If it’s renting or purchasing your first home, you’ll no doubt experience that finding the right home for you is likely to be a time consuming, and sometimes frustrating task (we’ve been there!). Sometimes, making a list and ticking it off is one of the best ways to start, and we’d highly recommend this as a way to go, whether it is renting or purchasing you are looking to do.
Make two lists, “wants” and “needs”, to help you get started.
What do you need?
It’s important when you are browsing for that all important new home to consider not just the actual property itself, but also the surrounding area – the location and amenities. This is where this section of your list will come in handy too, because depending on your situation, there may be a few things you find you ‘need’ with your new home. Some examples could be:
- What surrounding amenities do you need? Perhaps good transport links, nearby shops, sport facilities and even which schools fall within your catchment. These all depend on your personal circumstances of course but will play a huge role in helping you figure out if that house is the one for you!
- What is the location like? Especially important if you want to live in a certain area, be close to your place of work (if this is an issue these days), living in a place with low crime rates – there are many variables but again, it’s personal to you and your household.
- Is parking essential? Do you have more than one car? Is there allocated parking that costs extra? If parking isn’t essential, then perhaps it goes on the want list.
- How many bedrooms does your house need (rather than want!) – plan for the bare minimum that you need. If you are purchasing your first home, you might also want to consider your future plans for a family if that’s the case.
- Do you need a flat or a house? You might find that actually your budget will affect this, but it’s an important consideration none the less.
What do you want?
You’ve established what you need from the new home you’re looking for – and believe us, this will help when it comes to looking around, when considering your budget, and when looking at the variety of different options. At the very least, it also gives you a bit of grounding to help compare properties too.
What do you want? Isn’t that the big question! Here you can list your ideal wants, these are all on top of the needs you’ve already got remember. That first list is the bare minimum you want from the house, this list are those little extras – the bonus boxes as it were.
Perhaps you’re thinking a garden would be ideal – it’s not a need, but a big want! An extra bedroom or spare room for a home office (especially with Covid-19, working from home is more likely now). You could be thinking of perhaps a conservatory or shed – more space for you but not a necessity. Don’t go over the top with this list, and remember when you are doing a property search – these are bonuses, it’s the Needs list you want to concentrate on first and foremost.