Will a real estate spreadsheet help you decide on buying a home in London Ontario? In my many years as a Realtor, I hear “I’ll add it to my spreadsheet and get back to you.”
Or, “I’ll do a spreadsheet and see if the numbers work”.
Does a spreadsheet have:
Rationality?
Reasonability?
Common sense?
Optimism?
Patience?
Happy or being right?
Uncertainty, doubt, regret?
Analysis by paralysis?
Does a real estate spreadsheet rationalize a private backyard, a particular view, a unique layout or room sizes?
Your commute to work or work from home space? Schools? Walkability? Demographics?
When I worked with investors, most of them ran spreadsheets. The most successful investors used a spreadsheet with a twenty-year time frame and removed emotion from the equation.
Those wise investors also took into consideration changes predicted for the future, such as new construction, altered traffic flows, or government interference with their ability to achieve a decent return on their investment.
Morgan Housel wrote,” Financial decisions are not made in spreadsheets or textbooks.”
A real estate spreadsheet for a home buyer helps calculate utilities, taxes, and mortgage payments, but that is it.
A home may not be the wisest investment you will ever make, but a home is you, your family, your retreat, your safety zone, your comfort zone.
How can you put a price on that? Yes, prudence in theory may be bantered about, but home ownership is more powerful!