We’ve all heard the stories from friends about how they “knew” they’d found their forever home as soon as they stepped through the door. It was instantaneous, even though there was no roof and there was an Indian burial ground underneath…
In reality, however, it takes a bit longer to know if you’ve just viewed The One – 27 minutes, on average. However, this 27 minutes is an average, drawn from those thunderbolt moments and many hours of research and debating!
In total, it takes more than 80 hours to arrive at that decisive moment. It’s quite a long process, and hardly any of it is intuitive or emotional.
Here’s what you must do to get into the thunderbolt zone:
Spend 10 hours researching online
You have to look for likely candidates online, as well as examining crime stats, Ofsted reports, traffic reviews and so on.
Three hours talking to estate agents
You have to have someone to bounce ideas off and who will be able to tip you off about properties before they hit the market. Some of this three hours will be about building up a relationship with your agent and it almost always proves to be invaluable.
An entire working week looking at properties
Yes, 40 hours spent looking at 20 or so properties. You need to revisit likely prospects two or three times, while some will fall out of favour within minutes.
Lose two nights’ sleep
Many people lose sleep when they’re buying a house. This may be due to staying up late on property portals or waking up sweating at 3.00am thanks to Stamp Duty. On average, 16 hours’ sleep bites the bullet during the process!
Drive around for 15 hours
You need to spend some time in each likely locale, looking at rush hour traffic, pubs and restaurants, nurseries and parks, as well taking as a sneaky look at the prospective neighbours, of course (deceased and living…).
