There's also a certain amount of economic/class conflict in this because the reality is that most people buying a house at the bottom of the market are fighting to get good wiring and roofs that don't leak and an absence of asbestos and radon and... If you find something that's not going to fall down around you or cost you tens of thousands two years down the road, you end up compromising on a lot of things you want but can currently survive without.

Apart from structural soundness, the two things we wouldn't compromise on were no more than four blocks to a bus stop and having a bedroom large enough to hold our king sized bed (my husband's 6'2" and can't fit on a queen or double without his feet hanging off) with enough space to walk on three sides of it. That took us a full year of constant searching. The first two realtors we worked with thought we were too picky.