Shopping for a Home for Single Parents
Are you a single parent who is shopping for a home? You probably have a list of features that you want such as the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. But, you may want to consider some of the following points when selecting your new home.
Location is key to your enjoyment of the house and resale value. Is the house close to your work, your place for exchanging the children for visitation, your church, main recreational activities, etc.? Remember that driving costs you in time, gas, and car wear and tear. Plus, you may not want to be thirty minutes away from your kids if they are home alone and have a problem. Be sure to check out the rush hour traffic situation on the route that you would normally take to get home. You may find that rush hour traffic bottlenecks would add substantially to your commute time.
Does the area have sidewalks? If you have kids, you may not want them to have to walk in the street or cut across yards to get home from school or go to a friend's house.
Access to public transportation should be considered even if your kids are small and you think you would never take the bus. When those kids become teenagers, you may find yourself in a transportation bind with several kids needed rides at the same time and one car. Public transportation offers you another option for getting you and your kids where you need to be. Also, you may want to consider foregoing the car and taking the bus or train in order to save on the high price of gas.
A grocery store and a discount store located nearby your home can be a lifesaver for a single parent. Your kids may need snacks for school or items for a project, and you don't find out until 10:00 the night before. You can make a quick run to the store and solve your dilemma. Again, you probably frequent groceries and discount stores, so save yourself the transportation hassles and buy a home near such establishments.
Huge yards may be beautiful, but remember that someone has to take care of it. If that someone will be you, consider how much time you are willing to devote to the task. Since your schedule is probably extremely hectic, you may want to get a smaller yard to save time even though your preference may be to have acres of land. Even if you plan to hire out the yard work, a larger yard is going to cost you more money which you may not wish to spend.
The age of the house you are considering can be important. Houses that are roughly fifteen years old are at an age where major items such as the roof and heating and air systems may need replacing. Older homes may need plumbing or electrical wiring updates. Find out the age of roof, furnace, central air unit, wiring, and plumbing. Extra priority should be given to houses that have already had recent updates of these big ticket items. You don't want to stretch to buy a house and then have to immediately spend $8000 for a new roof. At the very least, you would want to negotiate the repair amounts off of the buying price for the home.
Find out the demographics of the neighborhood surrounding the potential home. For example, new subdivisions may have predominantly young families where both parents work. This could be a problem if you have latchkey kids, and there are no neighbors home during the day in case of emergency. And, you may be more likely to have a burglary since there is no one around to see what is going on. An established neighborhood with a range of ages from young to elderly may be a better fit so that some adults will be home during the day.
If your children are in public school or you are planning to use the public schools when your children reach school age, research the schools in the areas that you are considering. There can be wide variations between school districts and even schools in the same district, and there may not be room at the local school for your kids, forcing them to be bused elsewhere. Before making an offer on a house, verify the schools that your children would be attending with the school district's office.
If possible, buy a house near people that you know. Having relatives close by can be a huge help if you get into childcare or transportation binds. Living near your children's friends can provide more carpooling and play date opportunities.
Buying a home is a huge decision for a single parent family.
