In honor of Valentines Day- a day that has been a celebration of love and affection for over 1,500 years- a question comes to mind considering where love comes into play when purchasing a new home.
Is it ever wise to simply follow your heart and fall in love with a home before you’re 100% sure you can have that home? Or should you force yourself to maintain a business-like analytical mindset throughout the entire process to avoid getting attached to a vision you may not be able to actualize?
From my experience as a Realtor and professional home marketer/stager I see it as a little of both and a little like modern dating. Once you begin house hunting you set your basic parameters, your upper price range, minimum bedroom requirements etc. similar to setting your geographic preference, age ranges of potential partners. And then right away the pictures start popping-up and swiping, liking and ❤️-ing commences.
Obviously it is not a good idea to look at what you cannot afford, similarly it’s bad idea to set your dating expectations too far outside of your “league”. What you want to do is have the basic construct of what meets your needs—is it a third bedroom, or a partner who is financially solvent? And then once you have your basic must-haves set, I think it’s OK to allow or even court a little love coming into play.
Sometimes when you first meet someone you feel an inexplicable connection to them, almost like a soul recognition, it’s not very common, but once or maybe thrice in a lifetime you may have this experience and it is stirring to say the least. One of the best parts of life in my opinion. I also believe this can happen in real estate.
I have a client who shared with me this very sentiment. She says “I have bought and sold homes for over thirty years and I have always looked at properties as purely financial investments, never once—until this past October did I allow myself to utterly fall in love with a home, I finally found the one home I would have purchased sight unseen.”
Did this falling in love affect her negotiating process—uhh why yes it did. There is a very real sensation of having some blinders on—just like in early days dating—when it comes to attachment in the purchasing process of a new home. She offered full price— believing the listing agent’s spiel about “other offers” in a rather cooling market, she also waived some inspections and made some other concessions. But, she says she would do it all over again in a heartbeat- no regrets.
Which I love to hear because as her Realtor in that case I had to advise her that if this was truly the house—yes, make that full-price offer, make a few concessions. If the end result is “I HAVE to have this” then sometimes you need to pull out the stops. Anything for love kind of thing. Except…
A word of caution, it’s obviously important to keep a neutral mindset in an over-heated sellers market where emotions could at best be counter-productive and distressing and at worst be a source of dashed hopes, bad long-term financial decisions and…yep, heartache.
In any case though I think this bleed over of emotion onto what in everyone’s right mind should be a purely logical financial process is what I love the most about working in real estate. There’s just really no way around it, a little love typically does come into play. This is the part of my “job” or role that I know that I am best at—I am an enthusiastic matchmaker. I am happiest when I succeed in helping my clients get what they want and I thrill at being a part of their newfound JOY. Nothing better than handing the keys over on closing day. ❤️
I truly believe that being in the mindset of selling people homes, not just houses justifiably aligns the heart and the head, and when that perfect balance is achieved it is magic.
So on this Valentines Day if you are still looking for “the one” you know who to call.
