Marriage counseling for home buyers

Rona, I just have to comment on this entry. My fiance and I have been looking at homes for about 6 months. We are both from Somerville/Medford and our target community is Medford, but our budget is more like Saugus. A few weeks ago we found a nice little house in Saugus and came to an agreement with the seller. After that I spent days analyzing the house, neighborhood, city, and whatever else I could think of. My fiance was happy, but I was not. I was getting nervous about the deal. I did not want to be stuck in a house that I was unhappy in. We backed out of the deal and I had to deal with backlash from my fiance about it.

My question is: How does someone who is almost all planner convince a doer when the right time to buy is? If we wait until next year we could probably buy what we want in Medford if we keep saving the way that we are. However she wants to move right away. We both currently pay no rent. Another question for people who have already bought- did you feel anxious that first time?

Rona, what's with the random pot-shots at renters? Totally uncalled for.

Ok, on to the meat of the response. I think having one doer and one planner in a relationship probably makes home buying easier than having two doers or two planers. Successfully buying a house requires both a lot of "planner" and "doer" behavior. An individual who tends more toward one side or the other will occasionally have impulses that push him in the opposite direction, and these impulses are essential to ever getting the decision made. If your partner is pulling you back to your starting position, these impulses are damped, but if your partner encourages your opposite-personality moments, it's likely you'll wind up with enough planning and doing to buy a house. Two doers are likely to have severe disagreements on similar aspects of a house, and two planners are likely to miss the forest for the trees.

One thing I've found surprisingly helpful is watching those dopey HGTV shows with my partner, the ones where couples look at three houses and then buy one of them. Looking at how couples behave and make decisions, and putting ourselves in their shoes, we find ourselves role-playing the house-hunting game in a much lower stakes (and less emotional) environment than real life. We get to understand what we're each willing to compromise on, and when we tend to deviate from our default personality type. And if we have a major disagreement on something, we can ponder it for a few days without becoming emotional wrecks.

The planner in me says that real estate prices will be fairly close to current prices for ~5 years, at least. They might drop a little, and I can do a ton of math to figure out exactly where the rent-vs-buy break-even point is. The doer in me says, "so what if the market drops another 20%, if you see a house you'll be happy in for 25 years, take it now." But in today's market, the doer in me says, "I'm not seeing much that I like" and the planner says, "there will be more options in the spring, or maybe even spring 2011".

When and where to buy a house requires both planning and doing, but no more so than most other major decisions couples make, such as when to get married, when to have kids, whether to relocate/where to live (in a broader sense), or whether to work a regular job, start a business, or go back to/stay in school. Knowing how to use your respective strengths to reach a good solution is crucial for all of these.

J1mbo01,
stay tuned. I am going to write about how the doer and planner can pre-agree so that you don't get stuck in a situation like you describe. Read tomorrow.

James,
The pot-shot was a pot-shot. I accept responsibility for using sarcasm. However, it was not random. The hijack trope of "no one should buy" is a conversation stopper.

I'm with James, Rona.

And, if I may, I'll add a bit of sarcasm of my own: That's a FANTASTIC way of getting new clients who happen to be first-time home buyers.

There are plenty of people who would love to own a house but are "still renting" because Boston area prices have priced us out of the market. We don't appreciate being denigrated for not having enough money to afford this market. Maybe our attitude isn't the problem, Rona.

J1mbo01,
As a first time buyer closing before the end of the month, YES, we both felt very anxious. But we did our research, we had enough money saved so we both agreed we could comfortably afford a house in the town we wanted to live in, and then we spent months looking at houses.

We were in your situation 2 years ago, would could have settled a bought a house farther west, but we both knew this wouldn't make us happy. We stayed in a small cramped, cheap rental, saved as much money as possible and now we are buying a house in the neighborhood we wanted, with no settling needed. It can be really hard to wait, but the payoff is worth it.

J1mbo01 - yep I was anxious both times (but for different reasons) I bought, once on my own and once with my DH and we just closed earlier this month. For both situations we did the math, and on paper we could afford far more than what we paid and STILL have a nice hefty reserve. So we knew our financial footing was solid, in terms of simple living expenses and we had also built a separate fund specifically for those things we would need like a lawn mower, ladders etc that we did not need in our previous place. It helped to be able to look at the black and white numbers when we got anxious, but this is a huge decision it is exciting and a touch frightening. I would actually be a bit concerned if you were not anxious even if you have a solid plan this is a huge deal.

I am planner and doer myself probably an 70/30 mix which makes me confident in my "doeing" My DH is a kind of a doer but mostly likes the status quo and he was a great grounding feature for me when my doer personality got a bit too enthusiastic.

The planner in me had a spreadsheet of potential houses, so I could easily compare the metrics, sq ft, beds, baths, land, # of days on the market, garage space, distance to both my job and the DH's job and I broke it down to cost per sq foot as well. I also had the plan of when to start packing, how to pack, how to label things and how to unpack.

The doer in me could see beyond the avacado green toilet that I will live with for now. I could also see how to break really big room into two rooms if we needed to, I could see the potential. I had the furniture placed in my mind's eye and couldn't wait to get things done.

My point is that the "to buy or not to buy" trope stops discussion about how to buy. This affects anyone who is buying now, or in the future.I do not believe that I said anything about how much money the "still renting" crowd has or doesn't have.

Maybe if you only have a hammer (speaking of the folks focused entirely on the price of the market and wisdom of investing in it) then every question is a nail?

I think I'm a doer with a planner's budget.

Rona,

I think the discussion tends to stay more on-topic when there's a meaty question (look at all the substantive responses to this thread, for example.) The original "nudge" post was interesting, and I liked reading your opinions on how to break up planning vs. doing, but it seemed pretty closed ended. Jim's response struck me as a one-off that I got a quick laugh out of, more than a serious attempt at touching off a discussion.

I read Rona's sarcasm as saying those not buying have their reasons with a play on the notion by many that waiting will mean even lower prices. I can understand the sensitivity, though. But if you've followed Rona for awhile I think we can at least give her the benefit of the doubt? Btw, for my wife & me it's more important to be in a house this year for lifestyle pre-kids rather than save the most money. If it were the latter, we'd wait it out...but we're diving in as first time home buyers.

I'm definitely more planner than doer; my wife is the doer who knows what she wants and pulls the trigger. It's been a fun search actually, and we've grown a lot by her trusting me to run numbers and I always pull in her input as a sanity check or when I know I'm stalling. Likewise, I trust her when she says she really loves something (she's going to design the interior for sure) and she'll ask for my planner-type input. ("Yes, love the idea of granite countertops but let's get to fixing XYZ first"). We trust each other, know of our limitations and realize where we can sometimes run amok on our own, so we're mindful of these things and have a good time laughing about it. This was the way our wedding planning worked out, actually, and a good training scenario!

Planner in me = loves home inspections, CMAs, quicken, spreadsheets, mortgage info & market trends, future implications. (Or, as my wife calls me, many times being ho-hum Charlie Brown when the going gets good).

Doer in me = can sense what life might be like walking into a home, envisioning family/friends, seeing the potential behind the awkward paint, excited about crown moulding (yeah, I said it).