They bought the bigger home. They completed the remodel. Together, those decisions represented an investment of more than $1.5 million.
And neither one fixed the problem.
In my last article, I introduced three projects that still haunt me—projects where the stakes were homeowners investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in their homes, only to discover that they had been fixing the wrong problems.
Today, I’m sharing the biggest mistake of them all: the three clues that were hiding in plain sight before this couple bought the house, before they began the remodel, and before their $1.5 million decision cost them far more than money.
The point to remember from my last article is this: the failure happened earlier—not in design and not in construction. The decision was made when nobody was in the room who could stop it.
Today, we shine a light on how to stop it.
“If the wrong decisions stay hidden until pressure-tested, then that doesn’t happen until you embark on your project. Most often, it’s too late to turn back.”
In researching this topic over the last year, I couldn’t find any information that helped teach homeowner's on how to pressure-test the decision before execution—before the first hire.
In the case of my homeowners, the first decision was to sell and move. The home they had was in the perfect location but too small for their growing family. The project: find a bigger home.
I started by looking for the one thing that homeowners need the most. I looked first in the thousands of blogs, case studies and research articles they turn to as they start the process. I looked for anything that resembled:
If I had it to do over again, with what I now know, would it change my decision?
What I found were best practices, how-to’s, and case studies…all post solution none on why the decision was made.
You can find thousands of articles from homeowners, designers, realtors and contractors each speaking from experience. They provide advice based on age, income, lifestyle, and location. Regrets are sometimes implied. The conclusion: it’s a rite of passage that all homeowners must travel alone.
I couldn’t find even one article on how homeowners came to the decision to remodel or move—or whether they pressure-tested it as the right decision for their life plan.
How did they know they were fixing the right problems?
Great expert advice can’t stop you from spending thousands of dollars fixing the wrong problem. Experience is all you have, and in the absence of that then what?
What is that elusive research homeowners should be doing?
If the couple from my previous article—the ones who ended up separating during the remodel—had spent their time discussing why purchasing was the solution to their problems, they would have seen that this new home couldn’t solve those problems and the impending remodel didn’t stand a chance. The pressure test would have failed.
All they had to do was ask three questions:
· What problems are we fixing?
· Why do we need to fix them?
· Do they fit our life plan for the future?
Put another way: you need to know what problems you are fixing in your life by fixing your house problem. Because:
Your Home Can’t Fix Your Life.
This was a very expensive mistake: over $1.4 million for the home, plus another $100,000 for the remodeling.
A $1.5 million financial decision all built around the wrong problems.
Look at the list below. Here is my top eight of homeowner regrets:
1. We should have remodeled more—or less.
2. We solved the wrong problem.
3. We should have moved instead.
4. We spent too much based on the time we will remain here.
5. We over-compromised on the features that mattered most.
6. We prioritized appearance over daily function.
7. We hired before understanding the project we wanted to build or the house we wanted to find.
8. We improved one room while leaving the larger household problem unresolved.
These regrets are earned when experience doesn’t get to weigh in early enough.
How You can Stop These Mistakes
For this couple, regrets 2, 7, and 8 were at the heart of a $1.5 million mistake.
Clue 1. We solved the wrong problem.
The biggest mistake you can make can also be the most expensive, leaving a financial scar that may take decades to heal. This was a $1.5 million financial decision that could not deliver what they needed most.
Solution: Make sure you are clear on what problems you are fixing. In this case they thought they needed a bigger home. In the end “space” became more “distance” away from each other.
Clue 2. We hired before understanding the project we wanted to build or the house we wanted to find.
The second-largest mistake you can make is not asking why. Why this project? Why this house? Why this timing? Deep thinking and honest prompting are how you get this right.
You can recover from this if it’s a simple remodel or if you get part of the solution right.
Solution: Asking why over and over again until you get the heart of the decision. This alone will produce such clarity on your future plans that you can’t help but start to see if the foundation is cracking.
Clue 3. We improved one room—one project—while leaving the larger household problem unfixed.
This is the third mistake my clients made. They went for one project—a bigger home—without addressing the bigger household problem: a drifting life plan.
For them, it would have taken some very hard questions early, before the first hire at their solution point.
Solution: How does this decision improve our future? What other problems need fixing that we haven’t addressed.
The solution point—the moment you decide to remodel or move. It comes before you hire and after you know what problems need fixing.
If I had been with them during that time—before the house hunt, before they hired anyone to do a job—I’m pretty sure I would have seen the foundation cracking around their decision to move. I could have been the close friend nudging them to pause, take a deep breath and look at a little deeper.
If I had asked the first question—what problem are we solving? Then listened, not waiting to hear the word sell or buy, but ready to hear the daily frustrations; space issues, the fear of life changing, and how they see their future, I would have heard more than “bigger house.”
I know this because, in my very first meeting, the regret was already seeping in, they were already mourning their tight community, downtown walks, the corner bistro where everyone knows their names and they hadn’t even settled on the new home yet.
Are we investing in the right solution for this home and the life we want to live in it?
A bigger home with a beautifully executed remodel can still be a costly mistake if it solves the wrong problem.
My advice; make the right first decision—it’s your only defense against the costly mistakes that are upstream the ones you can’t see yet.
Before you remodel or move, what problem are you asking your home to solve? Comment Below…I would love to hear your thoughts.