“What makes it a perfect home and why do you absolutely love it?” It’s a simple question I ask when having conversation with home buyers. I enjoy seeing people light up when they share past moments that have brought them great joy. In real estate, it comes from experiences like renting a place in a new city or living with roommates for the first time. Emotion is the very essence of a great Home Must Have List. Today, I want to help you create yours by selecting the characteristics that makes a home perfect for you and let those become your guiding principles going forward. Are you ready?

Create Clarity

I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to create a home must have list before searching for the perfect home. Imagine starting this journey without it especially in today’s real estate market where you need to find houses and make offers quickly. All of that pressure will probably lead to a decision that may not be the best. Looking forward, we want to change that, right? So that when you walk into a house, you know exactly what you’re looking for.

Over the past 2 weeks, we designed meaningful real estate conversations with those most important to you. Then we coupled it with divergent thinking to allow your best ideas to rise to the surface. Armed with all of these amazing ideas and themes, it’s time to get clear on what property you want to purchase!

Meaningful Conversation + Divergent Thinking =  “Must Have List”

Your Home Must Have List acts as your guiding principle during the buying process. It starts with your #1 deal breaker which is something you won’t compromise on at all. It’s very binary and should be either a YES or a NO. Synthesize this by looking at the themes you discovered during the perfect home exercise. Pick one that moves you emotionally and brings the most excitement to you.

Design a Hierarchy

After finding out your #1 deal breaker, it’s time to choose your top 2 and 3 for your home must have list. These 2 priorities can interchange with one another and remain as characteristics that you’ll confirm during home tours. It’s important to keep #2 & #3 top-of-mind from the moment you walk into a prospective real estate property. This creates a frame of reference when comparing homes and deciding what’s the best for you.

How to Test, Test, Test

By discovering what moves and excites you, it’s easy to exclude the deal breakers and confirm how important #2 and #3 are when looking at homes. Having that clarity from your Home Must Have List quickly eliminates properties that fall short and allows you to seek out those that have the characteristics of your perfect home. This eliminates trial and error because you know exactly what to look for!

While testing, it’s important to have commitment to the guiding principles given by your  Home Must Have List. If for any reason this isn’t the case… that’s OK! Review the themes you created during the perfect home exercise and re-examine your #1 deal breaker and all other themes that excite you. If anything has changed, recalibrate with a new top 3 and tour homes with those characteristics. This becomes a never-ending process until you find the right home.

A Home Must Have List Example

Let’s take a look at a real life Home Must Have List example from one of my clients. Check out the themes that emerged in the photo below from the Perfect Home Exercise we did. In this case, the location became the #1 guiding principle and an absolute deal breaker. To the client, this meant the property had to be located in downtown Denver, Colorado – near restaurants, bars, parks, and other local drivers.

Next, floor plan and layout emerged as top #2 . The buyer described this as having the right flow from the moment you walked in and having windows that’s letting in plenty of light. This layout had to have “everything”, including closet space, a kitchen to cook, and a laundry space.

Top #3 in her home must have list became the overall level of finish. This wasn’t initially clear initially and became something we had to test during our home tours. So the buyer and I selected several homes with “brand new” upgrades aligned with the current trends and others with upgrades from the mid-to-late 2000’s style. We decided to scrap anything with a 90’s feel or older.

These 3 priorities were not fully clear until we have met and gone through this process. It felt like she wanted something nice but wasn’t really sure what it looked like before creating a Home Must Have List.

Why Not Price, Beds, Baths, or Square Footage?

Price is always assumed in buying real estate and should not be in your Top 3 Home Must Have List. Price is determined by your budget and will boil down to a comfortable payment. The same is true for beds, baths, and square footage specification since those are all driven by price.

When looking at homes online or in person, you will quickly see the relationship between beds, baths, square footage and how those all relate to price. So go deeper! Get clear on the characteristics of a home that excites you. That will always take precedence over the property specs.

If you absolutely would love to have 2 bedrooms, create the context for what that means to you. For example, “Additional room for our future child” or “Place for my sister to come stay during the holidays.” That carries more meaning and possibilities for you to consider.

Pulling it ALL Together…

Thanks for taking ownership of the things you absolutely love! Creating a Home Must Have List is a critical step in finding the right home. It offers clarity and purpose in your search. Most importantly this is your creation and simply a reflection of who you are and why.