Beware The Secret High Cost Of Your Next Real Estate Move

Beware The Secret High Cost Of Your Next Real Estate Move
 
Poorly planned real estate moves come at a higher cost than most people realize.  There’s the latest news from the Hollywood real estate scene that the only occupant at Katy Perry’s LA pad is the “sale pending sign” on the front lawn.  The pop star never quite got around to living in the home purchased a few years ago with then husband Russell Brand.  Instead, she dropped over $11 million on 2 adjoining homes nearby.  Then there’s the recent report from Idaho about the Governor’s mansion in Boise, which according to sources, no one has ever lived in, or wants to live in now.  To make matters worse, the mansion houses approximately $70,000 in furniture that apparently nobody wants either. That leaves the state of Idaho currently trying to figure out what to do with the fallout that can follow a poorly thought out real estate move. 
 
You may not be a pop star or state legislator, but even for the little people, there are some pretty common ways to waste big bucks on your next real estate purchase if you haven’t given clear and calculated thought to “life after the purchase,” whether you are upsizing or downsizing. (Forget pulling a Katy Perry, or an Idaho Governor move, soon to be dubbed, “no sizing.”)
 
Whatever your next real estate move after the egg nog and mistletoe memories of this holiday season fades, you may be in for a shock.  Both sides of the real estate aisle will experience their share of unexpected costs according to Donna Hoffman, founder of The Interior Design Advocate™.  On the one hand, real estate “upsizers” will need to face the hard truth that they own far too little in the way of furniture to fill that bigger home.   Big houses equal bigger scale furnishings, not to mention needing markedly more furniture to fill the increased square footage.   On the other hand, downsizers encounter the unexpected frustration that much of what they own will be too big for their new digs. 
 
Hoffman, who recently published a special report called “The Top Ten Ways Design Consumers Waste Big Money,” cautions that  “Most buyers get so giddy with excitement over their new real estate toy, they either don’t consider, or don’t want to fully consider,  what type of real financial effort will be required to furnish them.  The truth is that on average, you can expect to spend between 12% and 35% of your home’s purchase price on furnishing and filling that home. Ignore that, and you will get a hard kick in the pants from your new condo after closing,” Hoffman warns.
 
Still, the news isn’t all bad.  The internet has changed the face of furniture shopping, along with resources like Craigslist and other off price resources for both new and vintage finds.  Smarts and ingenuity can help stretch a strapped new home buyer’s budget.  The important takeaway is planning.  Using the figures Hoffman shares, it’s easier to calculate how much to set aside for furnishing.  As a result, you may decide to buy a little less new home, put down a smaller down payment to create a furnishings fund, or make a long range phased plan.
 
“As long as you have a solid, realistic plan ahead of time, you will be in far better shape than most.  I had a new client look at me with flames coming out of his eyes recently when he hired me to help him furnish his new upsized $1.2 million dollar home.  He had set aside $60,000 for furnishing the mostly empty house. That’s a lot of money, but not quite enough to fill all those larger rooms and cover those custom sized windows.   Even if he shopped in the most entry-level catalogs, I just didn’t see how he could make that budget cover everything he needed.  Ultimately he saw that I was right; that costs add up so quickly when you’re filling a new home, regardless of whether you are using entry, mid or upper level furniture”.
 
Hoffman is one of the country’s leading design consumer advocates and founder of the website, www.theinteriordesignadvocate.com, a consumer advocacy website, where she provides a free report “The 10 Ten Ways Design Consumers Waste Big Money”. A former QVC show host and award winning interior designer today, she is on a mission to help people stop wasting money when furnishing or designing their home by offering clear strategies for finding the right products, contractors, services or design tactics.

Contact Information

Donna Hoffman

Founder

The Interior Design Advocate

info@theinteriordesignadvocate.com