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GET STARTED

Ready to look for a home? Start by drawing up your wish list and your reality check. Next, consider the pros and cons of the type of home you’re interested in, such as: Single-family, condo, townhouse or multi-family. Then explore the issues of new construction vs. previously owned. Once you’ve addressed those issues, you’re ready to begin your search in earnest.

The Wish List

Would you drive across the United States without a roadmap? Even if geography was your favorite subject in school, you might not know which roads cut the most direct route between New York City and San Diego. So you'd start off heading west, hoping you wouldn't get sidetracked and end up in Canada or Mexico.

Buying a home without constructing a wish list and a reality check is like driving cross-country without a roadmap. Wish lists and reality checks tell you a lot about the kind of homebuyer you are and the things that are really important to you and your family. They help you plan your purchase, learn the value of compromise, and trade off what's not important for amenities you can't live without.

Getting Started – Wish List

Let's start at the top. A wish list is a list of everything you might ever want in your home. It includes basics like the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, your first-choice neighborhood and school district, and your ideal distance from work, house of worship, friends, and family. Beyond the basics, a wish list includes your fantasies. The latest models of kitchen appliances and conveniences, a three-car garage, an attic you can build out later, or a marble master bathroom with a Jacuzzi. All of the things you've always wanted to have in your dream home should be included on your wish list.

What’s A Reality Check?

A reality check is everything you can't live without. For example, you may want a five-bedroom, four-bath single-family colonial house. Who wouldn't like to have all that extra space? But when you look at the size of your family, and your true needs, you realize that you absolutely have to have three bedrooms and at least one and a half baths. What's the difference between five bedrooms and three bedrooms in your preferred neighborhood? Maybe a couple of hundred thousand dollars. What else can you not live without? Some folks living in cold-weather climates absolutely have to have a garage for their car. Perhaps you'd like a two- or three-car attached garage that's heated, but you absolutely must have a one-car garage.

Your wish list and reality check give you the building blocks to figure out exactly what you want and need in a home. They also help you prioritize the items on your list, identifying those that are truly vital to your ability to live comfortably in your affordable house, and those that can be set aside until you trade your first home for one that's bigger and better.

Using Worksheets

These worksheets will help you identify the items that should be included in your wish list and reality check. Don't worry if it takes you a few times to get the match up right. The process of paring down a wish list and building up a reality check can take weeks, months, or even years.

The Dream House Wish List Worksheet will help you to construct your own wish list. We’ve included a Dream House Priorities Worksheet you can use to record the key items on your checklist in their descending order of importance. Everyone wants different amenities in a home. Feel free to add any items you can think of. If your mind is a blank, think about homes you've been in that had features you liked. Think about the home you grew up in. What did you like and dislike about it?

Prioritize

When you have filled in all the answers that apply to your dream house on the Dream House Wish List Worksheet, read them over and try to prioritize your dream home's features. Which characteristic is most important to you? Have your spouse or partner prepare a separate priorities worksheet. When you both have finished, compare your priorities. You may have very different concepts about the most basic features of your future home. Identify the joint priorities, review the individual priorities (those that are on only one worksheet), and discuss in detail the reasons for your choices. Your spouse or partner may have concerns you hadn't thought of. Listen carefully and consider what you should negotiate and where you should yield.

Creating Your Reality Check

As we've discussed, a reality check is everything you cannot live without. It's the backbone of your search for a home, the basics that meet your minimum needs. For example, you may want to live in the very best school district in your state. But if that's 100 miles from your job, you'll have to settle for the best school district that's geographically convenient. You might want an attached garage in which you also have storage space. But, for safety and security reasons, you have to have a deeded parking strip that is close to the door of your home.

Does the gap between your wants and your needs remind you of the Grand Canyon? You're not alone. Except for the very few for whom money is an unlimited commodity, almost no one gets everything that's wished for in a first home. As you trade up, move from home to home, and become wealthier and more established in life, your wish list will expand to encompass things you may not even be able to conceive of today. Your reality check will change as well. One day, when you find your third, fourth, or fifth home, it may even resemble today's wish list.

Keeping You Sane

Your reality check will keep you sane throughout the home buying process. As you tour dozens (or hundreds, as in our case) of homes, you may become swayed by amenities you can't afford to buy. Relying on your reality check will allow you to keep emotion out of the equation. At a glance, you'll be able to check off your bare necessities. If a home doesn't meet those, you'll know immediately it isn't the right property for you.

Creating your reality check is easier than drawing up your wish list.

Five Major Topics Form Your Guidelines

1. Size
How many people will live in your new home? You, your spouse or partner, and your two children? You may need at least three bedrooms. If that's the minimum you absolutely must have to make life comfortable, then put that at the top of your reality check. Even if you're single and want to buy a condominium, you may still need two bedrooms for resale purposes.

2. School District
Homes in the best school districts sell faster and for more money than homes in mediocre school districts. It's smart to purchase a home in the best school district you can afford, but that school district might not offer special programs tailored to the physical and mental challenges facing your child. You can afford to buy a home in almost every school district in America, but it may mean sacrificing some of your other needs. Still, if getting into a particular school district is vital, then put that down as a necessity on your reality check.

3. Work, Transportation, And Commuting
Unless you've won the lottery lately, you're going to have to work to pay the mortgage, insurance premiums, and property taxes for your new home. Think carefully about the maximum amount of time you want to spend commuting. If you're going to drive to work, what roads and highways will you have to take? If you'll be taking a train or bus, decide whether you want to be close enough to walk to the station, or will be content to drive there (and pay a parking fee). When Sam and I bought our most recent home, he put "Walk to the train station" at the top of our reality check.

4. Amenities
Amenities refer to more than having a wood-burning fireplace or an attached garage. Amenities are also the recreational and educational opportunities in your neighborhood--a public library, or a park district that offers free tennis courts year-round and free concerts in summer. From your wish list, choose the amenities you cannot live without, both in your home and in your neighborhood.

5. Services
If you and your spouse or partner doesn’t have a lot of extra time, you should think twice about buying a home in an area that is miles from the basic services and retail shopping you'll need every day. The Reality Check Worksheet organizes basic needs under these five headings--and allows space for you to add some others.

CALL RANDY DURHAM (423) 593-2400

Send mail to randy@randydurham.com with questions, comments or requests for info.

Licensed in TN & GA (423) 664-1900