(5-min read)
A friend of ours related a story from his childhood:
“When I was about five or six years old, I remember coming home from school to find my mother in tears. While I wondered what the matter was, I didn’t even know how to ask. A few hours later, when my father came home, I asked him why Mom was so sad.’
‘We put in a bid for a house your mother loved and were outbid by someone else.’
I remembered that my mother was truly in love with the house in question. She remarked how ideal the house was for our family and how much she liked the neighborhood. I even recalled going with her for a walk as she met the neighbors. In her mind, this was becoming home. Around the time the details were coming together, her joys were dashed by being outbid. She had started to build our family’s life in this home in her mind and with a single telephone call, that future was taken away.”
Such is a common story of letting your emotions mingle with your home buying experience. Let’s take a look at several other ways to keep what should be a transaction from becoming an emotional rollercoaster.
1. Don’t place wants over needs.
Even though this is good advice for any transaction, prioritizing an excellent option over a requirement is a recipe for confusion. If your family absolutely needs two full bathrooms, but you’d like a pool, know which option you’re willing to budge on and on which you will remain firm. Electing for a nice feature over what was once a required element is a guaranteed recipe for buyer’s remorse.
2. The only thing you should be absolutely married to is your budget.
We’ve all seen the cable television shows where a person or couple are having to decide between several houses. At times, you may find yourselves rooting for them to go ten, twenty, or even thirty thousand dollars over their budget for that exclusive neighborhood, the back deck, or the pool. We need to remember that life is not a TV show and that an extra twenty or thirty thousand dollars isn’t going to magically materialize out of thin air. It will likely put a strain on them as it would on you. Letting your mind rationalize going over budget is not only not recommended, but may even put your family in financial jeopardy down the road. A good rule of thumb is to not even look at houses that are out of your price range. There’s really no reason to.
3. Don’t choose realtors based on likeability.
We often forget that realtors are salespeople. Of course, they’re going to be nice and bend over backward for you. Still, like salespeople, some truly talented realtors know their stuff, and there are underhanded or just inexperienced folks with realtors’ licenses. When deciding on a realtor, don’t just pick the first one who rubs you the right way. Interview several as though you were hiring them to work for you…because you are.
4. Respect and understand the seller’s emotional state.
There is an idea that we overvalue things we own just because they belong to us. This is true of tons of random junk in our garages, but it is also true of our homes. This emotion may cause a seller to overprice their home. When you approach them with an offer lower than their possibly-inflated asking price, be ready to justify your bid in a respectful manner. Keep in mind that this place has been their home. Their family has formed priceless memories here. Be mindful of this, but also realize that the value of these memories are non-transferrable into the value of the house.
5. Don’t get emotionally attached to a home until you’ve moved in.
As we read in the story above, getting emotionally attached to a home can be a recipe for heartache. When house shopping, do your best to channel your inner Spock. Look at everything with logical and critical eyes. Take note of what will work for you, what would need to be changed and how much that would cost. If you allow yourself to emotionally put down roots in a home you do not yet own, it will be excruciating when you have to rip those roots out.
Remember our friend from the beginning of the article? Well, this story has a happy ending. The family found their dream home in a fixer-upper elsewhere that they were able to transform into a home that saw all of the children into adulthood. This goes to show that there’s no need to get wrapped up in a specific location. There’s always another house waiting for you.
Did you know that there’s a way to skip the nail-biting home shopping process? The custom home building professionals from Perry Hood Properties can help you customize your dream home from the ground up.