Knowing when you have found the right property is like knowing when you have met your future wife or husband. It can be love at first sight or something more gradual, like pieces of a jigsaw falling into place. But it involves the heart as well as the head. And there is often a light-bulb moment, a sudden realisation that this – not all the other properties you have looked at – is the one.
So how do you know when you have reached just such a moment in your quest for your dream home? Here are ten tips that may help house-hunters.
- You get a good feeling as soon as you walk through the front door. The place just feels like home, for reasons you cannot yet analyse. It all falls into place: the smell of the home, the decoration and you instantly get on with the owners.
- You can instinctively tell that the previous owners of the property have lavished a lot of love and attention on their home – an excellent omen.
- The location of the property is perfect in every respect – something you did not dare hope for – which creates an immediate feel-good buzz. A good school is nearby, the park is a stroll away and you can imagine fitting right into your new life.
- The view from the master bedroom is so easy on the eye that you can happily dream of sleeping there for the rest of your life.
- There is something snug and comfortable about the kitchen. It says Family with a capital F.
- The shower-heads in the bathrooms, are so enormous that you start imagining luxuriating under a hot shower.
- The price of the property knocks you for six. There is a voice in your head saying, ‘Surely it has to cost more than that?” Perhaps, the property is a potential project or perfect for a “fixer-upper”.
- The agent showing you around the property has an air of suppressed excitement. He/she knows the property is perfect for you, and is hoping you feel the same.
- You might share the same interests as the estate agent, laugh at the same jokes and the personal chemistry works. You just click.
- You sense the unseen hand of fate, willing you to choose this property. Perhaps the house number is your lucky number or it is on a street with the same surname as your favourite footballer.
One thing is sure. Whichever house you eventually decide to buy, and whatever the reasons you give for choosing it, there will always be subtle, unseen forces at work. House-hunting is never a purely rational business – and life would be a lot duller if it was.
- Are you looking to buy, sell, rent or let? Contact your local Henry & James office or visit www.henryandjames.co.uk.
- Belgravia Office: 1 Motcomb Street SW1X 8JX 020 7235 8861
- Chelsea Office: 2 Cale Street SW3 3QU 020 7581 5011
