There's pros and cons to where one chooses to live.

We chose location over having a garage - a heated garage is a wonderful luxury in a cold climate. Not just a place for parked car(s), but also as a place to work on projects away from the elements. It would also be nice to have a driveway...

But our location lets us walk to 90% of our destinations, so not having a garage wasn't a dealbreaker.

That doesn't mean we don't have a wish list: garage, front porch, a garden, sauna... :)

Ugh, for me it is the MINT Green kitchen cabinets combined with the coffee and cream tile counter-top and mexican sand tiles. The previous occupants were nice enough to leave before and after photos, and the before, the cabinets weren't even painted...so needless to say, BIG job removing all that paint, redecorate fail.

I've made peace with the lack of natural light in the living room, but not the lack of hardwood floors.

I LOVE my large lot, quiet neighborhood, and my neighbors.

We bought our 2 floor co-op in Brooklyn because it has 2 full baths and a beautiful patio. The master bedroom is on the lower level, so no one walking over our heads at night. But the trade-off is we live on the first floor, so there isn't a lot of natural light and we have the noise from the lobby. But we forget about that everytime we crank up our grill.

Since I've been looking to buy, I've started to crystallize my secondary deal breakers list: enough neighborhood parking for guests, no outdoor laundry (it's a thing that people apparently do in Austin where the washer/dryer are only accessible from outside the house), and decent seeming neighbors.

No garage, no dishwasher--two things I KNOW (from experience) would make a big difference to my quality of life. Like AKwinter, I live in a cold climate where most people consider it crazy not to have a garage. But I also live in a walkable neighborhood, and my house is so cool otherwise that it seems worth it to put up with the scraping a few months out of the year. (Plus, what used to be the garage is now much-needed storage under the house.)

I have made my peace with not having a dishwasher, because my little kitchen is just perfect except for that one inconvenience and there would be no easy way to add one without ripping out all the lower cabinets.

we are about to move into our new apartment and i'm so excited to have the extra space and an in-unit laundry. biggest compromise for me was the hideous linoleum backsplash. i plan on talking with the landlord and offering to upgrade for her, otherwise i'll be considering a temporary option.

ps. i actually don't mind the blinds in the photo above. not sure if they were supposed to be ugly or not ...

jick, the photo represents a way to adjust the deal breaker, like adding pretty shades as in the photo.

If you're living with it, it's not a deal breaker, by definition.

Just sayin'.

When I bought my co-op I compromised having a lovely view (I traded a leafy backyard for a busy, squat stretch of Broadway) in order to have oodles of sunlight pouring in for hours.

Unfortunately fate outwitted me by building a gigantic condo complex in the lot next door, so now I have no sunlight and a view of a concrete wall.

the main thing i'm disappointed about with my current place is the lack of light in the living room. But I'm dealing with it because it's a great location, has parking, is the right price, and I like my neighbors.
If I really felt like packing all my stuff up and moving again I would, but it's such a PITA I'm just going to deal with it.

Since I own my home, some of my secondary deal breakers are things that I can change, but there are still some things that I just have to deal with. These include:

1) Having a zero property line. This means that one side of my house is also my property line and my neighbor's driveway runs next to my bedroom.

2) Having my laundry outside. I absolutely hate this, but unfortunately my house is too small for the washer and dryer to fit inside. I guess it's better than the laundromat.

3) Having next to no storage space inside my house. Fortunately, I do have a small shed out back.

In my apartment the cheap windows that neither keep noise (i'm on a somewhat busy street) or cold air out are what i'd call a secondary deal breaker because it makes me consider moving.

My dealbreakers, which I discovered only after buying my place are as follows:

1) Having insane neighbors in the building;
2) The sound of the buses running up and down the Venetian Causeway from 5:00 a.m. - Midnight, with its stop directly in front of my balcony doors in my bedroom (even though I'm 7 stories up);
3) The stoplight that they installed at the bus-stop between when I put in my contract, and when I closed on the condo.

On the plus side, I have a permanently unobstructable view of Biscayne Bay and the Biscayne corridor on the Mainland... so I guess that makes up for it.

dtremit - yep, that's true and that's why I wrote in the post that these aren't really deal breakers since you moved in. The point is that many people don't like them. i.e. secondary -Rebecca

I don't mind vertical blinds. Do most ATers think they're ugly?

I have these really gross, totally fake interior doors throughout my home. They are made out of fiberglass, or something, and they are hollow and even have fake grooves in them to mimic real wood-I mean, why bother?Unfortunately, I found out it would cost (no joke) thousands of dollars to upgrade to solid core, real wood, so that idea went out the window. I ended up getting better hardware and that was a noticeable improvement, at least. I bought this house as a new build and what I like about it is it's very low maintenance right now.

"I don't mind vertical blinds. Do most ATers think they're ugly?"

Most of the Planet thinks they're ugly.

Rebecca - thanks for clarifying. i was hoping so - especially since i was about to ask for a source! does anyone know what type of blinds those are?

I love baths soooo much - especially in the winter. My current tub is deep and wide and absolutely lovely.

I have to move in a few months and a big, claw foot tub is on my not-quite-a-dealbreaker (but close) list. If I found the perfect place, I'd go without. But I hope i don't need to.

Before we moved in I thought that not having a balcony and a pool were deal breakers, then when I couldn't get them with my REAL deal breakers (pet friendly, large enough to fit my 11 foot table), they became secondary. Next time the pool and the balcony will remain top priority.

@Superbee, the only way I could have had all my supposed non-negotiables, would have been to move onto the Venetian Causeway, but that ruined my minute-walk to the beach :-)

jick, check out this post featuring the shades by Smith Noble
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/la/window-treatments-from-smithnoble-048057

We own a 100-year old home with loads of potential. Right now it is full of deal breakers, but we're working on elminating them. My least favourite features are the single-paned glass windows. They're gorgeous, but cold in the winter and do almost nothing to eliminate outdoor noise.

We have our washer/dryer in the unfinished basement of our new house. This was only a secondary deal breaker because I was just happy they were there. The house had so many of the top things our our list (kid walks to school, we walk to shops, great floor plan, 2 bathrooms, newer kitchen) that I knew I could deal.

Going up and down death defying steep rickety stairs with a huge basket of laundry is not fun and the concrete floor is not a great place to dump fresh laundry out of the dryer. So I bought an awesome indoor/outdoor rug for in front of the W/D (on clearance at Target for $15 woot!) and got a smaller laundry basket so I wouldn't kill myself on the way down.

The vertical blinds and no storage in the parking space were my secondary deal breakers. But ample storage in bathroom, bedroom and kitchen won me over!

"...and the concrete floor is not a great place to dump fresh laundry out of the dryer."

You dump your freshly laundered clothing on the floor???

We got a great location in a very quiet neighborhood but the compromise is that there are underground springs and our foundation isn't waterproof. And we're at the foot of a steep hill. We've done a lot of work on the yard and the house but we still need to dig a trench and parge the foundation. Ugh. It might have been a dealbreaker when we bought the house but that was near the tail end of a long drought and the water table was low, so no evidence of flooding.

Dealbreakers for me:

1. Old appliances
2. Neighbors with dogs
3. External defects like cracked paint or dead grass
4. Bad floors (beige wall-to-wall carpet or dull hardwood with holes)
5. Ceiling fans or light fixtures older than I am

Dealmakers for me:

1. Gorgeous wood floors
2. Molding!
3. Non-brick fireplaces
4. High ceilings
5. Openness

I have a beautiful rental apartment with lots of space and character, but when I open my blinds I look directly into my neighbors' apartments. I keep my blinds closed a lot.

It's fine now, but is not something I would do again.

Central heat and air. In downtown LA. But the space was HUGE and SUPER CHEAP.

*GASP*, bepsf. Call the Martha police.

yes, in our old house I did put it on the floor because it was a new house and the w/d was in our rec room so we could watch TV and fold at the same time all on comfy new carpet. shocking, I know.

Not anymore because I have to take it upstairs. But the odd shirt or sock does fall out of the basket **DOUBLE GASP** and it's nice for it to not hit basement concrete.

No bathroom on the main floor, creepy child's bathroom (with ugly 1970's wallpaper) as a second bathroom, no grass in the backyard (mud pit when it rains), ugly carpet, moldy refrigerator when we first moved in, tiny galley kitchen.

If you're wondering why the heck we picked this place... price was awesome, garage!, crazy awesome interesting layout, master bedroom is the size of two bedrooms!!, kitchen may be tiny, but has TONS of cabinet space! (we can't fill it up!), built-in bookcase!!!!!!, fireplace.

I don't have a dishwasher, and I have to pay for laundry in the basement. Oh and I live on the fifth floor on a five story walk up. The bathroom is tiny and so is the kitchen. The price was right and the location was amazing. It's actually a decent sized New York apartment.

I've become a tidier person since making peace with handwashing my dishes. I hate the clutter so I find I immediately take care of the dishes and this has translated to taking care of all the little messes.

I get a lot more exercise since I have to climb so many stairs on a daily basis, so I don't feel at all guilty about eating cookies or indulging in other cravings.

The small spaces have translated to a paring down my belongings and becoming a more organized person.

I can definitely deal with all the little irritations of my apartment and I can't see myself moving out any time soon.

pretty kitty
i feel your pain
we live in an 80 year old bungalow
beautiful windows
but do nothing for noise
wind whips in
so it is very cold
our deal breakers are the noise
of the area
we will probably move when the economy turns

shortage of outlets
diseased grout (it ain't like penicillin will cure it; the highly toxic stuff you need will only beat back the inevitable)
bad kitchen cabinets

and personally, i am creeped out by cracks and crevices btw floors and walls, counter tops.

no dead looking neighborhoods. you moved yourself into a slum, you have no one else to blame.

We live in the city with an extra lot, we have just enough space for the kids to ride their Power Wheel Jeeps but they can't go out alone, you just never know who'll be walking up that alley. We seriously considered moving to a little college town nearby within a "safe neighborhood" but realized that we'd quickly miss our central location to our church, homeschool co-ops & favorite restaurants. It is all a trade-off.
Within the house, we deal with the girls sharing a bedroom a dungy basement and washer/dryer in this dungy basement (would love to have our laundry on the top floor)
...all to live in our 1929 charmer.

ditto the neighbors. i live in a loosely based cohousing (more of a condo) community and one of the neighbors is a whack job, avoided by all. my home is lovely in every regard, but uncomfortable relations with one's neighbor is truly a deal breaker.

Oooh, fun, I want to play too! We have three:

1) Awkward floor plan - the front door opens into a narrow hallway (the same width as the door) that dead ends at a wall heater. You have to take a sharp left through the kitchen to get to the living room. Every single person who comes over is disoriented when they walk in.

2) The one bathroom. It has one of those hardware store sink n' cabinet combos from the 1980s that hits mid-thigh and the tiles were hand painted with irises (not by a professional). It is so narrow only one person can be in there at a time. It is truly bad.

3) No storage - no garage, no closets (not a one!). I never have to fear being a pack rat, on the plus side, since it's now impossible.

Living with those three is what brought me here. Because the house is awesome so there has to be a way to fix it...right? (Hah! Let this be a warning - a weird floorplan and no closets are not easy fixes!)

we love our little duplex, big yard, huge bedroom, big patio, lovely view, our own W/D in the garage, among all the other wonderful appliances. the landlord and his family live upstairs and own the house, and at first he seemed like the nicest guy in the world. we have since discovered that he is lazy about repairs, has horrible taste (he tried to remodel his kitchen and it's hideous, 3 diff colors and styles of kitchen cabinets!!) and he and his family are downright intrusive, coming downstairs all the time unannounced. he recently asked us if we would take out a home loan in our name for him, since he was rejected for the re-fi loan. he didn't think that was inappropriate at all. i could live there forever if it wasn't for him....

Mine is my noisy upstairs neighbor. The guy is nice enough and willing to turn down his music (and also turns it on/off at reasonable hours) so I don't mind that much. It's just irksome to have a lovely silent morning spoiled by guitars. For a while, it sounded like he was listening to whale song. I dunno what it was. But the guy prior to him was AWFUL, I thought he was going to stomp right through the ceiling and all my pictures hung crooked. I could also bitch about bad view and a distinct lack of outlets (and until recently no parking) but honestly, I don't even notice them anymore.

The fabulous light, great layout, pet friendliness and good rent totally make up for the upstairs folks, though. Light and having my cats are tied for Numero Uno in my book. Either one would land the place in Heck No! territory.

I just bought my house and I adore most things about it, but it does have several annoyances like these. Overall, I love the design of the house and I am so happy about living in an older historic neighborhood of the city after living in a suburban area for several years.
1. Zero property line on one side of the house & very small lot - not too big of a deal but I don't care for the fact that one of my living room windows is generally looking right into my neighbor's car window!
2. I have an electric stove, which I really don't like - it was originally on my list of must-haves when I was looking for a house, but I decided I could live with it since the house is so great.
3. Lack of outdoor storage - I will fix this one soon, but it's kind of awkward to figure out where to put it with such a small lot.

I expected noise. I bought a tiny house on the main street two blocks from a set of freight train tracks. It's a small village where the train blows its horn at each crossing. We have four crossings.

I don't notice the street or train noise. Instead, I feel the whole house bounce. When these suburban punks cruise past with megabass in the trunk or when those trains tag team at 3:30am, you can feel it in your chest.

The biggest secondary deal breaker for us was our house's location. We don't drive, so we were looking primarily at places really close to the subway station. Then we found our house, which was further away, but had good bus access. The tradeoff got us a place in a beautiful historic neighborhood that is safe to walk around at night and really close to grocery shopping, etc. For the most part, we have gotten used to the additional scheduling required for using the bus.

Since we own our house, our other secondary deal breakers are things we could eventually change - the pink bathroom tile, lack of a soaking tub, and the ancient washer/dryer that shakes the house on spin cycle. We also have old, drafty windows but I have dealt with that by using the shrink wrap window film (works great).

Superbee, I live directly on the other side of the tracks from you and I have similar insane neighbors. They are a little loud and lack design sensibility. I decided that the oodles of outdoor space (2 good-sized patios downstairs and one off the master bedroom) and the mid-century modernish style of the townhome would make up for lack of view and natural light and I am learning to embrace it. The trade off in this area is that we are close to several beaches, really great restaurants, South Beach and Midtown (and this is a really good school zone). I've decided to view the neighbors as comic relief and go out to the local bagel shops for a good laugh on the weekends.

Secondary deal breakers: Wallpaper and nail holes EVERYWHERE! Water that turns brown if we use it too much (this would have been an actual deal breaker if it had shown up on our water inspection). Bright orange paint and oodles of overgrown gardens. But, it has tons of space, a great layout, fabulous location and a view of a nice golf course

When I moved in to my current apartment, I was really excited - great location, close to public transportation, close to my job, but not too close, two bathrooms in our four bedroom, great roommates.

I'd only visited the apartment during the day. I didn't realise that next door was the MBTA (subway)'s dumping ground for all their trains overnight. They move them from midnight til around 3AM, I get about 2 hours of peace and quiet until the train starts back up again at 5AM.

The whole apartment shakes and the SQUEALING. Anybody from Boston will know what I'm talking about.

I live in NYC, so we purchased for the space and layout but pretty much everything needs to be replaced. Already changed the floors and removed a popcorn ceiling. Washer/drier died, dishwasher leaks and toilet runs, so those are next. Fridge is also on it's last leg. But everything will be done in time.

Did I mention that the elevators in my building also need to be replaced and we are paying a big assessment for 12 months? We found out about that about 3 months after we moved in. Ahhh, apartment living at its best. :-)

I wish all the morning light wasn't towards the master bedroom which has the most windows in the house and the living room has the least amount of windows with no natural light b/c the three season porch blocks all of the light.

I live in a loft conversion in what used to be a paper box factory. There are a couple of little things that bug me but aren't chasing me away:
1st floor apartment. There are gorgeous views of Philadelphia from the 3rd and 4th floors. My view is the parking lot, and the view from the parking lot is of me.
Concrete floors. They shatter _anything_ that's dropped on them and cold in winter.
No washer and dryer. I'm just down the hall from the laundry room, but I miss having my own.
It's impossible to heat. I have 14 foot ceilings and my heating registers are about 13 feet up. Very little heat makes it down to where I am.

But I still love the place.

When I was looking to buy, I had a list of "must-haves" like a working fireplace, formal dining room, Edwardian with no weird remodels, good neighborhood, big claw-foot tub, in-house laundry room, top floor (we were looking at the type of 3-unit, full floor flats that abound in San Francisco), and it took us AGES before we found one that really fit.

The flat had so much in its favor (including its price!) that I was more than willing to live with things like a smaller, baaarely eat-in kitchen, tiny back yard, a lack of garage (though that is in exchange for plenty of basement storage), and slightly less square footage.

If I ever trade up, I will have a few more things on my must-have list. But alternatively, if I stay here forever (which I actually can envision), then my secondary complaints are really not that bad in the scheme of things :-)

@ mjr - If I could have afforded to buy on Belle Island, I'd bypass the three-extra block walk to the Beach, by jumping off the seawall into the Bay as a tradeoff. ; ) As it is, I bike to the beach all the time turning a 20-minute walk down Lincoln, to an exciting 5-minute pedestrian dodge session.

@ Cliokitty - You guys have an occasional barking dog in that building (I go to acupuncture there!) that I want to b-b-gun out of its misery. That said, I don't think I'd live here unless I lived on the Beach... I love living here, except when the characters make prolonged noise in my place when I'm dying of a hangover... speaking of, get ready for the Marathon this weekend! People start banging on pots and pans and cheering the runners at 17th and Purdy at like 6:30 a.m...

When we took possession of our current apartment, it hadn't been cleaned or painted and the last tenant smoked. We scrubbed all the surfaces, shampooed the carpet, lit candles, cleaned cigarette butts out of the vents, and painted the downstairs. I still wish I could change all the flooring (peeling linoleum in the bathroom, stained linoleum tiles in the kitchen, worn brown carpet everywhere else) as well as the dark kitchen cabinets and interior doors.

My two biggest criticisms of our home - not enough natural light, and a small yard (we're in a row house). But I've learned to embrace them. Ultra modern designs won't work in my cave of a living room, so I'm going for a deconstructed gothic victorian cozy something or other - embracing the darkness, so to speak. I miss having living plants, but coming to terms with having only a few crowded around the few windows that get enough light. And the small yard is going to be a challenge, especially the lack of privacy, but I'm dreaming up a way to make it more secluded with lots of big plants, vines, etc. It really is about learning to work with what you have, instead of fighting it.

There were definitely a few things that I considered deal-breakers when i started apartment hunting, but I was more than willing to compromise for my love-at-first-sight apartment! For instance, I didn't want to have to deal with a lot of stairs (I have 4th floor walkup baby!) and I love to take baths, but my place has only a shower stall.

BUT it was all worth it for the loads of sunlight I get in every room, the old-school molding around the doors and windows, the huge vintage stove, the spare room for my "Library" and most importantly, the freedom to paint every surface however I like!

My place has character! Yessi!!

Carpet in the bathroom! When we toured our apartment, it wasn't carpeted, but before we moved in, the landlord laid ugly, brown carpet over the tile (WHY?!). It's even worse because that's the only place to keep the litter box, and so we now have to vacuum the bathroom once or twice EVERY day.

Wall to wall carpet. With permanent stains, no less.

McMansion wannabe (traditional exterior, two story, sort of choppy)

Coat closet is not by the front door (and therefore is never used for coats.)

Tiny 80 year old house. Only 1 bathroom when we moved in, so when we renovated, installed a wetroom: shower, toilet, tiny basin, drain in floor, the whole thing is tiled and gets wet, 3ft x 7ft, works great.

We moved from a 10x11' single room filled with the two of us and all our stuff (no, seriously). Granted, it was in a co-op so we had out-of-room shared kitchen, bathroom, and laundry facilities, but that shit got old.
We're now in a gorgeous 1-bedroom with actual closets and OUR OWN KITCHEN (It stays clean when I clean it!). However, everyone we live near is nowhere near considerate and out landlord is an idiot. We were willing to take anything else when we decided to move, but we apparently needed even a few stipulations.