What are my needs?
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Most people start thinking about a new home because of a life-changing event. The first is a need to have their own home, then two singles become a couple and merge households.
They may decide to have children as their kids grow up they need more space. Their parents get older, or their kids move out and they become empty nesters thinking about downsizing and so on.
Real estate plays a major role, not only as most people’s biggest asset, but your home also plays a key role in enabling and achieving the lifestyle you want.
Where are you in your life?
Many people see their lives as linear, but in reality our lives are a squiggly mess of twists and turns. As comforting as it is to have a long term plan, we need to be flexible to deal with things that don’t go to that plan and changes that need to be made quickly. Which path looks the more realistic?
If you’re a straight liner - great, we can work with that. However, it doesn’t mean your needs are straightforward or that your real estate plan can slot easily within this path. There are still many things to think about when big changes in your life leave you needing something different.
If you’re a squiggly liner - that is just as great! No two journeys are the same, even if you look at people whose lives are mirror images of each other. We suggest following the same process and planning your real estate goals around the changes in your life, planned and unplanned.
How do you like to live and what lifestyle do you wish to have?
For the city dwellers, the mountain lovers, and those who wish to own a farm, the right property will enable us to live the type of life we want to lead. We can all benefit from blue ocean thinking where we dream of our perfect set up, most commonly we see the property that we live in as part of this.
To start to build a lifestyle plan to guide your real estate decisions, begin by asking yourself questions such as;
What do I like best about my current home?
What do I like least about my current home?
What would I like in my next home?
Next, have a think about the kind of variables that will ultimately frame your ideal lifestyle;
Neighbourhood attributes - schools, greenspace, and density
Landscape and geology - dry, mountainous, or urban
Nearby amenities - transportation, universities and healthcare
Cultural and recreational activities - leisure pursuits, music venues, and restaurants
Support for your work-life - commutable and having work-from-home space
If you are considering purchasing a second home the weight you will place on location and amenities will outweigh the need for your home to be practical and enable your work-life. Many second homeowners opt for something entirely new or in a beloved place of theirs to continue building memories during time away.
Whatever your motivations for your property search, we believe that the right home will help you achieve the life you want to lead - and it isn’t as difficult as it might seem.
What about your family?
As our families grow and mature our need for a particular home, lifestyle, and community will evolve with it. Wherever you are in your family journey you may be thinking about up or downsizing.
Young couples and newlyweds
Many young couples are buying a home for the first time and will need to factor in many future considerations. Will they have children in the near future? How will their careers take shape and influence their choice of home and location?
Nothing is ever future-proofed and even if the length of ownership is going to be just a few years, getting on the ladder at this stage in your family life is important. Of the myriad of suggestions we have for young couples, we would suggest:
It’s important to look past the initial value of a property meeting their immediate requirements and consider the potential upsides of the investment.
Buy for function, make sure that you don't neglect the realities of life by buying more house than you need.
Buy below your means, the last thing you want as a young couple is to stress about finances.
Families
Often family lifestyle choices are driven by the time spent commuting to work, the quality of school districts, sports, and cultural attractions, and community amenities. We also need to pay close attention to the size of our families and how the architectural type of home can help them thrive.
While moving can be stressful for adults, the corresponding anxiety it can cause children, is often even more pervasive and lingering. In many cases, the stress children experience from leaving behind friends and favorite places far eclipse the anxiety over leaving their physical home for another.
Families with teens
Lifestyle choices often center on children at home and may also include care-taking for aging parents, making secondary suites, quality schools, more space for kids entertainment areas, access to healthcare, and recreational opportunities a priority.
Empty nesters and downsizing
Lifestyle choices include the need or desire for a smaller home, helping children purchase real estate, access to quality healthcare, moving from suburbia to urban centers to enjoy city culture in retirement.
There are many factors to consider when downsizing and the rankings of each may differ from each person or party. There are many individuals, couples and even some families that feel a sense of lifestyle emancipation after downsizing or rightsizing.
For the first time in years, they are free from long commutes, burdensome levels of maintenance, high taxes and excessive dependence on their automobiles. Moreover, many who downsize also find that their lifestyle actually grows substantially as they become more involved in the community due to convenience and the freedom from housing maintenance.
Older Seniors
Lifestyle choices often include a desire to live independently and close to the support of friends and family, and medical services.
Multi-Generational Families and Special Needs
There is an ever-increasing rise in home purchasing that relates to the needs of multi-generational families and those with special needs.
Lifestyles that find either children staying at home well into their twenties or thirties, or middle-aged adults taking care of their elderly parents, are causing many homebuyers to take a greater range of lifestyle-related factors into consideration when buying their next home.
How will your work life influence your decision?
Life changed dramatically in 2020. The pandemic forced a change from old work habits and inspired new ones, what was considered to be the norm was totally re-written. For many of us, this was combined with a realisation that we can be productive in other environments and fostered a shift in priorities our sense of work-life balance.
Whether your job takes place in a fixed location or remotely over the internet, choosing your living location based on worklife is one of the main considerations for most. As is the time we commit to earning activities. Our schedules will determine how much time we spend away from work, and thus how much we are able to enjoy the environment we live in. Consider the following:
Would you like a home that positions you better for your time off? Or commute?
Is it important to have your own office space at home?
Do you need additional structures outside for your own business, or a place to store equipment?
Do you need to be within reach of a physical location 6 days a week?
Is your work schedule predictable?
Asking yourself these questions will help you frame the ideal balance you have between location and property style and your work life.
What type of community would make you feel most at home?
A sense of community can be influenced by how the people in the area interact, but we like to think of a community, in real estate terms, as being the sum of both environmental and human factors. A downtown neighbourhood that is densely populated with many local events is a community. As is a lakeside area with few neighbours and a reasonable level of tourism.
Thus, for you to be able to know what type of community would make you feel most at home, we recommend you try to break these two factors down. Have a think about the kind of environmental variables that will ultimately frame your ideal lifestyle;
Landscape and geology - dry, mountainous, tropical, or urban
Location - near to urban centres or remote
Future considerations - housing development plans and land use factors
Next, take a think about what human-related factors would form your ideal community.
Nearby amenities - transportation, universities, and healthcare
Cultural and recreational activities - leisure pursuits, music venues, and restaurants
Density and interaction - close community ties, more tourism, or total privacy
When you have your perfect picture put together we can start to plan around it!
What is your current income and what do you expect in future?
The next step in assessing your needs is to understand how large of a mortgage (if any) you can afford. We will determine how much mortgage you may be comfortable with and the potential price range of your future home. There are many factors that influence mortgage affordability, but the basic first steps are to quantify down payment, income, and expenses.
By assessing your total household income, how much you’ve saved for a down payment, and your monthly expenses (car payments, loan payment, living expenses, and so on), plus new expenses you’d take on (property taxes, condo fees, utilities), you can get a reasonable estimate. It is always best to speak to financial experts on this matter too, luckily for you we have a bunch saved on speed dial!
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