According to a 2017 survey by Trulia, forty-four percent of homeowners have some regrets about their current residence or the process they went through when choosing a home.
While many homeowners have regrets, it's hard to pinpoint where exactly they went wrong during the buying process. In general people are unhappy about the size of their home, location, or travel time to their job or activities.
The one thing every realtor can tell you is that there are many variables that go into the decision-making of buying a home. It's hard to specifically say, you should've done A or you should've done B. To make things worse, home buying is a very emotional process. More often than not, a buyer’s decision to purchase a home is often based on emotion, not logic. You may disagree with this. But I will tell you if you want to test this idea, take new buyer who has no interest in new construction to a builder’s model and see what happens. Eight out of ten they will want that new home.
Why does this happen. Simply, emotions take over logic. When people fall in love it is hard to reason with them. The best thing we do is to steer them to the reasons they gave us when the search started. To help my buyers not forget about how far their office is or where their kids go to school I simply suggest 3 questions that your choice of home answers.
Here are the 3 questions you can ask before you decide if this is the right home.
1. Why are you buying this house? May be you need more space or you want a certain school district for your kids or you need to be near your job. Make sure the house satisfies your most important whys?
2. Where should your home be located? Should it be 20 mins from your job or within this school district, or this neighborhood? Make sure the house satisfies your most important where?
3. What is your life style like? You will be not able to accommodate all your likes but consider 1-2 activities that are very important you and your family. Do you like to drive a lot or would you rather be close to public transportation. How far are your kid’s activities from the new house? If you eat out all the time then consider how far restaurants are from your home. Do not choose that beautiful country home with a lovely backyard because you will be spending a lot of time driving back and forth to get dinner. Whatever activity takes up most of your time during the week day- should be on this checklist.
Can we get rid of buyer’s remorse completely? Probably not but you can avoid some costly mistakes.
