Homeownership can be a wild but exciting ride and whether you’ve lived in your house for a decade or a lifetime, buckling up is the best thing you can do.
Regardless how long you’ve lived in your personal shelter called home, you are more than likely to move across these 4 stages of homeownership, from the very first day you get that set of new keys until you hand them over to the new buyers.
Here are the 4 phases of homeownership you will experience and what you might expect of them:
Phase 1: Starting out
You’ve bought your home, the real estate agent’s ‘SOLD’ sign has been taken down and you are standing in front of your new house.
Exciting times, no?!
With the keys in your hand, you feel a fluttery feeling in your stomach!
Questions scramble through your mind:
- What color should I paint the living room?
- Which room will be the kids’ room?
- Where will my new couch go?
The first phase is all about settling in and making yourself, well, at home!
While you may be eager to completely start building on or breaking down walls, and while some ‘minor changes’ will obviously always happen, you ought to actually give yourself a year or two to settle down and enjoy the home ‘as is’.
After all, it’s difficult to change a space you haven’t lived in yet, no?
Phase 2: Settling in
The next phase might take a few months (or even a few years for some), but during this phase your house becomes a home.
You’ve dusted off all the boxes and your furniture is all packed out, you know the neighbors and you’ve been to a few local hangouts!
Holidays have already been celebrated in your home and your dinner table has hosted a few dinner parties. You are completely at peace in your home and you got to know all its unique qualities.
Phase 3: Fixing up
If you have bought an older home, you might want to upgrade the roof, the walls, the flooring or anything else that might be outdated. And, if the housing market continues to show an upward trend, you might want to dig into your house’s equity (which is something a lot of people weren’t aware of they could do).
Perhaps, you have now lived in your home for a few years and want to upgrade it to your lifestyle, it might actually be time to start remodeling?
A lot of times, the custom aspect of a house is what captures a lot of people’s attention!
Phase 4: Moving on
Finally, after you’ve spent years and years in your beloved little cocoon, you might decide it’s time to spread those wings and fly.
Only you will know when it is time to sell your house and start the phases over in a new home!
It might be a new job, it might be that the kids are out of the house and you want to downsize or it might simply be because you want a new challenge.
Whatever your reason is, the last phase might leave you feeling sad when you hand the same set of keys to a new owner, but you will be well-versed in these 4 phases to start anew and restart your home buying journey in a new location with new memories to be made and new adventures to be taken up.
When you bought your home, did you go through these phases of homeownership as well? Were there perhaps additional ones you noticed? Please share your experience in the comments below!
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