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Where Fantasy Meets Reality
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Instead, house hunting becomes more like gambling, Brafman said. Agents tell him that their clients are giddy with delight, looking at the falling home prices as a chance to make up for all the missed opportunities of the past. They begin to dismiss important questions such as how much house they can afford and whether the investment makes sense. Rather, they wonder: How do I know this is really the bottom? What if this is not the absolute lowest price? Will my house be worth more money six months from now than it is today?
"The adrenaline is flowing; the hunt is on," Brafman said.
"Buyers should take a long-term view and not think of the housing market as a casino."
My husband and I have been tiptoeing through this emotional minefield of selling and then buying a home. I was miffed when prospective buyers at our open house in May derided the eggplant-colored living room walls that I had lovingly painted as an unpleasant brown. I fretted about setting the price too high and, when the house sold in four days, fretted about whether we had priced it too low.
Now that we're on the other side, everyone tells us it's a great time to buy. We don't believe it. Brafman's questions jostle around in our head. The houses we like get snatched up. We turn up our noses at the leftovers.
The biggest false hope that I had? That any of this would be fun.
"People have a preconceived notion that it's like walking into a store and you're going to see something and pick it out. . . . Those are expectations that are generally not realistic," said Ruth Peters, a psychologist who has worked with the brokerage firm Coldwell Banker. "It's going to take emotional work and physical work."
The good news is that people have another irrational expectation: that a bad decision will make us unhappy.
The truth is, according to Harvard University psychologist Daniel Gilbert, that we often believe the consequences will be worse than they are. We underestimate our ability to adapt.
Maybe we can even get used to letting go of our castles and just living in a home.
