- The Power of Knowing Your Housing Psychology
- What Is Housing Psychology?
- Learning from the Success and Mistakes of Others
- Get the Most from the 10 Secrets to Successful Home Buying and Selling
- End Notes
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Get the Most from the 10 Secrets to Successful Home Buying and Selling
Use this book in the way that works best for you: either as uninterrupted reading or as a guide for making a pending housing decision.
Part 1, "Your Housing Psychology," acquaints you with your unique housing psychology and the underlying reasons for the sometimes euphoric and sometimes painful housing emotions most of us have experienced in our lives. In my seminars on home and decision-making, I've seen people cry6 and watched others break through decision paralysis by "revisiting" homes of their past. And anyone who has ever "fallen in love" with a home knows the emotion that can accompany—and sometimes sabotage—their housing negotiations.
Chapters 2–8 show you just how the non-financial areas of your life impact your finances to your benefit or your detriment, depending upon your Housing Value System and your approach to housing decision-making. Each reader must learn for himself or herself the underlying experiences and values that make up his or her own Housing Value System before moving on to compare notes with a loved one or another family member.
Chapter 9, "When Housing Values Differ," is especially helpful to couples and family members who make joint housing decisions. You and your partner should be able to compare and discuss your housing personalities and past experiences when informed by insight and a shared sense of purpose. No longer must you deal silently (or otherwise uncomfortably) with your housing differences. Instead, you can use the framework outlined in chapters 4–8 to better understand and more openly deal with individual issues that might remain unresolved.
Note: Throughout the book, I use "partner" to refer to spouses, significant others, and other housemates because a shared living arrangement in one way or another makes you partners. People who have shared the responsibilities of a home know the pit-of-the-stomach feeling that can accompany an unresolved housing problem with a live-in partner.
Part 2, "Finding Solutions That Work for You," provides a variety of ideas and suggestions for how to use your Housing Value System to make housing choices and decisions. If you skip to your pending housing problem in Part 2, here is a decision tip at the outset: Return to the housing history and housing profile exercises in Chapters 3, "Your Housing History," and 4, "Creating Your Housing Profile," and read through the analyses in Chapters 5–8. The results of these exercises and elaborations form the core of a powerful system that can set you straight on the path to housing and financial security. You will clearly see how your unique housing history and housing profile are programmed right into your present lifestyle, relationships, and housing decisions.
Regardless of how you use this book, if you apply its principles, you will never have to look at housing decisions with fear or anxiety again. Instead, you can take great pleasure in both your future decisions and your future moves. Choosing the right home at the right time can be a mystical experience. A bond can begin to form with the place you call "home," whether you are renting or buying. When you buy your own home or trade up (or down) to that next home of your dreams, you will experience a feeling of well-being that extends far beyond the home itself.7