool. It has the size (2,500 sf) and the bedrooms (4) that we would like in our future home. It also features some of the upgrades that are really important to me – hardwood on the first floor and granite countertops in the kitchen.

The price of this example home is right on target with what we would ideally like to pay for our first home, so later this week I’ll refer to the other houses in relation to the cost of this house.

Lastly, this home is located in an excellent public school district. No private school tuition needed!

So what’s the problem with this perfect-on-paper home?

To get affordable, new-construction housing in Atlanta you have to either work outside the city or be willing to tolerate an excruciating commute. A home like this one, located in the northern suburbs, would entail an hour to an hour and a half commute each way (depending on which northern suburb we chose).

Mike and I have decided that hour-plus commutes are not the right decision for our family. That’s a 100% deal-breaker for us.

Stay tuned…tomorrow we’ll take a look at what we consider to be “Our Ideal Location,'” followed later this week by looking at two areas that have some combination of the features/location we want.