How do people make such quick decisions?

bxboards

ginger_chocolate wrote: »

I suppose I'm just wondering is there actually some kind of speed-logic method that people use that allows them to shortcut to that sense of certainty?

Well speaking purely from my point of view..personally I only look in areas that I want to live in, to me the general location is more important than an actual specific house if that makes sense.

I view during the day during the week - key factor for me is to look at the cars - if the road is full of cars during the day, that tells you a lot. Also make sure there are no betting shops / Brighthouses / off-licences / gyms / take-aways within at least 3 miles.

I could quite happily live in any house in my village, but I would not want to live 15 miles away, even though it would be possible to find 'better' houses.

Location..location...location.

Roo89

I knew roughly where I wanted to move to, a year before we approached the bank for DIP. I researched everything, and asked friends who lived in the area, I looked at multiple right move listings. Eventually we came up with a list of what we wanted from the house. We got the DIP and started viewing, all the houses we viewed met our desired criteria, and logically any of them would have suited us, but when we walked through the door of the house we're buying (complete on Friday) we knew, it felt like home and I felt relaxed, which I hadn't in any of the other properties.

I'm normally a very logical person, my OH is much more of a creative, we did put offers in on 2 other houses before this one, and while the vendor considered the offer, we thought about the house and both times decided we didn't love it, we wouldn't be upset if we were priced out (which is what happened)

There's only so much logic that can go into the decision, and as other's have said, you can withdraw your offer at a later date.

hazyjo

It's about experience, confidence and lots of filtering/lists!

I know what I want and what I don't want. If something meets that criteria, and there's a good feeling about it, I'll buy it. I've moved/bought 8 times so know which properties to view.

Only tip I would give is have a MUST HAVE list, and a NICE TO HAVE list and a NO WAY IN HELL list! There's a current thread here: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5895719/whats-your-must-have-nice-to-have-wont-touch-list which you might find helpful (or more confusing lol!).

My next list would go something like this:

No shared drive
No main roads
Nice garden
3 beds
Downstairs loo
Upstairs bathroom
Semi or detached
Under 0.6m to station

I would love a garage, but it would be on a 'nice to have' list. Same for a south facing garden, not keen on bungalows, I like old houses an period features but wouldn't write off a newer one, I like a kitchen at the back... I've had years to know what I like and what I don't. There would be no point in me viewing a bungalow with a kitchen at the front with no parking and two beds!

If I viewed a nice semi in a great wide leafy street with parking, a downstairs loo, and a nice garden - what's not to like? There have been a few over the years where on paper I thought it was perfect, but you walk in and there's just something about it that doesn't feel right so I've walked - but those are few and far between! It's not about trusting your instinct, it's about being practical and trusting your judgement rather than an emotional reaction.
PS I don't literally have lists, but they're certainly there in my head lol! You may find it easier to write on the notes section on RM for each property to remember why you're ruling something out!

Hermia

bxboards wrote: »

Well speaking purely from my point of view..personally I only look in areas that I want to live in, to me the general location is more important than an actual specific house if that makes sense.

I view during the day during the week - key factor for me is to look at the cars - if the road is full of cars during the day, that tells you a lot. Also make sure there are no betting shops / Brighthouses / off-licences / gyms / take-aways within at least 3 miles.

I could quite happily live in any house in my village, but I would not want to live 15 miles away, even though it would be possible to find 'better' houses.

Location..location...location.

Location is the most important thing for me as well. And location is something that can be extensively researched beforehand.

OP - I did make a snap decision when I purchased my home and I don't regret it at all. The thing is I had been mulling over what I wanted for about a year before I even started looking. I knew the area I wanted and had been researching it during that time. I had also been renting for the previous ten years and that had given me a VERY good idea of exactly what I wanted/didn't want in a property. I arrived at my property half an hour early so I could look around the area and it exactly fitted what I wanted. When I looked around the property it also fitted what I wanted so basically as long as the survey did not throw up any problems I was happy.

SG27

I made an offer 4 weeks after first viewing. I would never want to rush something like that. But then the market must be a lot slower here in the affluent south east!

hazyjo

Totally agree location comes first. We opted for a much smaller 2 (3 at a generous push!) Edwardian bed house over a 4 bed '30s roomier large one due to location. Absolutely no regrets. Much prefer where ours is.


OP - it's about working out what's important to YOU. But take some hints and suggestions from this and the other thread I quoted!

ginger_chocolate

If I viewed a nice semi in a great wide leafy street with parking, a downstairs loo, and a nice garden - what's not to like? There have been a few over the years where on paper I thought it was perfect, but you walk in and there's just something about it that doesn't feel right so I've walked - but those are few and far between! It's not about trusting your instinct, it's about being practical and trusting your judgement rather than an emotional reaction.
PS I don't literally have lists, but they're certainly there in my head lol! You may find it easier to write on the notes section on RM for each property to remember why you're ruling something out!

This is a really helpful way of looking at it - thanks

We did view somewhere on Saturday that ticked all of our "must have" boxes and most of our "would really prefer if at all possible" boxes, and may well be the closest we can get in our preferred area and within our budget, but I can't say i got any kind of "warm fuzzy" feeling. Just a "well this looks fine" feeling. (Maybe that's enough!) OH still feels we need to compare it against more viewings to check it really is the best we can get though - and it'll probably be gone by then!

quantumlobster

It was easy for us. We'd viewed a few and they were all "nice but meh". In, walk round, make "hmm, yes, that would indeed be a room. Oh, look. Here's another room. It has a floor. And a ceiling, yes" noises, thank the vendor for their time (after all, they've cleaned up and !!!!!!ed up their Saturday morning for us), off we go to tell the EA "thanks but no thanks".

Then The One came up. Drove to it, and we were 50% convinced on location alone. The garden got us another 25% of the way there. Walked in, saw that it wasn't a complete pile but was in fact a working house that didn't let the rain in and that was of a suitable size, and that was it. Done. We were in the house for maybe half an hour, tops.

It would have taken an absolute showstopper on the survey or the searches to stop us after that.

suki1964

Both the houses I have bought I knew the minute I stepped over the threshold that they were my houses

The first house was possibly the worse of the 20 houses I had viewed in that particular area, but it was in a fantastic location. I even viewed the house next door but one which was bigger, better decorated, larger garden, but nope, it didn't feel like it was ever going to be my home

I viewed at 11am, hubby came with me at 2 pm and we put the offer in at 3pm

This house, my husband never even saw before the day we moved in. I short listed 5 houses to view, flew over, viewed them all but already knew in my heart that this was going to be the one, and once again the minute I stepped over the threshold I knew for sure

Thing is when you are house hunting, you really should have decided on what you do want, what you are willing to compromise on, what area you want to move to. You do all the homework before you go looking. With this house I was hampered by being in a different country and was buying in an area neither of us had any knowledge of whatsoever. I spent 3 months online researching and on the phone chatting to estate agents and looking at maps.

I got it right

vacheron

These days the internet should allow you to eliminate 90%+ of all potential properties before even arranging a viewing.

Looking around the street and neighboring streets, schools, crime statistics. doctors, hospitals, more internal photos than were ever available in newspapers and estate agents, price statistics for the region and previous sold prices of the property and neighboring properties are now all no more than a few clicks away whereas before it would have involved EA calls physical visits, and perhaps a reasonably detailed chat with the vendor.

For us we viewed hundreds of properties online, narrowed this down to tens of properties that had potential, sat together and brought this down to about 6 and actually only arranged viewings on 2 or 3 that we were deadly serious about.

We knew the one we wanted the second we walked in. Negotiations began with the estate agent an hour after we left and were concluded before lunch the following day.

By comparison, friends of ours seemed to spend endless weekends viewing and viewing, as a result 3 times they lost the property they really liked due to it being snapped up in the meantime and now they often regrets that they may have had to settled on their 4th favorite house of all the ones they ever viewed.