We talk a lot in real estate about buying your “dream home”. I’ll step out on a limb here and openly admit my husband and I are not living in our dream home. My dream home would be on the shores of a lake. So far I haven’t found any that are in a location I like and in my price range.
I haven’t exactly lead a life of deprivation but it hasn’t been a life of dreams that come true either. I live in a house that we own and we do like the house. It isn’t perfect but it works and was as much as we could afford when we bought it. When we moved in the neighborhood was kind of rough but it has changed. Some would call it “gentrification”.
Most first-time homebuyers will not be able to buy their dream home. I always encourage people to make two lists. One is a list of “must-haves” and the other is a list of “nice to haves”.
Home prices vary by neighborhood so do housing styles. It isn’t unusual for a home buyer to want to live in a certain neighborhood only to find that the housing styles don’t have some of the “must-haves”.
Homebuyers sometimes choose neighborhoods that don’t have any housing that they can afford.
If there were more houses on the market buyers would have more choices. For now, there are two choices. Either buy the house you can afford or wait this out. In the next five to ten years the housing market is going to shift as the oldest baby boomers reach their 80’s. Baby boomers account for about 42% of all homeowners nationwide.
