Ann's thread to Donna about her wedding and her mentioning the house they had just bought started me thinking about when dh and I first decided to buy our first home.

I'm wondering... (not to be nosey but just something to talk about)

How many places have you lived in since you got married?
How many years have you lived in your house?
When looking for a home, were there certain things you were looking for? (Fireplace, # of bedrooms... Location?)
What turned you off from some of the homes you looked at?
What was the deciding factor in choosing the house you chose?

When dh and I were fist married we rented a 1 bedroom apartment about 15 miles from where we now live. We stayed there until our lease agreement was up (1 year) and couldn't wait to get out of there. (we woke up one morning to find bullet holes and blood on the walls in the hallway right outside our apartment door ) We moved into a larger apartment where we stayed another year. My dad's brother had just passed away. He owned, and had been renting out his house after a nasty divorce, so that needed to be sold. Dh and I had already been looking... liked it, and decided we wanted it. Our main interest was the great price they were asking for it. It needed quite a lot of work but we had the funds and the energy to do it... so we did. We lived there for two years before we decided it was time to move on. (the neighbors were something else... ) Over a two/three month period of time we looked at several different houses in several different locations. We put $$ down on another house we liked, but the owners decided at the last minute that they didn't want to sell. All the other houses we looked at didn't compare. It's hard when you've got your heart set on a certain house... you can just picture you and your family in it and suddenly it's gone. There was always something we hated about all the other houses. Most had very old appliances, ripped (or cat/dog stink) carpet, dirty/holey walls... bad location. My mom/dad actually found this house. We weren't too sure about moving so close to them... but we really liked the house. The people who lived here were obvious clean freaks. Unlike all the other homes we had looked at... there wasn't a thing out of place. They had just installed new carpeting in the living room and new flooring in the kitchen, plus they had all new/updated appliances. We liked that the rooms were so much larger than the house we'd been living in. We'd be going from 2 bedrooms to a 5 bedrooms. We quick made an offer, which was immediately accepted... but it was contingent on us selling our house. We actually sold it twice to the same people. Their loan didn't go through the first time (and we almost lost this house because of it) and a week or two later they came back and made the same offer. One of their parents had decided to pitch in and help them with the $$ and they were then able to get the loan. That was 30 years ago... What's your story?