I met Julia as she was taking her first steps toward buying a house and deciding whether to go ahead with the purchase or completely surrender to fear. “What if the Market Falls? What if I lose money on this deal? What if…”
Her helpful friend encouraged her thusly: “I bought at the top of the market in 2007 and you know what happened? Well, the market plunged, and my house suddenly wasn’t worth what I paid for it. It was a DISASTER!”
And so, I asked the friend if she sold her house that year – the year of the market crash. “Well, no. I sold it a few years ago.”
“Oh! And did you lose money on it?”
“Well, no. I think we got more than double what we paid for it.”
So much for the Disaster.
Personal question for You: How long have you been tolerating a house or a rental that doesn’t fit your needs? How many years have you been…
- Dragging yourself up the stairs while your knees complain – loudly?
- Shoe-horning your 4-person family into a 2-person house?
- Living Way too far away from work?
- Living Way too close to…other people?
- Renting an expensive storage unit for your work equipment because you Still don’t have a property big enough for a shop?
You say you’ll move “if the right thing comes along” or If you just had “time to see what’s out there” but you’re too busy working to house-hunt. Or, maybe you’ll pull the trigger “when prices come down,” which last happened 16 years ago. Maybe when the election is over (said in 2020 and before that, in 2016).
Interest rates since 2022 have been a major reason people delay their moves but, truth be told, many have been procrastinating since mortgages were at 3 percent. And, you know, interest rates will go up and down many times during your life – they always have and always will. You know you can refinance when the rates come down.
But each day, you settle for squeezing past each other in a too-narrow hallway, pray for gas prices to finally go down – and stay down, endure your neighbor’s weekly drum circle, ice your poor knees regularly and hold your breath until the Perfect time to make your move.
Let me rip off the Band-Aid here: There will never be a Perfect time to move. Some variable will always be complicating the picture and making the timing Less than Ideal. And all of the figuring and re-figuring and worrying about whether it’s a mistake will result in the sort of analysis paralysis that ensures you’ll drag on even longer in a situation that’s, well, Less than Ideal.
But a real estate mistake – that’s an expensive thing to mess up, right? If you buy the wrong thing at the wrong time, isn’t that a Major disaster?
Some are worried they will buy the Wrong house–What if that house that’s fantastic now becomes “Too much house” for them as they get older? Will that be a mistake?
And so, the stakes are high – they MUST get it right. The Perfect house at the Perfect time.
Of course, there are no Perfect houses, but there are houses – and properties – that suit the way you live now, that restore sanity and maybe even save what’s left of your knees.
Unless you’re 101 years old (and you might be), chances are, this house is not your last house. Everyone treats each house purchase as if it were the destination of a lifetime, but then a job transfer, a grandchild born Elsewhere, or a wonderful opportunity presents itself and the next house is suddenly right around the corner.
Instead of forcing yourself to think of forever, think 5 years.
I guarantee you, the first week in your new place, you’ll finally exhale.
