House Hunting - why it bugs me

(For Jan, mostly, thanks for asking.)

House hunting lately bugs me for a couple of reasons.

A: General discouragement with the whole idea. In the five years or so that we've been looking, it seems like everyone we know has already moved. Some of them have moved more than once. Here's a list:

• My sister - moved from Detroit, to a rental in Indiana, to a house in IN, to Atlanta GA
• My much-younger brother - first year on the job, found a great farm just a few miles from our parents

DH's siblings (all older than DH, except #5):

• #1 - separated from wife, moved out, moved back in, divorced, rented a house, and now has a manufactured home sitting on a patch of ground
• #2 - moved once
• #3 - built Home #1, sold it, moved into #2, sold it, moved to rental, built #3, moved in
• #4 - bought a farm, moved into old farmhouse
• #5 - sold house, moved in with parents for a few months, put a manufactured home on 3 acres that the parents gave them from their land

DH has helped with all these moves, plus helped build and paint the two homes that #3 built. But, now they all owe us. And at least 4 of the 5 have trucks, so when we do move, we won't have to pay anyone. (evil laugh) My dad and brother also have trucks, and Dad has volunteered both stock trailers when we move.

DH has two close friends from high school here in town. One has moved once, the other has moved twice. I swear, other than our parents, we're the only people I know who haven't moved in the past 7 years.

Oh, and #4, above? Asked at Christmas what was taking us so long to find a place. I was very restrained, and did not ask him what was taking him so long to find a wife. I was very tempted, but I bit my tongue. Someone also told us at some point, "If it takes longer than 3 months to find a house, you're doing it wrong." I swear, if I could remember who it was, I'd make sure they were first on the list when we move the heavy stuff.

B: Realtors. We talked to two realtors, one of which took us to see a lot of places, and had found a home for one of DH's co-workers. The first realtor didn't last long. We spoke to him in the office one day, and that was about it. He called at least twice wanting to come look at the condo so he could list it, but never put any effort into finding us a place to buy. Sorry, no dice. I'm not listing this place unless we have at least an idea on where to move to.

The second one was better, she drove us to a lot of places and got MLS listings and all. But 90% of the time, we found the listing in the paper or the Real Estate book and called her about it, not the other way around. I was under the impression that if you told them what you were looking for, they would put in a little effort to help find it. Maybe she just knew we didn't have a deadline and weren't going to be moving by the end of the week. I don't know.