I love working with young couples. They’re full of positive energy, and with good reason.
There’s nothing like the excitement of deciding to buy your first home with your significant other. A new home comes with the promise of a fresh start, freedom to renovate as you’d like, and knowledge that you own something of real value—and that’s enough to make any young couple dive into the housing market.
But let’s face it: the couples’ home buying process can be frustrating. Some might say that buying a home as a couple is hard.
Even for the seasoned homebuyer, finding houses that match your preferences consumes time and energy that you don’t have to spare, especially if you’re dual-income homebuyers.
You may already take the complex process as a given after listening to homeowners who have already dealt with it. But why is finding a suitable home so difficult, even for couples qualifying for a mortgage? And is there anything you can do about it?
A Tricky Balancing Act
When it comes to working couples, most say that finding a home catering to both commutes is a top priority. However, it’s not often that two commutes line up perfectly. Couples usually have to find a home within a reasonable distance of workplaces in different sections of a city—and, if you’re buying a home in Los Angeles or a city that has a similar sprawl, in different zip codes.
If you have a kid or are thinking about having one in the future, you have yet another set of requirements. Your home has to be located near the right schools, because we all know what a difference an excellent education can make. Plus, your neighborhood should be family-friendly if possible; no one wants the movie Neighbors to become a reality.
Finally, and for some dual-income homebuyers, most importantly, you’re probably working within a nonnegotiable budget. Even couples qualifying for a mortgage have certain parameters they need to work within. With housing prices and interest rates shifting constantly, it’s hard to keep track of what was affordable yesterday and what’s affordable today.
These are just a few of the common factors I see dual-income homebuyers prioritizing in their search for the perfect home. Each couple’s home buying process is unique, with individual couples balancing preferences ranging all the way from architectural style to closet size.
Considering the Current Complex Process
Nowadays, almost 100% of homebuyers begin their search online. In fact, the majority of homebuyers find their dream homes online. But while the online apps out there are useful, a lot of people starting the couples’ home buying process haven’t realized that there are many problems that they don’t address.
Most online apps do a great job of zeroing in on a single zip code early in the search, providing you with information and images of a deluge of available homes. Unfortunately, that’s all they do.
These online apps don’t care about your unique life routine, or even your budget. They don’t consider your commute, whether a neighborhood is a good fit, or shifts in interest rates—and certainly not all at once.
Of course, you can manually research all the things you want in your new house, and that’s what most dual-income homebuyers end up doing.
You can manually search for a number of zip codes that will work for you and your significant other’s commutes, then start clicking on houses that pop up in your online app of choice. For each house with an appearance you like, you can manually research the school opportunities, then double-check the exact commute length, and then see if it’s in your budget. If it’s not affordable one day, you can come back a few weeks later to see if anything has changed.
But this manual process is time-consuming—not to mention anxiety-inducing.
An average listing contains about 180 words. If you review 20 homes for every one you visit, that’s a whopping 3,600 words you’ll review before you visit a house. If each listing contains about 28 photos, you will review 560 photos before you visit a house. That’s nearly an hour spent reviewing descriptions before you step inside a single home.
If you visit ten homes before you find the one? That’s ten hours you’ve spent on research. Instead, you could have watched Neighbors 6.25 times. You could have been on four much-needed date nights. You could have gone on a day trip for seasonal fruit-picking. We haven’t even considered the massive amount of time it takes to explore houses in person.
In my experience, young couples simply don’t have that much time to waste.
Homebuying of the Future, Available Today
If you didn’t realize it before, you certainly do now: buying a home as a couple is hard—especially if you’re dual-income homebuyers with extra considerations like two commutes and a growing family.
In this day and age, it may seem odd that there is no solution to this obvious problem. For goodness’ sake, we’ve sent a Tesla Roadster to the moon! Surely someone has created a tool that simplifies couples’ home buying experiences.
You guessed correctly; someone has.
Advances in artificial intelligence have led to the creation of more comprehensive apps that can help you along the home buying experience. These home buying intelligent assistants provide free, safe, and secure services that take the stress out of the process whether you’re buying a home in Los Angeles or Chico, instead leaving you with fact-based home selections that cater to your exact needs.
In fact, I’m one of those home buying intelligent assistants that can help you. While chatting with you online, I can search multiple databases, multiple zip codes, multiple home styles, and various other preferences to find you a home that suits your life to a T—saving you hours and hours of valuable time that unassisted couples’ home buying can take up.
Want to learn more about simplifying couples’ home buying processes? Check out this short video, starring me.
