I help clients who are buying a Sequim home every day, and it’s a great assignment. I show homes, draft offers, negotiate assertively for my clients, work through the due diligence issues, and handle transaction details to assure a smooth closing. But even before clients arrive in Sequim, I still enjoy answering questions about buying a Sequim home.
I received an email from a client who is considering buying a Sequim home. He expressed his emotions well in this email, and I thought other buyers might like to know they are not alone in their concerns about buying a Sequim home. Here for your encouragement is his question or comment, and my response. This email was written the morning after this client submitted his offer on a home.
I did hardly sleep last night, kept thinking about all the things that I did not like and things I wanted that are not there. Woke up feeling I’m settling cause I’m tired of looking. I should be excited right? Suppose it is buyers remorse. Think the biggest thing is the thought of being in that neighborhood with a funky house across the street and no view.
My Answer About Buying a Sequim Home
Moving to Sequim and buying a Sequim home consists of two consecutive stressful events. It gets the emotions going for sure. I can identify with you, especially when you wrote, “I should be excited, right?” My assistant asked me recently, “Aren’t you excited about how things are going, about the success we’re having with our clients and our Internet marketing system?” My answer surprised her.
I said I was excited, but not the same way a person in their 20’s or 30’s might get excited about good things that are happening in life. When I was young, my excitement gave me an emotional high, and I would ride the crest of a joyful wave. On the other hand, when there was an event or circumstance that caused me stress, I would find myself in the trough, or as John Bunyan phrased it in Pilgrim’s Progress, “the slough of despond.”
As I went through various phases in life and good and bad experiences, I began to learn how to control my emotions to be more even and to cause me less pain in the hard times. The pain I went through when I lost my wife when she divorced me was beyond words. And the hurt of losing everything materially was enough to kill a man. The challenge of having to start all over in life and the daily struggles of trying to rebuild felt like a ball and chain dragging me to the bottom of the ocean. And then my son’s death was emotionally devastating.
So, I explained to my assistant, I am much more emotionally level today. I get excited, but not like when I was a kid. I get disappointed, but not devastated. My assistant and I are probably the most successful team on the entire Olympic Peninsula and one of the most successful teams in the State of Washington, and I am excited about that. But you wouldn’t necessarily pick that up from me. I count my blessings, but I dare not be proud. Life is too short for that. And that helps me balance my emotions. As someone once said, “Balance and moderation in all things.”
But here’s the other side of the coin. My emotional highs are also leveled downward. Part of not being caught in the trough anymore means also not riding the crest as high anymore. It’s a natural subconscious process that occurs in maturity. If we are growing, we are becoming more stable emotionally and consistent.
If you had told me when I was 25 that I won the lottery, I would have leapt with joy and probably not slept for a week, and made lists of things I intended to spend the money on. Today if you told me I won the lottery, I would probably say, “That’s a good thing. I’m very pleased. Let’s go out and celebrate by having a Cobb Salad at a nice restaurant. Maybe even a glass of wine.” But I wouldn’t lose any sleep, and my life would not likely change much, if at all. I’m certain that my emotions would not be all over the map anymore.
Big decisions do create uncertainty for me at 58 years old, and I’m willing to take risks as long as they are calculated risks. I don’t need lots of stress in my life. Been there. Done that. I find that uncertainty is a major cause of stress, especially as we grow older.
How does all this relate to buying a Sequim home? What we can do intelligently when you buy a Sequim home is to do all our due diligence on your behalf, to make reasoned decisions after fully exploring all the issues and facts and brainstorming together, and ultimately if a decision is right at the end of that due diligence period, I reckon my buyers know that in their hearts and minds. Don’t get me wrong–we definitely gather all the facts about a house and do our due diligence thoroughly. I learned how to do that as a real estate attorney. But here’s the reality: Emotions play a huge role in buying a Sequim home.
My Hope for You Buying a Sequim Home
My hope is to be able to help you walk through the process carefully and with wisdom so that you can be sure you make the right decisions at the end. It’s always a little stressful, and that’s undoubtedly an understatement, but I pour myself into my client’s transactions and their decision making process without holding anything back so that I can help carry some of the burden with you and so that we can experience the joy (or disappointment) together in the end. I can tell you that 99% of my clients do experience a great deal of joy after they close, and they are very happy. But like me, most are emotionally mature and the excitement might not be as visible as it was when we were in our 20s or 30s. I think my client’s statement, “I should be excited, right?” is measured by our phase in life and our maturity. Maybe I could say our definition of excitement matures as we mature. You might be encouraged to know that such emotions are not uncommon for anyone who is buying a Sequim home.
Last Updated on September 19, 2019 by Chuck Marunde
Kudos to you Chuck! Choosing and buying a new home will be a lot easier with the help of your advice. There are far too many hurdles for buyers and sellers to risk so much money on inexperienced agents, no offense intended toward those agents. God bless them, but when clients pay no more for your experience, why would they hire a less experienced Sequim real estate agent, unless they just don’t realize the importance.
I notice this as well, particularly with my older clientele in the Nashville area. Properties are selling so quickly here that I generally discourage individuals from waiting for their ‘dream’ home, and instead focus on getting the Nashville neighborhood they want and upgrading the home according to their tastes.