Without a doubt, the most important investment of your life will be your home. No other purchase will matter more to your lifestyle, financial future, and personal well-being. It is never too late or too soon to set a course for creating a home that will provide the maximum return and fulfill your dreams.

With step-by-step instruction, Good House Hunting will take you on an inspirational and practical journey to finding your dream home -- both within your imagination and out in the real estate world.

• For home buyers, Good House Hunting will help you navigate the complex process of finding the property with the greatest potential.


• For home owners, Good House Hunting provides the framework to help you maximize your current property.


• For dreamers, Good House Hunting sets out the course for dream home planning, so when you are ready you will have a plan.

If you long to discover what home would be a worthy investment for improving your fortunes and accomplishing your dreams, Good House Hunting is for you.

Good House Hunting

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Chapter One

Discovering Your Dream Location

The journey to the dream home begins with identifying the location that has the greatest potential, whether for serving "as is" or withminor changes or with some serious work. Occasionally, the ideal home is out there waiting to be found and simply moved into, but most often the ideal home has to be created. What the homebuyer must do is identify the property that possesses the best attributes for achieving that goal. Being methodical about this endeavor will not only increase the chance of success; it will also make the search far less overwhelming. A step-by-step approach enables people to consider one aspect of house- or property-hunting at a time, and helps them make well-considered choices along the way. These first steps will be enjoyable, but they take fortitude and effort, since there's much to be considered that requires patience and research. The reward for the time invested is finding a place that may be perfect for years to come or even for the rest of your life.

Step 1

Setting The Price Range

How much does a dream house cost? When clients first come to our office, I never ask how much money they can spend to buy, build, or renovate a home. That question goes unasked because money should never inhibit the process of imagining what would make a person as happy as possible at home. Besides, I have never met anyone whose notion of the ideal place to live depended entirely on expensive material things or whose goal was impossible to achieve. Rooms filled with natural light, airy and open spaces, framed views, and cozy corners -- elements that figure prominently in many people's dream homes -- are affordable in any price range.

When it does come down to "how much?" the only simple answer is that price depends mostly on size. Therefore it is best to search for only as much house as is really needed. Homebuyers need to have enough money to assure that their aspirations, including their desired level of quality, can be achieved. The most common and foolish mistake is to hope for more space than can be afforded. Dreams are made of quality, not quantity.

The price ultimately will be the sum of two different kinds of expenditures. The first is the cost of acquiring the property. This means buying vacant land that you'll develop, or buying a property that consists of land and an existing residence (whether it's a detached house, an attached dwelling, or a condo or co-op unit). The second expenditure is the cost you will incur in developing the land, or developing the land and dwelling, into a dream home. In other words, the second expenditure consists of the cost of improving and personalizing whatever you purchase.

Excerpted from Good House Huntingby Dennis Wedlick Copyright © 2005 by Dennis Wedlick. Excerpted by permission.
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