Finding the Perfect House

Searching for a home for yourself and your family can be an exciting proposition. Buying a residential home is more than a cold hard financial calculation, emotions are involved. This is perfectly understandable. You’re not just buying an asset; you’re buying a home which will be central to your life and the lives of your love ones. Consequently, buying a home is a serious undertaking. However, from time to time buyers, particularly first-time buyers, lose perspective and find it difficult to find a home because they set the bar so high that no home seems to meet their needs. This is a disease known as perfecta-litis. Fortunately, there is a cure.

Why can looking for a “perfect” house be harmful and is it actually possible to find one? Let me answer the second part of the question first. The definition of a perfect home is subjective and personal. So, finding a perfect home is certainly possible depending on what you’re looking for and as long as your ideal home is in line with your budget. However, if you set too high a standard you begin to overlook opportunities. Perfecta-litis blinds you and causes you to skip great homes at great prices because they don’t meet an overly lofty standard.

The first step to curing perfecta-litis is distinguishing between wants and needs. If you’re not able to tell the difference between a “want” and a “need” you are going to have a difficult time evaluating the suitability of a home for yourself and your family. Once you have a handle on your minimum requirements make sure they are in line with your budget. As you visit homes in your price range you will get an education on how much house your money can buy. Be realistic. If you can’t get everything you want within your purchase budget be prepared to make some tradeoffs in either home features or location.

Another important ingredient to the perfecta-litis cure is understanding characteristics of a home that are changeable versus characteristics that are not changeable. Carpets, color, wall paper are all examples of aspects of a home that are very changeable. Yes, it does cost money to change these things. But, if you find a home that is suitable in every other respect consider it carefully before scratching it off your list, especially if you have been having difficulty finding a home, or the home can be purchased at an attractive price.

Life is not always predictable. Some buyers assume that they will live in their home for the next thirty years. In and of itself, there’s nothing wrong with this expectation. However, statistically people move out of their homes much more often, about every 5 to 7 years. Things happen, families grow, incomes rise, and people relocate for personal or business reasons. We live in a mobile society. Consequently, a more practical outlook may be to assume that you’re not going to live in your next home forever. With this outlook homes that may be rejected because the toddler’s room isn’t big enough for their teenage years suddenly seems viable.

How long it takes to find a home is a function of your needs, your budget and market conditions. Some clients have very esoteric needs, such as a home that must have an eastern or southern view due to personal beliefs or preferences. It may take a while to find a suitable home when the feature sets being sought by a buyer are difficult to come by. Other clients have much more conventional needs that are easier to locate. But the point of this article isn’t to suggest that a buyer should be able to find a home quickly. The real point is that finding a home requires a buyer to have a clear and realistic understanding of their needs coupled with a positive attitude that tries to look for how a home can meet those needs, rather than a negative outlook that seeks to reject a home. Adjusting your outlook will enable you to suddenly see many more opportunities that perfecta-litis blinds you to. The end result will be a happier house hunting experience and enjoying the long lasting rewards of home ownership.

Ed Chaparro is a licensed New Jersey real estate agent with Prudential New Jersey Properties servicing Middlesex, Union and Somerset Counties.

Ed Chaparro has over twenty years of experience working with technology and putting it to use to help people and businesses. Ed Chaparro mixes traditional real estate marketing (MLS, signs, direct mail) with a very aggressive Internet marketing plan that maximizes the number of buyers reached.

For buyers, Ed Chaparro provides methods and communications that enable them to view their options in manner that is efficient, informative and free of any hard-sell tactics. This approach has garnered Ed Chaparro a great deal of buyer loyalty.

For more details and information please visit http://www.EdChaparro.com

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