Model Homes

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Does anyone else really enjoy going through model and custom homes? I've been to just about every single one within fourty miles and I'm going to see some in Kentucky next week. I've gone through so many, I can actually name the exact price point of them. Like earlier, I was in one and I asked if it was $230k and the realtor said I was exactly right! I am also really good at remembering the details of them, too. I can go through twenty very similar homes in one day (I've done it, believe me!) and go in just one of those a year later and remember everything about it clearly. Can anyone else do this, too?

I used to be able to look at ANYTHING technical, and tell you the price! I was often RIGHT! Home pricing CAN be daunting though. For example, my home had a $5000 premium because it was built by a "good" builder. Places like mine had a $20,000 premium because the master bedroom was on the main floor. If I were pricing it, I might now give it as much as a $500 premium because BOTH garage doors have an opener(MOST only have ONE). The popularity of a home class might ALSO lead to an increase in price. The latest appraiser said he would appraise it higher because it has a pedestal sink in the guest bath, and they are popular.

As for enjoying the idea of looking at them, YEP! I went through some for a while even after getting mine. So how much square footage was in the one that cost $230k?

The $230k house had about 3,400 sq ft. It was an Estridge-built home, so it wasn't custom, even though they apparently do build custom homes (like Reggie Miller's mansion). A lot of the custom homes around here are priced much higher just for the fact that they're custom. A nice non-custom house can go for $350k and if it were custom, that same house could be over $800k. The land here also only plays a factor if you're in on Geist Reservoir, Carmel, or Zionsville. You can get a bigger lot anywhere else much cheaper. Wow, I could be a realtor for central Indiana! lol

I design homes and the company I've worked at for a decade now has model homes all over the south. I enjoy designing homes and all, but I don't like touring model homes. I think it's because I simply hate dealing with sales people, and so often open model homes have sales people foaming at the mouth to talk to you. Though I must admit, if not for these rabid, talkative, pushy sales people, I wouldn't have a job at the moment. And this economy has me very afraid of that possibility, because this week was probably the slowest week I've ever experienced in an entire decade with the company.

I have a thing for houses. I probably shoulda worked in real estate.

My aunt really wants me to go into real estate. Apparently, I was the best realtor she ever had for helping her find the house she lives in now after living in apartments her whole life. I think it would be a totally fun job, but the economy needs to pick up first.

I seem to be obsessed with enjoyment looking at homes. It may be because I never had one. But I own one now and I still want to look at homes, endless curiosity. I haunt RMLS (online listing service for Portland OR area) and the only TV I watch is some HGTV. Thought about going into real estate a bit just to share my love of houses, but after seeing how some ppl wreck really nice old homes I think it might bother me too much when ppl do idiotic things.

Do you like to take the online virtual tours?

i like driving around the nice neighbourhoods in flagstaff, wich are appropriatly called country club. some of the houses are amazing!

Now this one I definitely can understand. I don't like touring model homes, but for a few years I would spend almost every day driving around nice neighborhoods. I enjoyed checking out the nice homes and hoping some day to own one. I also enjoyed going to new neighborhoods to watch construction. When people would say it was weird to spend all my time doing that, I'd just say I was getting inspiration since I do design homes. Most people could appreciate that, and I'd never have to tell the truth: that I just obsessed over houses and subdivisions.

This was a daily occurrence for me for so long, but eventually I got married and stopped because it bored my wife. I own a home now, and while I like to think it's pretty nice for its small size, it's not as nice as the ones I've salivated over for years.

i bust out my autism when i roll on up to a nice domino. i pretend im a deer in the yard, and its extravigant! sometimes christmas lights make an appearance

I loved walking in houses growing up. I loved going to Parade of Homes with my family and we all look at the furnish homes. I also walked in houses that were under construction. I did that a lot in my neighborhood when I was little and then when all the houses were built, I couldn't do it anymore, nor to the neighborhood below us. Then when I was in 3rd grade, they started building another house on a vacant lot that was never used. I went over there a lot. I also liked looking at floor plans magazines. One time I found a home that was similar to ours and then it turned out it was the house my parents used to build and they bought the blue prints and made some changes to it. They added an extra garage and bathroom in the bonus room, replaced the sliding patio doors with two windows and put in a single door next to the kitchen. Then they eventually added addition to the house in 1992. That was something I enjoyed. I would watch the workers work outside in the new room we were adding which used to be the patio. Only thing I hated was the mess and the noise.



But I do enjoy looking at houses as I go by them. I sometimes imagine living in one of them.
I am fascinated by old houses. If I am in a old house, I will look in every room I find, same as other houses I'm in.

I dream of houses a lot too, or my dreams take place in houses. Sometimes they're 'mine' sometimes not. It's interesting when I go back to the same house in a serial dream.

I'm in California, and with all the foreclosures there's been a lot of houses on the market. I like looking at the houses that were built during the boom and seeing all the silly amenities the builders put in them. I've seen closets the size of bedrooms, one house had a fake (natural gas burning) fireplace in the master suite, cheap pine balustrades treated with chemicals so they look like mahogany, and much more. The worst foreclosures don't get open houses, but realtors talk of such things as the house in West Sacramento where somebody poured motor oil in the subflooring, nobody had any idea how to get it out.

I love old buildings, I like being in them because they're so much nicer than newer stuff. Although I've learned that if you've seen one Craftsman house (1905-25) you've seen them all, they were built from generic plans and there were about a dozen basic styles. Victorians are much nicer, but those are rarely sold at open houses. I saw a 1890 house that was all original and absolutely gorgeous. I also saw a 1916 mansion once owned by a bank president, it was mind boggling.

I never got the chance to live in an old apartment building. I lived in a 1907 former SRO hotel in San Francisco, but had to move after four months because it turned out to be filled with vermin, both animal, insect, and human. Other than that every place I've lived has been extensively remodeled, even if it was originally old. I did live in a 1938 building during my art deco phase, and it was ok but not really nice. I like Stockton, the downtown has a 20 block or so area filled with old brick buildings like they used to have Back East in Detroit and Chicago. Most of them are abandoned, there's an apartment building that's boarded up but salvageable and has so much potential.

I dream of being in the house where I grew up. I don't dream of any other house except that one. I dream I'm in my old bedroom.

I actually do not like old houses one bit and I love it when they get remodeled so they're almost like new again. I could never live in an older house, especially since the last two I've lived in have been brand new. That's how I want it to be for the rest of my life. I like the option of choosing exactly what I want in a house instead of getting stuck with a lot of things I don't like and having to change all that out.

As for nice houses, they actually don't really phase me that much. I live in a very nice house already (When it was under construction, people from ten miles away would walk in to check it out.), so I guess I'm just used to the upper-middle class lifestyle. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

I really like HGTV, and although I don't have the time to walk through many model homes, I do like decorating my house to perfection. Our house is on the market now and many of the real estate agents that show it comment that it does look just like a model home, and they're amazed I did it all myself. I think it would be wonderful to do home staging as a career, but I don't have the people skills for it...