No matter how long you live in your Waterloo Region home – whether it’s two years or ten, or more – there are four basic stages of home ownership that people experience, and it’s highly likely you’ll go through them all too.
What are they? Read on to learn more about what to expect from each phase of owning your home
Phase 1
Unpacking and Excitement
The closing is over, they have handed you the keys to your new Waterloo Region home and all of your belongings are on the way. As they arrive and you unpack the possibilities for your new home seem almost endless, as can the work ahead.
Where will all your furniture go? Which rooms will the kids choose, what will your family think the first time they come over and will these boxes never end?
This first phase of home ownership is all about unpacking, settling in, and getting to know your new property. Learning the ins and outs of how it ‘works’, what the neighbourhood is like now that you’re actually there every day and, on a more practical level, how much it costs to maintain on a day-to-day basis.
Phase 2
Creating a Home Sweet Home
It might take months or it might take a year or more but eventually, you’ll move into the second stage of home ownership.
This is the point when all of those boxes have long been unpacked (or consigned to the basement) when most of the basic decorating and sprucing up has been completed and you’ve got to know the neighbours and discovered at least a few local haunts that have become your favorites. It’s a great phase to live through, as the Waterloo region home you purchased finally becomes a real home.
Phase 3
DIY and Project Time
If the Waterloo Region real estate market continues its upward trend – and we believe it will- then even after a few years living in their home people realise that they are sitting on some equity. SO, what to do with it?
Often this is when many homeowners take advantage of home equity lines of credit to do all the bigger projects they have now been thinking about for a while, now that they really know their home.
These projects take many forms, everything from a bathroom or kitchen remodel to a landscape upgrade or even a basement or attic conversion.
They may also be more practical – replacement windows to improve the energy efficiency of the home, a new roof to do the same – but whatever they are, the best of them not only increase the perceived value of the home but the owner’s enjoyment of living in it now.
Phase 4
Time to Move On
When will you know it’s time to move on? What will prompt you to get back out into the real estate market once again? Usually, it’s a life transition that leads people to sell a home, anything from expanding their family to taking a new job to downsizing once the kids have, mostly anyway, flown the nest.
Whatever the reasons for putting a home you probably still love on the market, the day you hand over the keys to someone else is bound to be a very bittersweet moment, it almost always is for any home seller. But often the change is good, and at least this time around you’ll be better versed in all four phases of homeownership and know just what you’re looking for.
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