When my husband and I first signed up, we had to tell the computer exactly what we were looking for in a living space: location, style of house, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and desired price range. (Thankfully, we didn't have to fill out a personality inventory with hundreds of questions first.) From then on, the database has emailed us daily updates with new property listings and changes in the status of houses on the market (i.e. withdrawn, under contract, sold, price changes).
When we click on a link in the message, voila! Each house appears on it's own page, complete with additional information that will help us determine if it matches our criteria. We check the address to see if it falls within our geographic preferences, read the description (chock full of flattering adjectives supplied by the realtor), glance at room dimensions to get an idea of the space, and then, if we are still interested, we click on the virtual tour button. That is, provided the seller has made pictures of the house available. For us, pictures are key. If you want us to come look at your house in person, we want a preview first to make sure that the description is not just filling our heads with pleasant lies to reel us in.
When I first started computer dating, I was adamant about not making my picture available until a later stage of communication (there are four in the eHarmony process). I wanted my potential matches to be more interested in my personality than my appearance. But it only took one experience of communicating with someone who then turned out to be far from my preference of body type to realize that it wasn't shallow of people to want to see you first. Appearance isn't everything, but it does matter. Just like with the houses. The way we figure it, if the seller isn't willing to post pictures, there must be something they want to hide.
There is an exception to every rule, and a house we visited last weekend was that exception. On the website, the seller (or agent) had posted only an exterior view of the house. But since it was in a neighborhood we were seeing several other homes in anyway, we decided to take a chance. It turned out to be not only much cuter on the outside than its internet photo revealed, but beautiful and meticulously maintained on the inside as well. Needless to say, we were pleasantly surprised.
The question that has eluded us throughout our search for the perfect home is the same one that has plagued lovers throughout the ages: how do you know when you find the one? Not just a possibility, not just one that we like, but the one that we want to stick with for the rest of our lives (or at least a significant numbers of years)? Is there more than one perfect match for everybody? Or is this really the one?
In real estate, as in love, there is a danger in putting off a decision for too long. You can save the profile of the house or potential mate, tuck it away in your mailbox for future consideration, but if you don't act fast enough, your ideal candidate may be snatched up by someone else who is...hungrier? more decisive? more desperate? And one day, you'll open your box to find the profile closed, or worse, erased from your list. It's already happened with a couple of houses that we had serious crushes on. Each time, our hearts sank when we noticed the empty space in our saved list of properties.
I'm not sure when (or if) we will find the perfect home, but I do know that if we do as well finding our dream house as we did finding each other, we will be very happy in our new home.
No comments:
Post a Comment