?Chris & Sharon Lohss enjoying a glass of wine
Jim & Jane Klos relaxing
Peter & Vickie Lockwood at home on the porch
In the real estate business, it is a question I often ask myself. I have a few solid answers:
Home resides in your soul.
It is where you surrender to sleep, where you eat most of your breakfast meals, where you raise your family and pets, kiss your Dearest goodnight, arrange the treasures you’ve gathered in life, have a good deal of your money invested, tend your garden, and express your style.
Home is where you should feel safe, happy, and content.
Home helps define who you are to yourself and others.
As a real estate agent, I am constantly struck by how a person steps inside a “listing” and immediately senses: This is Home! When I begin a property search for a client, I start by listening to what the client says–and doesn’t say. Many of us have trouble defining what we love–far easier to say what we don’t like. But, in finding “Home,” it is all about the small details.
What goes into that visceral reaction of a person knowing this is where they need to live?
What makes one property perfect while another is so disappointing?
In real estate, there’s a trite expression: Location, location, location.
Location is important. But it is only one factor. We all reside within geography, location, views, sunlight, landscaping. We decide generally where we want to live. Then there is the style of the home we like, the actual use of space and number of rooms, the layout and flow, the sense of our life within the boundaries of a structure.
Does a home have a window looking out to our dreams?
Can we imagine our present and our future in this particular place?
Does it have something that satisfies the longing to enjoy love and life, to cook, garden, be part of our community and nature, to have a cozy space to reflect on life?
Will we feel safe, happy, protected, and…???
Oh, those intangibles! The gut feeling that hits within 30 seconds. Home is personal. Home is solid. Home is rooted to our deepest feeling and concept of how we define our own life. Yet, it changes. It is always a wish, a possibility, a hard reality of our own restrictions due to budgets, family needs, work, timing. It is life defining, as we live in our home.
It is at the core of why I love real estate: I love to help a person find their way home.
