Twelve questions about the things you can't change after you move in. About three minutes.
Only things you can't cheaply change after closing — location, size, structure, the utilities nobody photographs. Paint colors don't make the list.
No account · No email required
Geography · 1 of 12 · Optional
Tap the places that matter. Times follow real roads, so the shapes aren't circles.
Size · 2 of 12
Bigger is fine — your budget sets the ceiling. This is the floor.
Character · 3 of 12
No wrong answer — it changes which houses are worth your time.
3 · Some updating is fine
Must-nots · 4 of 12
These become hard filters — houses with them won't be shown to you.
Priorities · 5 of 12
Eight quick choices. This is what turns a wish list into a ranking.
Yours to keep — print it, save it, or hand it to any agent.
Most house searches do not fail on price. They fail on the things nobody photographs — the septic tank, the twenty-five minutes each way, the stairs you did not count — because those are the parts you cannot change after closing. These twelve questions make you rank your own priorities against each other now, at a kitchen table, instead of in a driveway with a listing agent waiting. Nothing you enter leaves this browser.
House searches fail in two directions. Either you never write an offer, because nothing is ever quite right; or you write one fast on a Sunday and spend six years driving further than you meant to. Both come from the same place — a list where everything is a priority, which is the same as nothing being one. These questions cover only what a renovation budget cannot fix: where the house sits, how big it is, how it is built, and the utilities that never appear in a listing photo.
Paint, carpet, light fixtures and somebody else's furniture are noise. Ignore them entirely. What deserves your attention is the septic tank or the well, whether fiber reaches that street, what the flood map says about the lot, how close the nearest rail crossing is, whether the front door sits at the top of a flight of steps, and whether the driveway is shared. Those are the answers you are still living with in year six.
Question 2 asks for the smallest house you would accept, not the size you want. Your budget already sets the ceiling, so a wish adds nothing; a floor filters. It is worth knowing that finished basement space is commonly listed separately from above-grade square footage, so two houses quoting the same total can be very different upstairs — another reason to set a line you can check rather than a number you feel.
Anything ticked in question 4 removes houses from what you are shown. That is exactly right when the answer is genuinely never, and expensive when it means I would rather not. Test each one against the best possible version of the house: if the right home, at the right price, on the right street would still be a no, it is a breaker. If you would grumble and buy it anyway, it is a preference, and preferences belong in the trade-off pairs instead.
The eight paired questions are deliberately uncomfortable. A bigger yard or a shorter commute. Fiber or a lower price. A bigger house or a better location. There is no right answer and this tool has no opinion — what comes out is a ranking of your own stated priorities, in your own words. It ranks what you said you want. It does not rate a neighborhood, a school, or the people who live in one, and it never will.
Separately, without watching each other's screens, then print both and read them side by side. Every argument you are going to have in a driveway is already sitting in that comparison, and a kitchen table is a much cheaper place to have it.
The profile prints, and it is written to be handed to any agent anywhere. Each place you named carries the drive time you set beside it, because downtown and downtown inside fifteen minutes are different briefs — take those into the drive-time map, which draws bands along real roads rather than circles. Take your deal-breakers into the address report, which checks a specific address against the flood zone, fiber availability, the nearest rail crossing and the utility providers.
In this browser tab and nowhere else. No account, nothing written to a server as you answer, no copy of your profile sitting somewhere to be emailed at you later. The trade-off is that closing the tab discards it, so print it or send yourself a copy before you go.
Start with what a renovation cannot change: the flood zone, whether the house is on septic or a well, whether fiber reaches the street, how far the nearest rail crossing is, which utility providers serve the address, and how many steps stand between the car and the front door. Then add what only exists in person — traffic at eight in the morning, what the street looks like after dark, whether the driveway is shared with the house next door. Listing photos are chosen to sell. None of that list is in them.
Test it against the best possible version of the house. If the right home at the right price on the right street would still be a no because it is on a septic tank, that is a deal-breaker and belongs in question 4, where it removes houses from what you are shown. If you would grumble and buy it anyway, it is a preference, and it belongs in the trade-off pairs. Most people have three or four real breakers. Ticking eight usually means ticking yourself out of the market.
Take the twelve questions separately, without looking at each other's answers, then print both profiles and read them side by side. The forced pairs are where the disagreement shows up honestly: one of you traded the yard for the commute and the other did the opposite, and now it is on paper instead of in the car. You do not have to resolve every difference. You do have to know which ones exist before a listing agent is standing in the kitchen waiting for an answer.
Yes, and it is the cheap half of the preparation. This defines what you are looking for; a lender defines what you can spend. Doing it first means the financing conversation starts from a real brief instead of a vague price range, and it takes about three minutes with no account and no credit check. The order that costs people money is the reverse one — shopping first, falling for a house, and only then finding out what the financing actually allows.
Because a floor filters and a wish does not. Your budget already sets the ceiling, and no tool needs to tell you that a bigger house costs more. What a search needs is the line below which you would say no, so everything above it stays in play. Answering with the size you daydream about quietly hides good houses sitting just underneath it — and since finished basement space is commonly listed separately from above-grade square footage, the number on a listing is not always comparing what you think it is comparing.
No. The first question is marked optional, every screen has a way past it, and the printed profile only includes sections you actually answered — an unanswered question is left off rather than filled with an assumption. Watch the move-in-ready slider in particular: it starts in the middle, and it only counts as an answer once you move it. If you are unsure about something, skip it. A blank is honest. A default nobody chose looks like a decision you made.
Into this browser tab and nowhere else. There is no account to create, nothing is sent to a server as you answer, and no copy of your profile is stored anywhere to be sold or mailed at you later. The trade-off is that closing the tab discards it, so print the profile or email yourself a copy at the end if you want to keep it. That email is the only step that sends anything anywhere, and it only happens if you press it.
That is what it is for. The printed profile is a plain-language brief — the places you want to be near and how long a drive you will accept to each, your minimum size, your appetite for work, your hard exclusions, and your ranked trade-offs. Hand it to any agent, in any brokerage, in any city. Using the tools on this site creates no representation relationship and no obligation; representation begins only under a written agreement you sign, and nothing on this page is that.