When you buy a house you are paying for everything that you get – that 2nd spare bedroom that gets used once a year by a friend too drunk to get the night bus home cost you untold thousands (especially if you live in London) so when you buy a home it is important to realise what type of person you are and the needs that you have as a result. A friend of mine who works at a bar came up to me a couple of months back and asked for my advice – he was about to move in with his girlfriend and there were two properties that they particularly liked. One had a huge kitchen but a smaller living room and the other one was vice verse. Roger, my friend, was championing the cause having a larger living room whilst his girlfriend wanted the larger kitchen. The 1st thing that I asked was whether either he or his girlfriend cook regularly – when he answered in the negative I said he had his answer.
When buying a house people often want to buy something that reflects what they would LIKE to be like – ‘I would like to cook so I will buy a house with a large kitchen’. This results in people paying for something that they are unlikely to use as opposed to buying a property which they can get the most out of. The moral of the story: ask yourself what you want from a house – don’t buy a house in the hope that it will change the way you live!
