Home Buying: Play Twenty Questions with Yourself

While finding a real estate agent goes a long way in achieving your home ownership aspirations, the most valuable resource in your arsenal may actually be your own internal monologue. By routinely and critically reviewing, disseminating and organizing new information within your thoughts, you can stay on top of the informational barrage coming at you and arise better prepared and empowered.

Getting to Know Yourself

It helps to approach this practice as though you are being reintroduced to yourself, as though you are on a first date with… you. Rather than trying to envision how you could alter your life to fit a certain space, try to envision the way your life looks right now and find a space conducive to that lifestyle. Ask yourself where you work, if you travel, whether or not you exercise and if so, how. Are you a handy-man? Would you like to own a yard, either private or non-fenced? Are you leaving enough room in your budget for those “one-day” aspirations? For example, don’t pick a home without sidewalks if you’re an avid runner, or get under a mortgage that has you so over-stretched that you can only furnish your gorgeous home with tattered consignment couches. Set priorities, criteria and goals as you go until you end up with a specific, refined purpose. Once you have done this, locating the right property will be a matter of strategy, patience and good fortune.