I just changed my profile. I'm in the NW corner of Commerce, next to Milford, White Lake, and Highland. Built in 1997. I work in Livonia and my wife in Auburn hills. Something in the middle would be Southfield, but we didn't want to live there. Northern Farmington hills and West Bloomfield would have been great, but the type of house and amount of land we wanted couldn't be had in our price range. We traded those features for a slightly longer commute. Mark, if you want more details, PM.
I gew up on 10 acres of land and wanted more than postage stamp lots for my kids to grow up on. I also didn't like living 10 feet from my neighbor's house My ideal would be about 3 acres.
I have a large family, 5 brothers and sisters with 3 married with kids, my neices and nephews mostly within an hour's drive. My wife has 4 younger sisters, although none married or kids yet. To host family gatherings, we wanted a floorpan set up for entertaining. 3000sf is more than we need, but the lot is what sold us. The house met our minimum criteria and is in our price range which I could have never dreamed about. Also, we had the baby andher stuff along with another adult move into our house so 4 bedrooms was a requirement. It wasn't a matter of need. We are blessed to live beneath our means for the most part. We can afford the house, so we'll take it even if we don't use every square foot. There are plenty of fancier homes around, albiet on smaller lots or costing lots more.
Zillow says our house is worth about $400k, that's a little high. This house was originally listed at $390k, but lowered some before we saw it, and then we offered even lower becuase we were not contingent on selling our prior house and the sellers had another house built and ready to move in. (Wow, longest run-on sentence I've ever written.) Metro Detroit is a buyer's market right now with prices falling for the $300-500k range. Since we upgraded, our dollars went a little farther than 2 years ago.
Bill J, congrats on the children! That's a quick way to start a family.
