I feel like I should add in, that in my mind, whatever we buy, won't be our "forever home", but instead a stepping stone. the house I REALLY want, if mostly for sentimental reasons, is the one where my uncle Currently lives.
It was built for my grandparents around 96/97... a local Developer showed up at their old house, which was pretty rough, only real value was the land - lots of retail popping up around them, in fact the store where I've worked for the last 28 years is just behind that property... we used to play on what is now my employer, when it was a corn/bean field - anyway, the developer was starting a new addition a couple miles away, and offered my grandparents and both of their neighbors the same deal. I'll build you a new house, and then we just do a property swap*... so my grandparents got to live their last few years in a basically FREE brand new house.
My uncle was living with them at the time, and he still has the house, and it's in the names of all 3 brothers, that way if he sold it, he'd have to split the money ( effectively their inheritance) with his brothers.
I want that house when he Passes. which with his numerous health conditions, and the amount of prescriptions he's on ( better living through chemistry!) could be Tomorrow, or it could be 20 years from now...
as of this writing, I'm the only one of the cousins who a) doesn't already have a house of my own, b) still lives in the area, with no real plans of leaving. ( and when my brother moved back 10 yrs ago, he bought a house just down the street, and the older brother of My Childhood Best friend bough the house literally across the street from my uncle)
The house itself is nothing special, smallish ( just under 1300 sq ft**) 3 bed 2 bath .25 acre lot, semi customized for my grandparents ( took the standard design they were shown, pushed the kitchen wall back to make a bigger kitchen, and shrink the one bedroom, which could be a Nursery, or as it always has been my uncle's Home office ( traveling sales rep for var. hardware companies) but after moving in, Grandma felt like she was in a mansion.
* the developer wanted all 3 lots, and would then move his offices, etc to that location. only 2 of the 3 took the offer, the 3rd guy wanted a ridiculous amount of money, and a couple acres in the country for his .5 acre lot.. so the office move never happened, and his house is the only one still there, now with some kind of tarot/chakra reading thing... idk..
**1292 sqft,which actually makes it too small to be built in the neighboring township where my parents and I are, which has a 1300 sqft minimum, to keep out mobile homes...