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Wedding bells!

Email|Link|Comments (3) Posted by Rona Fischman August 25, 2008 03:15 PM

Congratulations! Yesterday M_ and M_ announced their wedding date in August, 2009. A little while later, they told me their house hunting plans. They want to start looking in January and move into the new place before they are married.
I really enjoy working with people who are in love. I have often worked with engaged couples as well as women who are pregnant. Many people decide to house-hunt at these happy times in their lives.

Let’s talk about stress...

Stress happens to every home buyer sometime in the process of buying a home. Different people experience it at different times. Some stress-out during the hunting, some stress-out during the offer, some during the inspection, some at the signing of the P & S, some at the closing. Some feel stress throughout; some have only a few moments. No one buys a home stress-free.

When I look at the Social Readjustment Rating Scale, which is the grand-daddy of all stress scales, I don’t see “buying a house.” However, I can add up getting a mortgage (31) and change in residence (20). That stress is up near personal injury (53) and above getting fired from a job (47).
Then, add marriage (50) and/or pregnancy (40), and these buyers have a lot of stress.

The counselor in me thinks the decision to buy a house while planning a wedding or while pregnant is doing things the hard way. The buyer’s agent in me sees most people manage it with good result. What’s your experience? What is your advice to M_ and M_?

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3 comments so far...

I agree with you, Rona. A flaw in the way a lot of young couples think is that everything must be perfectly alligned and happen in a very specific order. Just because you are getting married does not mean you have to own a house to move into immediately following the ceremony. In my mind, the two are completely unrelated.

My wife and I got married and I moved into her 1 bedroom condo for the first year and a half. We were looking for a house, but it wasn't dictated by any other life events. We had no hard deadlines to meet-- the only driving force was that we needed a little more space than we had.

You did overlook one other major source of stress: debt. Buying a house in the same year that you get married probably makes for a hefty financial burden if you are funding both events with your own savings. This is the last thing any new couple needs to deal with on top of owning a new home and starting life in a marriage together.

Posted by Mark August 25, 08 05:34 PM

I used to (in the privacy of my own home, away from the people in question) mock people who moved while pregnant. Pregnancy, I figured, in my pre-first-pregnancy state, was complicated enough; why make it worse? Then I got pregnant.

And I moved across country.

I still mock people, but I now include myself in that crowd. And I will note, for the record, that moving across country while pregnant (driving our own stuff in a Uhaul and one car) is vastly easier than moving across country with a one-year-old (even if you hire movers and fly as a family).

The advice I would give now, to someone contemplating marriage, babies and homeownership, and looking for advice on in-which-order, would be, hey. Do whatever you want to do. Nothing is going to make it appreciably easier. It's going to be distressingly expensive. No matter what. Just try to be kind to each other when you inevitably disagree about some details along the way.

Oh, and pregnant again -- and looking for a bigger house. There might be a hormonal component to some of this stuff which should not be underestimated.

Posted by R. A. August 25, 08 07:29 PM

Here is a good topic to blog on: How do you do comps for homes when so little is selling? The comps from 07 or even 08 before the big motgage meltdown are a whole different planet.

Posted by BubbleBoy August 26, 08 08:31 AM