REAL ESTATE TIPS: Don’t feel pressure to find ‘perfect’ home

Home. The word conjures up different things for different people. While many people have fond memories of home, unfortunately others do not. But it isn’t the physical structure itself that may bring on bad or good memories, but rather what happened IN the home that makes a difference.

Here is an extreme example. Most people don’t tour a home, walk down into a basement, see standing water on the basement floor and black mold growing on the walls and think “THIS is the house for me!” But that is exactly what the basement was like in the house I grew up in. And I loved it!

I remember hours and hours of entertainment throughout my grade school years riding bikes in the basement splashing through the puddles. And for additional fun if we felt like we were in the cleaning mood, we could pick off the fuzzy mold and see how many days it took to show up again. Not the ideal basement situation as far as the physical structure but pure joy and entertainment in the memories.

Sometimes we are so worried about the type of home (bedrooms, baths, open floor plans) or the style of home (does it have shiplap on the walls and granite counters?) that we forget to remember that what actually happens inside the home is way more important.

We put pressure on ourselves, our spouse and our budget to find the perfect house yet there is really no such thing as a perfect house. And as time passes, you realize that what you thought was something that you would love about your house may not be as important as you thought.

For example, when we bought our home, it had a breakfast bar. I didn’t really think much about it either way. I wasn’t looking for a breakfast bar – it just came with the house. But I love it and we use it all of the time. In fact, right now, I am sitting at our breakfast bar writing this.

My point is this. Sometimes when we, myself included, are looking at a house, we are looking for the perfect home to entertain in for the company we have once a month. We forget that most days are mundane, not in a bad way but a routine way. Like when I make muffins for breakfast and I know that my younger two boys always grab the muffins that are the biggest, or cuddling with my son on the couch watching YouTube videos when the older boys and dad are watching a movie that he isn’t quite old enough to see. Or turning on the lights in the boys’ bedrooms each morning threatening to wake them up to ’80s country music if they don’t get up quickly. We get so caught up in the details of what our perfect physical home looks like that we forget that the muffin memories, cuddling, and country music memories are the ones that will last.

The reality is that whatever you buy is going to have good and bad points. So if you are feeling pressure to find the perfect house, I am giving you permission to re-lax. Things you thought you wanted may not matter as you grow into the house and things you never thought you would be looking for might become your favorite features, like my breakfast bar.

There is enough pressure in the world to be a certain way, whatever that might look like. The absolute last place that you need to feel pressure is when trying to find the perfect home. Because the perfect home doesn’t exist.

So when you are looking for a house, feel pressure-free. Just look for a place that meets your basic needs as far as location, size and budget. Then just move in and enjoy. Enjoy the exciting times and the mundane times. Because big or small, outdated or not, there will never be a perfect home, but it will be yours.

Esta Ryder, Realtor
President’s Club
Ryder Realty, LLC
estaryder@gmail.com
330-317-6912