Sunsetting on golfer after their swing

V – Visualization: How to Turn Your Home Buying Wishlist Into Reality

In Buyers by Doug Phelps

The mind is a powerful tool in golf that many players may not utilize fully! Aside from the right equipment and clothing, a good golf game benefits from a good attitude and something known as visualization.  

Exactly as it sounds, using visualization as a tool in golf means that a player is visualizing how a shot will play out.  It may seem like a minuscule detail, but any good instructor will advise not missing out on visualization.

We’re all guilty of a little daydreaming from time to time.  Sometimes, it’s nice to just disappear in your head and visualize something exciting that is upcoming or something that has the potential of happening in the near future.  For example, maybe when you were a kid, you’d draw out the floorplan to your dream home complete with a pool full of ice cream.  

Now that you’re older, you may have ditched the idea of the ice cream pool but it’s very likely that, as a home buyer, you still have a dream home in mind.  

So how exactly do you take your dreamy wish list and make it a reality?

Write down everything on your wishlist

Whether this is your first home or your tenth home, your wish list varies every time.  The big backyard you wanted with your first home may have turned into a small deck by your third house as you have grown tired of yard work over the years.  On the flip side, maybe a “man cave” is the creme de la creme as you envision Sunday football parties with friends and family.

The first step in finding your dream home is to really sit down and visualize what you want, how your desires have changed over the years and write it all out. Your agent helps you with this. 

View a worksheet I created to help you envision the lifestyle and home you want.

Be researching on your own 

Now that you’ve started to think about what your wishlist looks like, maybe you’re having a mental block and you’re not even sure what you want!  Most common to first-time home buyers, it is also OK to not know what you want. After all, if you are new to the housing market, you may not even know what options you have.  This is a good time to be asking friends, visiting open houses or starting a free online home search right here on my website.

Of course, what you gravitate towards may not always be realistic but be sure to make note of it anyway so you can communicate it with your agent. 

Prioritize your wish list

Now that you’ve familiarized yourself with the market and started your wishlist, this is a good time to communicate in detail with your agent.  If you are having issues prioritizing your list, an agent can help you make logical sense of it. Your agent can also help you add or subtract from your list, depending on what makes sense to your situation.  If you already have a good idea of your priorities, be sure to point these out to an agent so that when he or she sets up your search, these items will be included.   

Trust your instincts

Finally, be sure to always listen to your instincts.  It may happen that you find a home with all of your wishlist items checked off, but if it doesn’t feel right then it’s best to listen to that little voice.  If a house doesn’t feel like a home, then it may not be for you and you can always keep looking. While real estate is a business transaction at the end of the day, you must be able to be comfortable calling your house your home.  

When you’re ready to begin your home search, contact me at (720) 323-4176, I’d love the chance to help you caddy your home search! Alternatively, you can search for homes right here on my website free of charge and without registering. Click here to start an online home search.


This post is part of an ongoing series where we talk about my two favorite things: golf and real estate!  Stay tuned for more golf-themed posts as we go through the ABC’s of real estate and provide helpful tips for home buyers and sellers alike. 

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