Thinking about Trade-offs

April 25, 2008 | By Kelley Koehler | Filed Under First Time Buyer, Home Buying

I’ve been thinking a lot about trade-offs lately.

Whether you’re buying or selling a home, there’s always a trade-off. Price for location. Condition for price. Yard size for age of home. Condition for age of home. The list goes on.

I think it’s important to make smart trade-off decisions. If you’re a geek like me, you could make a weighted scoring function to help you decide. But if that doesn’t float your boat, you could always just sit down and make a list of pros and cons.

I think learning how to make those trade-off decisions is the hardest part about selecting a home to purchase. Your picture of the ideal home may change over time as you see what kind of homes are available for your money in Tucson.

It’s a skill that takes a bit of time to develop, and one that I can help you with, but ultimately the decision is always yours.

I’ve got a sweet first-time buyer couple going through this right now. Not only are they making a decision which home to purchase, but it’s one of their first big decisions as a couple. Will it be the one with the big garage and back yard with no HOA and the small bedrooms and new paint needed? Or the move-in ready one with the smaller yard and garage and the HOA?

tags: decisions, real estate, trade-offs, tucson

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