Almost every day I drive past my most favorite house ever- that is, as far as the exterior goes. It is simply an extremely charming older type farmhouse but clearly in excellent condition.
It was listed FSBO a couple of weeks back and it was all I could do to resist calling and asking to see the interior.
I'm glad I curbed myself but if they have an open house I will be there with bells on :)

DH and I fell in love with a large Tudor in the northshore Chicago suburbs 40 years ago. We drooled over it every time we drove past it enroute to the obgyn as we were preparing for our baby and then later when we went house hunting. It was large and old with gorgeous wood working and leaded glass windows. The property had been large decades earlier, but clearly the land had been sold off and smaller houses built in the immediate area.

Flash forward a few years. We see it is for sale. DH says we can afford it, so we went to see it with buyers' eyes for the first time.

The kitchen was very large and old, built when the help cooked, and not the lady of the house. The cupboards soared 8 feet above the soap stone counters. The houses surrounding it in the immediate neighborhood were no where close to the value of this one house, which is not good for future property values. We loved it nevertheless. But it would require modernizing, which we were not wanting to take on. In the end, we decided it was a bad investment and passed on it.

This was an interesting lesson for us. We loved that house and envied the owners.Only when we had the opportunity to buy it, did we see all the reasons that we should not.