Your Dream Home Need Not Be Perfect

The perfect house is always that ideal scenario that often won't exist, having an open mind to what fits most of the criteria and then being able to change what's not perfect about the house to your own specific preferences is important to understand.

Always a compromise.. EVEN with building a new home... the more they get.. the more they want.. and the list goes on and on.. no matter what the budget is.. Always wanting to add one more thing! Compromise is the name of the game!

I always say its ok to have the "Must Have" list (but have vision); its ok to have "Can't live without" but be real; and I then say then your vision open because what you see in one house - just may not be in the next.  However, the next house may have more of your "I wants" than any other that you will find.  Flexibilty is important.

I don't believe the outdated fixtures were the issue.  I'm sure you would have furnished more updated ones if push came to shove.  They just needed an excuse.  Living with the inlaws?  Committment issues maybe?

Spot on with this one.  Just like people, none of us are perfect and certainly that goes for a house.

Agreed!  And, I think Lenn got it right ... 'must haves' and 'not willing to compromise' makes existing home buying a challenging experience.

Couldn't have said it better! Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, buyers should make it their own.

Thanks for sharing!

Hi Doug,  Our local version of that song includes perfect condition, a steal, and, a direct Gulf front location.  Not happenin', not happenin'  !!!

There's always a compromise unless you're wealthy enough to build you your custom home on your custom lot .. with no financial boundries. Besides that, it's a give and take.

On the other side of the coin, there are buyers who will want something so badly in a home (location, yard, etc.) that they'll jump at the chance, dated plumbing fixtures or not.  Some people use these things as excuses not to buy and continue living with in-laws ;-)

There is no such thing as a perfect home.

Doug - GREAT post!  So glad for the feature - and it goes right along with my post today about the "culling" process of clients! 

Have a great week-end in Central Louisiana!

Great point. It's all about setting priorities. Some things should be deal breakers and others can be compromised on.

Gretchen

Doug, the only real way to get everything you want in a house is to build new construction. Otherwise, there's gonna be some compromise.

There are dreams .. and then there is reality.  Most buyers must find something in between in order to purchase a home.

Doug - It's so true that buying is a game of give and take.  The buyer needs to decide what they can live with and what they can't.

Great post.  I agree there is no "Perfect House" but that doesn't mean buyers should settle on just any house.  Like any process, there are some "Must Have" features and others that might be really important and still others that are nice to have items.  Imagine if you had a list of all the features a buyer wanted and it was prioritized based on importance...wouldn't that make life a little easier?  What if you could get a glimpse inside the mind of the buyer, would that make you a more effective agent?

Well, now you can...Along with a friend, I actually built an app for the iPhone/iPad (Android version just a couple of weeks away from release) called House Hunter: My Agent that helps home buyers figure out which house best meets their invdividual needs.  It helps them keep track of all the homes they are looking at with you, organize all their info and data for each home including pictures and notes and then use a scoring system to see which house meets their needs the best.

We built in a variety of communication tools so buyers could easily share critical information with their agent so the agent gets better insight to buyer requirements as well as how the buyer is viewing/scoring properties.  We added ways for agents to brand the app with all their contact info, picture, etc.  Buyers can easily send emails and instant messages to their agent through the app, they can visit the agents website, search for homes through their website, etc. 

We also have an unbranded version that is sold through iTunes called House Hunter and has been written up by NY Times, Business Insider, Trulia, Tech Saavy Agent, Agent Genius, Inman News and more. 

I used to build custom homes and decided to build my own home.  I had spent a lot of years slowly thinking about what I wanted in my new home.  There were a number of things that the budget would not permit so I made provisions for them, such as having the plumbing roughed in for a wet bar on the patio.  I had the plans drwan from scratch with an architect and just knew that when I was done, it would be just what I wanted.

I finished the home and moved in and before you knew it I had one of those slap your head and think "I could have had a V-8".  The point is that there is no perfect home.  No matter how you get there, buying an older home or having one built, there will always be things that would have made it better.