We all know that buying a home is a serious monetary investment, but it’s important not to underestimate the amount of time it takes to go from searching for a home to actually getting the keys for it. Much of that time investment comes from the process of buying a home, but did you know that it’s also important to consider how much time you spend actually searching for a property?

Many people don’t know this, but it takes people on average three months to search for a home. That’s a serious amount of time spent just searching for a property. In fact, people can visit up to 19 different houses or more before being able to make a decision.

The key to avoiding this is by learning how to make compromises. Searching for the perfect home is certainly possible, but there comes a point where you need to decide on a home before one of those “good” options you had before is sold to another family. So in this post, we’re going to talk a bit about how to make compromises when buying a new home, or if you should make compromises at all.

Compromising When It Makes Sense

A great case for compromising on a house is if you’re planning on moving up the property ladder. If you aren’t going to stay at a property for a long time then it makes complete sense to just pick a home that is fairly good for the price and go with it. You can adjust your life to your property and you don’t need to make expensive renovations to get it perfect.

Another great argument for compromising is if you simply don’t have time to be picky. For instance, if you or your partner is pregnant and are expecting to start a family, then it’s fairly common to move into a larger home so that you can support raising your children. In a situation like this, you can’t afford to be picky because you have a time limit.

A Case for Never Compromising

Despite all of this talk about making compromises, there are actually two ways to avoid this. First, we’ll talk about using a buyers agent to help you find a home. Instead of looking by yourself, a buyers agent can help a tremendous amount. They’ll save you time when searching for properties, they can help you access exclusive property deals, and they’ll have a large network of contacts to use in order to find you the perfect home. Yes, it costs a bit more, but if you’re going to spend a lot of time searching for the perfect home anyway, then it makes sense to invest a bit more money.

The second way is to actually renovate a home instead. Renovations are a good way to make the final tweaks to an otherwise great property. This will help you make the adjustments you need to turn it from a great home into a perfect home. This is obviously easier said than done and can cost a serious amount of money, but there is usually no limitations to what you can do if you’re willing to spend the money.