Let’s talk love it or list it?

We all aspire to have the dream home, something that’s often multifunctional yet beautiful and, let’s face it even after 20 years of creating beautiful homes for others: even Architects and Interior Designers have house envy…

But does that mean we should close shop, spend a fortune in moving costs: stamp duty, surveys, solicitors, and then there’s listing our own house and all the costs that come with that.

In fact pushing financials aside, listing your own home can I very challenging in itself: people judging your home, saying they want to rip the flooring up, knock the walls down and re-jig the insider completely. Whilst your standing their thinking “my daughter took her first steps in their” or “my grandson and I built a huge train track that covered the entire grown floor in here” or even something much bigger like “my husband carried me over the threshold when we got the keys, we then ate takeaway on the living room floor with a cardboard box as at the time our furniture hadn’t arrived OR we didn’t yet have any”.

I suppose the point I’m making is although we look on longingly on Pinterest Mood Boards or TikTok, organising clips (even me in truth) but our house isn’t just the some of beautifully laid out sock drawers that know one will see: it’s a memory box, a big memory box mind you, but it’s a memory box none the less.

My grandad was a builder, and an amazing one at that and when I brought my first home he gave some sound advice on the 2 things to look for:

1) Location

2) Plot size (the land the house sits on, front back and side(s)

And it’s for this very reason: once you buy it these are the only two things that can’t be altered or changed, well, unless you get lucky and your neighbour sells you land from his sheep farm!!

But he was/is correct.

Everything else in our homes can be changed or improved, nothing is impossible really; even listed properties. I’ll grant you that they are harder to amend but again not impossible

So if your location is right and you have the space to make the changes, then why are we spending hours on Right Move looking to move? Because we want to keep up with the dream of having a Stacy Solomon house where everything has its place, there’s zero clutter and any hint of children’s toys is gone (with some form of sorcery or perhaps its fairy dust, whatever it is we are all thinking the same thing: I need to get me some of that!!).

So I suppose my point is this, perhaps you should move if you dream to open your windows and see rolling hills, or maybe the opposite and that your desperate for the fast pace city life where your two buildings down from your fav deli where you can grab that coffee to go (along with something tasty from the counter which you swear to yourself that you will burn off later 🫣…. Or maybe there’s the perfect school for your children and it’s just by the park, and your thinking this will be perfect to take a stroll around with the buggy, and if when your baby gets a little older you all can don your wellies and splash in puddles, take old cereal at the bottom of the bag and feed the ducks 🦆 (no bread 🍞 of course, or that park will quickly become a rat 🐀 pond instead eeeeek! 🫢).

Or maybe you should move as the road is crammed and your without a drive OR worse still you have some but it doesn’t matter how many signs you put on people still park infront of your almost nonexistent driveway and your forever put in a bad mood by 8am just because you would like to go into the office or drop the kids off…

And then there’s that garden: you have a new build or maybe even just a balcony from your flat but you dream of perennial flower board with a vegetable patch and keeping chickens 🐓 … Or even just enough space for a BBQ and to get that paddling pool out once a year when our wonderful British weather graces us with an all inclusive 2 day taste test of what it’s like to live in the Mediterranean 🌞 🌧️ and the rest of the year it will make a perfect football ⚽️ pitch for your son or a fairy 🧚🏼‍♀️ garden for your granddaughter, complete with with a wooden Wendy house for you both to sit in out of the rain and drink empty cups of tea and your 4th wooden biscuit 🍪 YUM 😋

But if you’re reasons don’t fall into those 2 categories then why would you list it? Everything else we can change, and not to go on about money but if you moved, instead of investing it a house with already has the perfect plot and location, that money you dream of spending to make even Stacey Solomon green with envy, that will be spent just purchasing the sale and move! (And let’s face it none of the houses you see regardless of budget are exactly what we dream of, they all need some sort of investment anyway to put your stamp on it) so unless you have an endless pot of gold (which you obviously found at the end of the rainbow 🌈) then you have to spend even more money on jazzing up your new purchase after you have paid all the costs that come with a purchase.

So next time you go on an endless scroll quest to find that dream home ask yourself why? Why do you want it? And if you already have my grandads gold rules then call someone who can sprinkle some fairy dust on it to make you fall in love again.

With love from your Warwick Architect