WHAT DO YOU REALLY NEED FROM YOUR NEXT HOME?
So you know who is going to lend you money, you know how much money to spend, we are making good progress. Here comes the fun part, let’s decide what to spend your money on. Many of our clients realize that they don’t have a good idea of what they want until we sit down and talk specifics. Understandably, having a housemate/s will also complicate this process exponentially. You are picturing a trendy uptown loft and they want an acre or two with a ranch home on the outskirts of town. It is shocking sometimes to see how far apart some of our clients can be during this process. But don’t stress, that is why we are here.
There are many factors to look at when figuring out where to lay roots down. Obviously people are concerned about getting the most home for their money, but we need to dive deeper and really understand everything involved in this decision making process. You will find a corresponding exercise below. If you are buying solo, you will want to print it out and use it to gather your thoughts when it comes to what you are looking for.
For house hunters where more than one opinion is involved, you will want to print three copies of this document and from this point on, you and your housemate are not to communicate until you have each filled one out. Gathering your thoughts independently is an important part of this process. You may each have different wants, needs and goals. We are going to use this resource to help bridge the gap. You are to list your goals without taking your housemate’s opinions into consideration. How many bedrooms are you looking for? Bathrooms? What school district? What type of home? What amenities are important to you?… You get the idea. Finally, you will take all of the things that are important to you and rank them in order of importance.
Next you will present your document to your housemate so that together you can compare and contrast priorities, remember compromise is important. Your rankings will be key to consider here. Somethings may not be as high of a priority to you as they are to them, so there is room to negotiate. As you will soon learn, there is not one perfect house, unless it is one that you build together. After compromising and figuring out what is most important to you both, you will fill out the third copy together based on your final decisions. One very important thing to keep in mind is that as a buyer you are subject to the inventory that is currently available within the housing market. This can be a frustrating process, but we want to get as close as possible to meeting your needs, if we meet 70% or 80% of the criteria on your list, we are on the right track.