Are we afraid of taking the leap and being too picky?

Husband and I have been house hunting for almost a year now. I can’t believe it’s already the fall and we still haven’t found a house. We are in a hot market (NJ) and it has been draining. Houses are out of our budget, ones that are “affordable” fly off the market and cause bidding wars, and some are just straight wrecks that are overpriced.

We own our condo so we are not in a huge rush to move. But we do need more space and eventually want to start our family. So far we’ve only put in two offers on houses that checked off some of our boxes.

The first one we lost to a higher bid in the end. I still think about this house as the one that got away. At that time we bid our max offer. Months later we adjusted our budget higher and lost another bid. This seller came back to us twice and in the end it didn’t feel like our house so we didn’t give it our best offer and lost it.

Are we being too picky and self sabotaging ourselves? It’s now the fall market and things seem slower. Part of me is regretting not just giving the last house our all to get it. This is mostly just a rant to get this off our chest. Any similar stories that turned out successful?