First-Time Homebuyer Stress And How To Get Over It
You finally did it. You saved enough money through your hard work to stop renting, congratulations! Now you want to start house-hunting. But where do you start? For some first-time buyers, the house-hunting process can leave you stressed and with FOMO (the fear of missing out). I want to reassure you that these feelings are normal and that they can pass with some tips that I picked up from my experience along the way.
In this article where I was featured on Livabl, I talk about three important recommendations that will help you lower your anxiety around the house hunting process.
The first thing I suggest is making a list of the top five things you want when you are looking for your first home. Not only is this important to get a good sense of what you are looking for, but it is also important to realize that with your first home you are likely to only get two or three of these things. This is because, first and foremost, the perfect house doesn’t exist. Even if you build a house from scratch, there will always be things you dream of that might not work well in reality.
Making a list is a great way to plan for your immediate and distant future. You can organize your priorities and learn to more quickly appreciate which viewings are good versus which aren’t.
The second thing I suggest for first-time buyers is how to deal with people who are nosier than what you feel comfortable talking about regarding any bidding wars or searches around your house hunt. To this I say it is really easy to get bogged down by what your friends say, what the papers and internet are saying. Everyone will say something different and yet it will all sound negative. Eliminate the noise and tune it all out. Your journey is about you and you alone. You will never get everyone’s approval, all you can hope to have is your own.
I know what it’s like to be a first-time homebuyer. It’s an emotional roller coaster. Because you’re not just house-hunting, you’re balancing work, perhaps kids, perhaps a big event like a wedding as well. I’ve been a first-time homebuyer too and I know where I would have liked to have received comfort so I try to reflect that in my work with my clients.
On the first offer signing I love to give my first-time buyers a bottle of wine or help them out with a cleaner during their move-in day. These are rewards for the milestones they’ve reached in their lives that will not only encourage them to keep progressing in the transaction, but also to feel more comfortable with each step of the way.
Now, you may be asking, “Steve, you said three points? But I only see two!” That’s because I don’t want to give away the whole article. Please go check it out and tell me what you think of it. If you are a first-time buyer and want to get started but don’t know how, you can reach me right here. You’re not alone, and this can be more fun than you expected!
