Cheating On Your Home?

Are you cheating on your house?

We all purchased our homes with the intent of living there for a long, long time. Buying a home used to be like marriage: you married once, and for better or worse, it was forever. It was the same with a house; you bought one, raised your family, and then the grandkids came to visit. You used to own your home for at least 30-40 years.

Nowadays, buying a home is almost like dating. You love it at the beginning and over time, you see something else better, you become disenchanted with it and it becomes a lot of work to maintain. You promise yourself, this is your home for better or worse, and you live with it (and in it).

Then one day you’re out doing errands and you see an open house sign on a house you have secretly wondered about. You look at your spouse and say, “It won’t hurt to just look.” Well, famous last words. You both go in with the kids and everyone looks around. The kids pick the rooms they want. The kitchen is stainless steel and granite counter tops. The bathrooms are all new. The hardwoods are redone and glistening.

You don’t say a word, you just look at each other, and you just know. The agent gives you the listing sheet, talks about what a great neighborhood it is and you can actually walk to everything, which you need to do since gas prices just keep going up. As he’s talking, you look at each other again and you’re saying "no," but thinking maybe, just maybe, you can afford this. The kids love it. And so do you.

You promise the agent you will talk about it and get back to him. You get in the car and start talking. How this story ends depends on a number of factors. The important thing to remember is that, for many people, this is how it happens. People don’t intend to move. It just happens. The absolute key is to always be prepared even when you are not “officially looking.”

That means you need to find out what your credit report looks like and clean up the stuff that is not correct. It means checking on the market every few months to see what houses are going up for sale in your town. Keep your pulse on what is going on with prices. Your house is still your biggest investment. By making sure your credit is the best it can be and having a sense of what the market is doing, you will be in the best position for whatever adventures await you.