The process of finding and buying a house is laden with emotion. There are major highs: from falling in love with your ‘dream home’ during that first viewing and having an offer accepted, to the excitement of exchanging contracts and immense relief at finally getting the keys upon Completion.

However, there can also be serious lows, such as being ‘gazumped’, property chains collapsing, or Building Surveys coming back with worrying findings. All in all, there is a great deal of uncertainty involved, which can play havoc with buyers’ feelings.

A survey by Yopa found 40% of respondents found the experience of buying a house more stressful than getting married (25%), getting divorced (34%), having a baby (31%) and changing jobs (27%). Interestingly, Yopa’s survey also found that 60% of respondents found the thought of the stress involved put them off the idea of moving altogether!

Despite this, however, there are times when you can’t avoid the stress: you may need to move for work, family, or to upsize or downsize. Sometimes, a move is just unavoidable.

So how can buyers manage their emotions in the process of moving? Where are the emotional pinch points, and how can buyers navigate them?

Why are you looking to move?

The first emotional hurdle to buying a house is establishing that you want or need to move, and why. Buyers will likely jump this hurdle without even realising it, as the limitations of their current home become all too apparent.

Perhaps now that your spare bedroom is a nursery, grandparents can’t come to stay and it’d be handy to have their help with childcare when you go back to work. Or perhaps the daily commute is sapping your energy and finances, and you’d really like to cut the travel time in half. Maybe you’re tired of city life, are now working from home, and can pursue a more bucolic lifestyle with a relocation?  In cases such as these, the move is to make your life easier and reduce some of the stresses you might face now, or in the long-term.

Maybe you’re looking to start a family, and your current home is outside the catchment area of a good school. Or perhaps a relationship has ended and you are going your separate ways. Maybe a new job means relocation to a completely new town, city or county. In cases such as these, the move is associated with a major transition in your life anyway, adding to the emotional impact.

In any case, it is important to establish the reasons behind your move and what it needs to achieve for you. This can help focus your search from the outset and save you wasting emotional energy looking at properties or areas that won’t help you get to where you need to be.  It is no secret that buyers should create a list of criteria that their new house should meet (no. of bedrooms, property type/age, garden size…), but it is important to be especially mindful of the fundamental reason(s) behind the move, as it is easy to get side-tracked.

Know your budget

Before you even start looking at houses, it is important that you have a clear idea of what you can afford. This ensures you avoid setting your sights on a property that is just not within reach, financially. Have your deposit in place, alongside a Decision in Principle (if applicable).

You may be tempted to look at houses at the upper end of your budget, or just over, on the off chance that a low offer could be accepted by a desperate vendor. Whilst this can happen, it is more likely that you will end up longing for something you just can’t have. It is therefore best to look at properties that fall within your price range.

Viewing houses objectively

When you view a property, you need to visualise your life in, and centred around, that house. What would life look and feel like if we lived here? How would the day-to-day routines of the household run? How would you get to work, or which room would you work from? Where are the local schools, and are they any good? Is this lifestyle in line with what you are aiming to achieve with the move? You can imagine the shorter commute, or how nice it would be to wake up to views of the countryside as opposed to tower blocks, or plan the route your children would take to school etc. In considering all of this, it is easy to become emotionally invested at this early stage.

Whilst visualising your life in a property can fill you with hope and optimism, it also begins to build huge expectations. What is more, we are innately susceptible to a Confirmation Bias, whereby the mind tends to focus on information that supports a prevailing belief, rather than information that contradicts it. So, for example, if your house search is focused on a particular road or area, you may be forgiven for falling in love with the first property there to come on the market in years, despite the fact that is a bit too small for your family. This is compounded if the viewing is conducted by an Estate Agent, who will be an expert salesperson who maximises these cognitive biases!

With our own minds against us, you’d be forgiven for thinking there is little that can be done to avoid emotionally investing in houses when viewing. However, there are ways to help minimise the emotional investment:

• Take an opportunity to look around unaccompanied. Most estate agents and vendors will assume you want to do this anyway, but if the opportunity doesn’t present itself, don’t be afraid to ask. It is a good opportunity to make an appraisal of the property without a sales pitch in your ear.
• Take a friend to the viewing. Whether you are buying alone or with a partner or family, it is a good idea to view properties with someone who isn’t involved in the move. They will be more likely to note features or aspects of a property that might otherwise go unnoticed. An objective friend might just be able to stop your mind focusing too much on the aspects of a property you know you love, and highlight certain realities of living there too.  Discuss the viewing with your trusted friend afterwards, and you’ll find they have picked up things that went over your head (or you subconsciously ignored!).

Making an offer

The downside, of course, is when a buyer runs this emotional gauntlet, professed that a property is their ‘dream home’, carefully considers and then submits their best offer…only to find it goes nowhere.

Maybe it falls far below what others have put on the table and is beyond budget. Maybe the agent is asking whether they can increase their offer, even a little, to compete.  Or maybe the vendor had cold feet after seeing countless people traipsing through their beloved home, and realised they weren’t ready to sell after all! There are many reasons that your best offer on your ‘dream home’ won’t be accepted, and the only way to guard against your hopes being dashed at this stage is to go into this part of the process thinking, “I really want to buy this house, but it probably won’t happen”.

To try to minimise the emotional drain involved in putting an offer on a house and the negotiation that often follows with estate agents/vendor, stick to your budget:

• Don’t be tempted to stretch yourself beyond your means or beyond what you really feel the property is worth.
• Even if this house is your ‘dream’, remember that you still have to be able to afford to live in it and maintain it.
• If a mortgage is involved, a valuation by a lender may be at odds with what you’ve agreed to pay, and this can cause you problems further down the line.

Problems with the property

The conveyancing process is fraught with uncertainty. Waiting for Searches to be returned can be a source of worry for some buyers, whilst others might anxiously await the findings of a Building Survey or Structural Inspection, or details of their mortgage offer.

If a report or search comes back with worrying conclusions- signs of subsidence, extensive damp or alterations without Building Control approval, for example- a buyer would rightly be concerned about the purchase. An emotionally invested buyer might be tempted to overlook these issues, particularly as surveys and inspections generally only happen some way into the conveyancing process. They might feel they are too far down the line to pull out and lose the money they have spent on the purchase so far. Or they may feel they can’t risk trying to negotiate a lower price, for fear of the vendor pulling out.

As with viewing houses, it is a good idea to try and look at the situation as objectively as possible:

• Find out an approximate cost and timeframe for fixing the issue(s). Speak to a trusted builder or other specialist, and use this to negotiate a lower offer on the property.
• Ask the vendor if they would be willing to fix the issues themselves, and agree a timeframe for this.
• If all else fails, consider whether you should really proceed with the purchase. Yes, you will have lost money on legal fees, searches and survey/inspection costs. However, relative to the costs that could be involved in fixing very serious issues (costs that you had not budgeted for), these fees are likely a drop in the ocean. Sometimes it is better to cut your losses, although this will no doubt leave you feeling frustrated and upset.

Summary

Buying a house is a huge decision in itself, given the costs involved. Couple this with the fact that moving home is always a major transition in our lives, and it is no surprise many buyers are an emotional wreck by Completion! We’re all human, and our innate cognitive biases can seem to work against us when navigating the high and low points of buying a house.

To guard against becoming too emotionally involved in your house purchase, some top tips are to:

• Know your budget, and stick to this
• Bring a trusted friend to viewings, as they may pick up things that passed you by
• Don’t be afraid to negotiate a lower offer based on findings from a survey or structural inspection

Most importantly, don’t become desperate. It might seem like you’ll never find your next home, but it is important not to get worn down by the emotional ups and downs of viewings, offers and the conveyancing process, to the point where you’ll pay anything or turn a blind eye to glaring issues, just to get those keys! Another property will always come along.

If you are looking for a Surveyor, you may find some of these links useful: