Balancing your Wants and Needs as a Homebuyer

Being a competitive homebuyer in today’s market is not just about having a down payment in your savings account and a dream home in your heart. Knowing what you want is important, but knowing what you need is vital to your home search. Highly sought-after homes can have a flurry of offers and be won or lost in a matter of hours, and the perfect place that has everything you want may not be readily available.

The harsh reality is that fewer homes on the market means fewer opportunities to score your exact dream home. The Monthly Housing Market Trends Report from realtor.com has this this to say about housing stock levels: 

“While the number of homes for sale is increasing, it is still 43.2% lower than it was before the pandemic in 2017 to 2019. This means that there are still fewer homes available to buy on a typical day than there were a few years ago.”

There just aren’t as many homes available as there were a few years ago, so to be successful in finding a new home, buyers have to consider what aspects of their new home are mandatory, essential elements, and what’s merely nice to have. Being too picky can leave buyers without many options, and by being too narrowly focused, buyers can miss out on what could be the perfect balance.

The absolute first step in finding your new home is determining your budget. By getting pre-approved for a loan, you not only have a specific number that you and your realtor can work with, but you have the confidence to act quickly if a home comes up and an offer needs to be made swiftly. Nobody wants to fall in love with something outside of their budget, so make sure to set your budget before you set your search.

The next step is to make a list of everything that is important to you for your new home. This could be features like an ensuite primary bathroom, structural elements like accessibility access, amenities like underground parking, renovations like a new roof, proximity to a specific location, or any other element that you can think of that you’d like to see in your home.

Once you have this list, it’s time to sort each element into one of three categories:

Need: Your home must have these for you to live there, without exception. These elements will determine the framework for your home search. This is the most important category to get right, because you don’t want to waste time looking at homes that won’t work for you. If you’re too specific about too many features, there won’t be anything for you to look at, and if you’re not specific enough, the net will catch more than you actually want to see.

Want: These are features that aren’t dealbreakers, but you still have a preference for them. In an ideal world, you could find a home that meets all your needs and wants, but the reality is that you may need to compromise on some of your wants in order to be successful. You will know a home is worth putting an offer on if it meets your needs as well as at least some of your wants.

Dream: These features are the ones that mean something special to you, but aren’t really considered in the search. If a home came up that had these features, and it meets your other criteria, it’s time to go big on an offer.

The final step, with a pre-approved loan and a realistic list of features that are important to you, is to sit down with your real estate agent and go over the list with them. They’ll be able to help you refine the list and set you up on your home search, and with a better understanding of your wants and needs, they’ll help you find the perfect home.