What every agent and home buyer must realize is that when we look at homes, there are three homes. There is the fantasy home for the buyer. This is the home that they REALLY want but cannot afford. Next, there is the home that the home buyer thinks they would be willing to settle on. This is the home that may still be somewhat out of reach but with a few tweaks could lie within reality. Lastly, there is the home that the buyer is truly qualified to buy.

One of the very first things that must be dealt with is the fact that most of the time the buyers wants do not match the buyers economic position currently. There is nothing wrong with this. In fact it is just basic human nature. But if we look at home buying as a process, then we know that we must walk before we can run.

Once a buyer has been pre-qualified then they know what price range of homes that they can buy. But it is also in this revelation that buyers often come to realize that the type of home they ultimately envision is not in their price range.

Many buyers believe that the remedy to this is to look at the homes they want and then hope that a seller will take thousands of dollars less than the list price. Quite typically this approach only leads to discontentment and frustration. You can get the home that you want but you must be wise in your approach.

This means that if a buyer really only wants a certain home but that home is out of their price range then the first option may be to wait and save more money for a home. The next option would be to attempt to place offers on the homes that you want but understand that looking at homes that are significantly beyond your price range  is likely not going to be productive for you.

We can put in a lower offers and ask for other items but the truth is that you would have to be willing to put in offers on LOTS of homes and then see if any of them would be accepted. While this method tends to serve investors well, it is not generally the way the average homeowner wants to look for the home that they will want to live in.

The next method would be to figure out your five “must haves” and concentrate on attaining your “must have” features within your price range. Sometimes finding out that if we concentrate our efforts on the truly attainable items, we are likely to meet with success.