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Housing Emotion

We started looking for a home shortly after we moved into the rental place, sorting online lists and filtering them down to the places we wanted to see. Last week was the first batch of viewings and the last one of the evening seemed to be the perfect place. Right location, right size, great condition. Everything was good.

We made an offer and after a week of back and forth reached an agreeable price. Right then, when it was basically done, we started to have doubts. Neither of us could figure out just what was bugging us, but it was there. We did what we do naturally, opened spreadsheets and crunched numbers. Everything still looked good. Nothing seemed out-of-place.

It was when I started thinking about the future in that home that it hit me; we had missed the what/if’s. What if a job is lost? What if a baby is born? What if unexpected repairs are needed? Somehow the emotion of finding the right place for right now blinded us to a unsure future. We had forgotten to think about it being the right place from a long-term financial standpoint.

We did the math and the answers were not exactly what we wanted but somehow it was exactly what we expected. With any blip we would go from being comfortable to house poor; still able to afford the place with no issues but limited it what we could do away from home.

Emotion had trumped logic, and for us that was a shock.

We’ve stepped away from the offer and it’s made us feel like complete crap for wasting people’s time, but it has given us a clarity that will let us narrow our focus much better.


I showed this to Iris before I was going to post it as I wanted her opinion and ok before letting the world read this (hah!). She gave me another reason why this was difficult.

We are both the type of people who will gladly pay for the better version of something if we intend to use it and keep it for the long-term. Quality costs money and we are aware of that fact. Realizing that in this instance, for something this important, we will have to settle for “good enough” was a blow that was bugging her a lot more than she expected.

But we’ve scheduled more viewings so the search goes on!

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