Why is looking at homes before you’ve thought about what you want to buy dangerous? In this post I talk about the pitfalls of home shopping prior to taking the big picture into consideration.

It starts innocently enough... you pass a house in a neighborhood you like, you hear someone is selling their home, you happen to look up home prices online. Before you know it, you’re knee-deep in home shopping and open house visits. This can actually be exceedingly dangerous to your financial future.

Falling in love with a home before you actually know what you want in a home is risky. To avoid the “buy first, think later” syndrome that burdens family finances, marriages, and work life, ask yourself these important questions:

1. How much do we want to spend each month on home expenses? There’s a tendency for people who shop first to try and “make the math work” on purchasing a home. Often this leads to stretching the home budget and ignoring crucial expenses such as maintenance and property taxes in order to “make the mortgage.” Determine a comfortable, conservative range for home expenses first.

2. Which neighborhoods make sense from multiple angles? You may love a neighborhood for its leafy streets and family-friendly atmosphere, but what if it adds thirty minutes to your commute? Are the schools good? What are the crime stats like? What’s the walkability score? Don’t view a neighborhood with rose-colored glasses based on a single quality you like.

3. What’s a priority and what’s a nice extra? You may think you want extra bedrooms for guests and a home office, but which one is more important? Rank the must haves against the “nice to haves.”

4. What’s our long-term ownership picture look like? Are you settling in for ten years, or do you suspect you’ll need to move in four? While you can’t predict the future, you can make some estimates. Those estimates will help you understand how much home you should buy, what kind of down-payment you’ll want to have, and what the picture might look like in terms of renovations.

5. When can you move vs. when would you like to move? Rental leases, selling your current home, and job and schooling factors all impact the timeline for a purchase. Wrap your head around the pragmatic timeline as best you can.

I’m more than happy to help you think these through. Contact me for help today at 630-815-8098 or email me at marksotir@realtyexecutives.com.

I’m here to save you pain, buyers. There are myths about the home shopping experience that must be addressed. I like to make the home buying experience as stress-free as possible, so please hear me out on these three big mythsabout home buying:

Myth #1: “That house has been on the market so long I bet we can work the seller down easily.”

Not necessarily. Exceptionally high days on market could mean almost anything. The seller could be bullheaded about their price. The seller may not be particularly motivated to sell for emotional or other personal reasons. Don’t forget: A sales-weary seller isn’t likely to respond to your host of rational reasons why their house should be a bargain.

Myth #2: “I want to look at foreclosed homes because they’re a real bargain and the banks need to unload them.”

Banks, like entrenched sellers, don’t always make decisions which seem rational based on obvious information. You can have a hard time divining the reason a bank chooses to reject an offer for a foreclosed or distressed property, and their decision may be based on financials which seem counterintuitive. The truth is, many distressed sales can be longer and more fraught than regular sales.

Myth #3: “I liked this house a lot, but with this market, I bet it will still be there if I decide to buy it.”

It’s very, very painful to see a client love a home but fail to make a move to purchase that home. If you fell in love with it, why wouldn’t someone else? Just because a property has been on the market a little while doesn’t mean it will stay on the market. The bonus myth in this one? Your “perfect” home is probably going to be a home with some small compromises. If you don’t make an offer on a home, you’re effectively saying, “I’m comfortable losing this home.”

My job as an agent is to represent your interests and do my best to protect you along the way. If you’re pursuing a home purchase in the near future, please get in touch. There are many other ways I can lower your stress and help you find a great home. Contact me today at 630-815-8098 or email me at marksotir@realtyexecutives.com with any real estate related questions.

Home renovation projects are a great way to fall in love again with a home you own, or make upgrades buyers will pay top dollar for when the time comes to sell. Redoing a kitchen or bathroom can make a huge difference in how much you enjoy a space. But how do you know what you really want? Are you aware of how much is out there in terms of modern home design?

Searching for inspiration online is a good place to start. While you can haphazardly click from blog to blog, there are some easy-to-use tools to help introduce you to design options and help you organize your project.

First and foremost, if you’re not on pinterest.com, go sign up for a free account. (You can even use your Facebook login to create an account in under a minute.) Pinterest isn’t specifically about home design, but it is the best online scrapbook out there. With Pinterest, you can “pin” images you like and organize them into collections. This is especially handy if you want to separate bathroom elements, living room designs, or even individual elements such as “lighting” or “color schemes.” You can also search on Pinterest and browse other users’ public collections.

Another spectacular resource focused on home design is houzz.com. House bills itself as “a platform for home remodeling and design, bringing homeowners and home professionals together in a uniquely visual community.” Houzz, much like Pinterest, allows you to create idea books which you can then share and collaborate on with others. With each photo you save you can make notes, highlighting what you like or don’t like about a particular image. Houzz also goes beyond design inspiration to connect you with professionals who can actually help turn your dream project into a reality. As you’re meeting with architects of design/build firms, having a Houzz account can be very helpful for guiding in-person conversations about your tastes and preferences.

When you’re in the dreaming phase of a project, it can be fun to allow yourself free reign to select anything and everything your might want in a renovation project. Projects, however, do come down to compromises. Sometimes the compromises are related to building conditions and existing systems, while other times the restrictions are simply budgetary. Keep this in mind as you “go wild” creating inspiration books online. Don’t forget this as you go along… it’ll make the project easier and more satisfying along the way.

Of course you might also decide that renovation isn’t the right move. Sometimes moving is the right move. If you ultimately decide to relocate, I’d be happy to help you find a home which has exactly what you’re looking for (or can be upgraded to meet your needs.) Get in touch!