3 Ways You'll Know You've Found "The One"

Buying a house is the largest purchase most people will ever make so it is usually accompanied with some level of stress.

Reducing that stress is possible through approaching your home purchase in an organized and structured way.  What makes the market especially tough on buyers right now is the fact that it’s a sellers’ market. Houses (especially the good ones) do not stay on the market very long and often your decision to buy or not buy a property must be made pretty quickly…many times in a day or two, sometimes even hours. The average trip to the mall is 1.5 hours and average money spent during that trip is about $105. So, if it takes you 90 minutes to figure out how you want to spend $105 dollars, no wonder it’s so difficult to make a decision in a day or two on a 5, 6, or 7 figure purchase!

​Over the past 10 years of working with buyers (and sellers), I’ve found the following to be true: 3 tips on how you’ll know you’ve found the one:

1. We buy 8’s. On a scale of 1-10 (10 being highest), is the house at least an 8? If so, it’s a contender. Even people searching for million plus dollar homes will tell you, they cannot find exactly what they want – there’s always a compromise. I recommend going in with a plan. Before you start touring houses, let’s sit down and make a list of your ‘must haves,’ ‘would like to haves,’ and ‘would like but can live withouts.’ Then check your list against the houses currently on the market and recent sales (last 6 months) in your price point to make sure your list is reasonable given the price point. Reviewing the houses and creating the list will help you in two ways: 1) it will help you weigh factual info more over emotions and 2) because you did your homework upfront, you can more easily assess whether a house is a good deal or not.
2. It’s not always love at first sight. Sometimes you have to look beneath the surface. A good Realtor or Stager knows how to make you fall in love with a home. It’s all in the décor: what you see, smell, and hear when you are in the home. Some sellers do not have the ability to present their home in that way. It doesn’t make it a bad house; but without the right décor and staging, you are probably not going to fall in love when you walk in. But, if you look at a little deeper and focus on the truly important things such as: where its located, future resale, the floorplan and flow of the house, and the condition of the key systems (roof, HVAC, plumbing, and structure), you may find that the house actually has potential and all that is missing is you with your style and spin on it!
3. It fits your budget. Embrace where you are to get where you want to be. We all start somewhere. On average, owners stay in their houses about 7 years. Although I know you want it, you don’t have to get your dream house today. Get the best you can for your budget, which will set you up for the house you want in the future. I recently handed a seller client a check for $120,000 for profit he made on the sale of his first home. It was a smaller home and not in the neighborhood he desired, but he wanted to start somewhere and at the time he purchased it, it was the best option given his budget and circumstances. Now, armed with that $120,000 in profit, he is knocking out his student loan debt and purchasing the home he dreamed he would have all along. Had he decided 6 years ago that he’d rather wait than settle for something he wasn’t in love with, he likely wouldn’t have been able to afford his dream home today.

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Taurean Peaks
Taurean is the Team Leader at Taurean Peaks Real Estate Group of Fathom Realty
You can find Taurean on Facebook at www.facebook.com/therealtorean/ or email him at [email protected]