Keep emotion out of it

There are no two ways about it—buying a home is an emotional decision. And so it should be. If we were all robots, we’d all be living in identical cubes that offer us shelter, a bed, and a place to eat and not much else. Emotion is an important part of buying a home because you want to live somewhere that makes you feel good. But if you get too emotional, you can end up making costly mistakes.

There are two common emotional situations that you want to avoid: rushing to buy and buying out of frustration.

Let’s talk about feeling rushed and why it sucks. I know this one well because I’ve been that guy.

When my (now) wife and I moved back to Brisbane from Sydney we were desperate to buy.

I had spent a few months looking for properties to buy in Brisbane before we moved up, but once we had boots on the ground up here I felt like there was a gun to my head to buy because the alternative was living with my in-laws. I would have bought a tin shed behind a rubbish tip if it had been for sale; I was at panic stations.

This situation is super common and we see people like this every day.

I wasn’t thinking clearly and just barely avoided buying a house that was riddled with problems—ones that I would have seen miles away if I’d done my research properly. Luckily the deal didn’t go through. Even so, I’d wasted 3 weeks on this property and ended up back where I started, but with even less time to find the right home. Luckily I came to my senses, took a step back, and worked through the process that I’m going to show you later in this chapter.

Buying out of frustration can cause the same problems but for different reasons. When you’ve been looking for a few months and missed out on a few properties, it starts to feel like you’ll never get a home that feels right for you. You get more and more fed up with the whole process, and it’s tempting to just get it over with and buy the next place that seems “good enough”.

If you find yourself in this situation try to take a breather and get some perspective.

You are about to spend $300,000 or $400,000 or maybe even more—how many years would it take you to earn this much money? Then why rush into buying something that you might not be entirely happy with?

As we covered above property in Australia isn’t cheap, and rushing into the front property could be something you live to regret for a long time.

Rather than rushing into something and buying out of pure frustration, try taking a few weeks off. Or better yet, chat with a buyer’s agent who can help save time and do the looking for you.

Buyers’ agents can help from sourcing a property, all the way to negotiating and purchasing on your behalf at auction.

Buyers’ agents in Brisbane range in cost from a few thousand dollars to a percentage of the purchase price but can save you weeks of running around (plus a lifetime of stress)!