A house is a large investment. Many times the largest financial investment one will make during their lifetime. Yet what is frequently neglected and shocking for most buyers and sellers, is the emotional and psychological investment that goes along with the process of buying or selling a home. It is not well known, but should be noted, that the process of buying or selling a home is ranked high on life stress charts, even comparable to death or divorce. If you have ever been through the home buying or selling process, you will understand and concur that it is definitely a stressful time that essentially dominates most of your thoughts and actions.
The good news is that it does not need to be so stressful. There are strategies to help make the home buying or selling process less stressful. Start by finding a competent, knowledgeable and experienced Realtor whom you can trust. The relationship between the buyer or seller and the Realtor must be based on honesty and trust. If you don’t trust the person representing you, you will find yourself in a highly stressful situation. Trust your Realtor. This one step will eliminate a large portion of the stress and allow you to focus on the fun part of the process.
Being realistic and having reasonable expectations from the beginning stages will also reduce the stress level. Unreasonable expectations only create added and unnecessary stress for everyone while expecting the best outcome for everyone will generally result in a mutually beneficial conclusion. Another way to eliminate stress during the buying or selling process is to keep things in perspective and take one step at a time. It is easy to become overwhelmed with all that is involved, but seeing the big picture and breaking things down into smaller steps will keep things in proper perspective.
Remember to make time to eat right, get plenty of sleep and don’t take on too many added responsibilities. Buying or selling a home is time consuming and will take away from your normal routine. Prioritize, postpone or cancel other responsibilities to open up more time to handle all the additional tasks that will be necessary during the buying or selling process.
If none of these stress reducing strategies work and you are still feeling overwhelmed and stressed out, GET AWAY. Take a short trip and escape it all for awhile, even a day trip somewhere. Just take some time to relax and enjoy some down time.
The largest investment you make may not be your home after all, it may be yourself.
Make Life Golden!
