How to Minimize Home Buyers Remorse:

Why is it that we experience buyers remorse when we purchase a new home?  One of the reasons could be that everything is unfamiliar about the new house.  I recently moved into a new house and had questioned the decision for a very long time.  Last night, I was driving home listening to the radio when I realized that I was driving the route to my house without thinking about it.  It occurred to me that when I first moved in, I had to think about every stoplight and every turn as I was learning the quickest path.  This process of learning is a cause of frustration in itself.  Whenever you learn something new, your mind is literally being rewired as you practice the new task.  After a while, you become proficient at the new task and you mind can work on auto pilot, allowing you to focus on other things and reducing the anxiety.  You can learn more about this concept in an earlier article that I wrote about How People Learn.

When you purchase a new home, every single task that you took for granted has to be re-learned.  The location of the silverware drawer, where you keep your keys, even where the toilet paper is in relation to the toilet.  While your body and mind are learning to coordinate each of these activities, you will naturally feel frustrated.  This felling of frustration compounds any other doubts that you may have had about the home that you chose such as did you pick the right school district and is the commute too long.  After you have learned your way around the house as well as the path to common destinations such as the grocery store and work, you can begin to function on auto pilot and the new home owner feeling begins to subside.  Your body begins to work from muscle memory as you perform tasks in your new environment without thinking about it.

So what can you do to minimize this initial frustration?  The short answer is that repetition is the only cure so you need to begin to standardize on the way that you do things as quickly as possible.  Even before you start putting dishes away in the kitchen, put labels on the outside of the cabinets and drawers for commonly used items.  Mark the silverware drawer, the utensil drawer and where you put the glasses, plates and pots and pans.  The labels will provide support until you can automatically reach into a drawer and find what you are looking for.

The same goes for other areas of the house.  Decide early what each of the rooms will be used for and how you will refer to them.  Is the spare room called the guest bedroom, the den or the play room?  Put tape over the door handles of any doors that might not be needed that often such as a hallway door that holds the water heater but looks like it might be a closet.  Put labels where other things may be installed or placed on the floor as a placeholder for where they will go.  This makes it clear what work has to be done and starts to give you some sense of orientation in a room that may only have a pile of boxes.  I like to use blue painters tape with a black Sharpie for this task.  The black on blue is a good contrast and the blue tape is designed to peel off without leaving any residue.  Another good use for the tape is to put tape over any light switches that are not critical.  That way you don't waste time turning on the garbage disposal when you are trying to find the kitchen light switch.

Real estate agents can also help with the task of orienting clients to the new neighbor hood.  After the new house is in escrow, take some time to drive with your clients around to common destinations.  The client should drive their car, while the agent sits in the passenger seat.  Make a list of destinations to drive to and then make a series of mini trips starting from the house each time.  Choose places such as the grocery store, a good place for dinner and the school if applicable.  For each trip be sure to start and end at the house so the patch to the new location can be determined.  Be sure to drive through the parking lot to the front of the building so any minor annoyances such as no left turn areas can be flushed out.  Driving together will not only give the homeowner the chance to learn the routes, but will also give the agent a chance to point out other stores that the homeowner might find useful such as a bank or drug store.

Buying a new a home is a major commitment that can produce financial and social anxiety.  This anxiety is compounded by the amount of new things that you must learn.  Only repetition can make the uncomfortable feel comfortable so get started living in your new environment.  With time you will have settled in and can't imagine living any place else.