What You Want versus What You Need

What you want versus what you need

Finding your ideal home is never easy, especially if you’re sharing it with someone else and they have their own idea about what makes a home perfect.  Sometimes even the idea of what a dream home is can make it more difficult to find one.

Finding the perfect home can boil down to making compromises that balance a property’s location, suitability, and aesthetic.  One way to make the search easier is to differentiate between what you want and what you need.

Location

The location of your property can make or break its dream home status.  For example, you might find the perfect flat in the suburbs, one that has everything you look for in a home, but is it going to make your commute longer?  It might be fine for the first month or so, but it might not be sustainable long term.  In this situation, even though the property is great in every other way, it won’t be your dream home if it doesn’t suit your work life.

Family

If you’re looking for your dream family home there are a lot of things to consider, as we have discussed in a previous blog.  You might want a home that’s in a quiet residential area so you can have a bit more space, but will there be enough to keep the kids occupied during long summer and winter breaks?  Are the shops close enough for the weekly food shopping not to be an ordeal?

Decor

While you’re renting, you can be a bit restricted as to how you can decorate and personalise your home.  There are some things you can do to give it your own particular flare, but generally, most people will leave it as it is when they move in.  This means that you might find a flat in a great area and close to the amenities you need, but does the avocado bathroom suite offend your style sensibilities?  Or does the landlord’s “nothing on the walls” rule leave the living room a little utilitarian for your liking?  These may seem trivial, but they can really affect how you feel about your home and living situation.

You might not know you’ve found your dream home until you realise that all the little things you need have fallen into place.  It might not be a castle overlooking a lake or a stylish ultra-chic loft, but it could be somewhere that helps you have a balanced and happy life.  Ultimately, that’s more important than living with an avocado bathroom suite … or is it?