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In recent weeks, my husband and I have searched for and selected a new home, and tomorrow we sign for it! Needless to say, we are very excited! It is wonderful to get to this point in the process, but there were plenty of times during our search when I seriously contemplated giving up and staying put. There aren't many houses for sale at the moment in our area, and there are even fewer that met our wants and needs. We'd see a house on the internet that seemed perfect only to be disappointed when we saw it in person. Of course there were contenders, but knowing which house to select was intimidating. It's a big decision! To help us in our decision making process my husband developed a grading system. He's good at that sort of thing, and I'm so glad because it works!  Why Move?Before introducing our home grading system, I feel like it would be useful to explain why we began searching for a new home in the first place. We aren't changing jobs or seeking to be closer to family or anything that would force us to move, and technically our current home meets all of our needs, though not perhaps as well as we would like. We purchased our current home while living in the Middle East in preparation for a move back to the United States. My husband spent a few days at the end of a business trip searching for a place before returning to Abu Dhabi where we were living. I never saw the home face to face until after we signed for it, and in all honesty, my first reaction was one of (albeit mild) disappointment. In the intervening 7 1/2 years, we have made numerous upgrades and changes to the home, making it our own, but there are some things about it - the things we like least - that we simply cannot change. It occurred to us that we were not stuck here. If we wanted to move, we could, and so we began our search.
To start with, we made a list of each of the spaces in our current home. Next to each space, we gave our current home a letter grade (A, B+, C-, etc.) depending on how well we feel each particular area of our current home meets our wants and needs. This gave us a baseline with which to compare other homes. After looking at a potential home, we would go over our list and grade the contender independent of our current home or other homes we had seen. The idea was to make an honest assessment of how any given home measured up on its own to our list. Then we compared the contender to our ratings for our current home. This made it easy to see whether the home we were considering was actually an improvement over our current home. Seeing the pluses and minuses for each home displayed next to our current home and one another made comparison simple and helped us rule out homes that appealed to our aesthetic but didn't actually meet our needs. We are (almost) empty nesters. Our youngest son is living with us while finishing up a program at a local community college. Despite the fact that our children are grown, we wanted a place where the whole family could gather comfortably on occasion. We wanted a place for our grandchildren to play, and we needed a place where my husband could record his podcast and we could both work from home. I'm sure there were times when our realtor wanted to strangle us! We turned down many a beautiful home because it just wasn't quite right. We were in a position to be able to do so (since we didn't have to move), and we wanted to be sure that we got it right before we upended our lives. The grading system made a huge difference for us in narrowing down our options, so that after two months and countless houses spanning a 30 mile radius we knew the house we wanted when we saw it. Another benefit of using the grading scale was that it helped us to be unified in our search; by thinking through each space, how it functioned, and how we wanted it to function, we were able to come to a consensus about what we were looking for. Here is a look at our home grading system. You'll notice that there are things about our current home that we truly love, but many things we do not love. I think you will also see how clear it became for us on paper that the new home would meet our needs and desires much more effectively. In the interest of simplicity, I have only included the grades for our current home and the home we are purchasing, but we did use this scale to judge most of the homes we considered (some didn't warrant the effort). 
As I discussed this blog post with my husband, he pointed out something that I felt was worth mentioning. Most homes have what he refers to as an "X-factor", a single characteristic or space that you fall in love with which makes it possible for you to overlook other aspects of the home that you are less enamored with. In our current home the X-factor is a space we call Narnia. You can read about why in my last blog post, Why a Little Clutter Can Be Good for the Soul.
In our new home it is the all season room - a room with windows on three sides and a lovely tile floor where I intend to do a lot of sitting and reading and writing. What is the X-factor in your home? What does it allow you to overlook? 
Unless you're independently wealthy, chances are you cannot afford the perfect house. Compromises must be made. Identifying your wants and needs and carefully rating a potential home as to its ability to meet them will help you choose a home where you can feel content and comfortable. If you're in the market for a new home, I hope you are able to utilize a home rating system to make your decision easier. If you know someone who is shopping for a new home, please share this post with them. 
20 Comments
11/8/2020 04:14:10 pm
First, congratulations on the new home! How exciting:) I'm very impressed by your husband's system. It is so helpful, when making any decision with multiple facets to have some way to compare one to another. When it comes to houses, there really are a number of things to consider. That all-season room is absolutely gorgeous, and I agree so much that there can be a selling point with which we simply fall in love. When that is something that we would use a lot, benefit from, and which we be hard to "retrofit" to another solution, it should be held in high esteem. Also, important to consider your "non-negotiables." These are the things you just aren't willing to give up, even to gain something else. Anyone hunting houses right now will find this so helpful! 11/9/2020 06:44:55 am
Thanks, Seana! My husband excels at what he refers to as ‘Decision Matrix’. I think it’s his military background. ;) I love your point about non-negotiables. Very true! Since we didn’t have to move, we definitely had a couple of those. We kept asking ourselves, “Why would we uproot ourselves to settle for something less than we already have?” It was sort of the first line of consideration in a house. 11/9/2020 09:32:40 am
How exciting that you're about to close on your new home! I'm so impressed with your decision-making matrix. And clearly the home you'll be moving to gets high marks. In addition, your "x-factor" room sounds amazing! We only moved once since we were married. So we've been on our current home for almost 35 years. I often say, if we don't have to move, I don't want to. I love it here. It's small, easy to care for, has one floor living, and has beautiful views of a 40-acre woods. The x-factor? There is a large greenhouse attached to the side of the house. It's not a four season room, but it's wonderful in many of the seasons including last month when our daughter was married there. Wishing you all the best with your move and settling into your new home. 11/10/2020 06:43:47 am
Thanks, Linda. I envy you only moving once in 35 years. From the sound of it, I can see why you would want to stay right where you are! We have been married almost 32 years, and this will be our 17th move! 11/10/2020 09:25:45 am
Amazing that you have moved 17 times in 32 years. I admire your flexibility. And I'm also guessing you are an incredibly organized mover and unpacker. Almost four years ago, I emptied and prepared for sale my parents home. They lived there for over 57 years. It was the family home, and very hard to say goodbye to, but the time had come. So while I have moved a few times in my life, I'm not as experienced. I think it's one of the reasons I work still at being flexible. I'm excited for you and your next move into your new home. I know it's going to be wonderful from your description. I wish you many years of happiness, love, and joy there. 11/9/2020 09:50:17 am
Congratulations on your move. I love the idea of making a home grading system. I think I will use it when we decide to start looking at homes. Thank you for sharing. 11/9/2020 08:34:56 pm
Sabrina, I hope you find it useful. It worked wonderfully for us!
LISA GESSERT
11/9/2020 10:14:02 am
As someone who is 99% packed and ready to move into my new place I think according to this blog I did just great! LOL I have been in my current home 21 years and no kids anymore but it does take thought into what you do want when moving this was a very good blog! Thank you 11/9/2020 08:37:10 pm
Congratulations on your move! Twenty-one years is a lot of stuff to sort through. I’m a little jealous that you’re 99% complete. We’re just getting started. 11/10/2020 04:10:51 pm
I like the idea of a grading system. It's been a long time since we house shopped, but next time I'll consider using grading each house we look at. 11/11/2020 06:50:33 pm
The comparison aspect is what I love. It really creates a clear picture. 11/24/2020 05:58:31 am
Thanks a lot for your nice post and also thanks for giving your time for the post. Great help for me! 11/24/2020 05:59:55 am
It is truly a nice & useful piece of info. I am glad that you just 11/24/2020 07:21:43 am
Thank you so much for taking the time to respond m. I’m so glad you liked the article. 11/24/2020 07:22:56 am
Thanks for the compliment and the encouragement. Both are greatly appreciated! Leave a Reply. |
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