As you read about buying real estate, you will often find the words "house" and "home" used interchangeably. I often do this too, but there really is a huge difference between a "house" and a "home". I'd like to clear up some of the "confusion" here.
House
A house is a material possession and an investment. It can be a place to eat, sleep, park your car, and put all your "stuff", including your other family members. A house is something you buy logically.
Home
A home is where you live. A home is a feeling. A home is where you and your loved ones feel comfortable, warm, safe, and protected. A home is an emotional purchase.
Buying Real Estate
When buying real estate where you plan to live, you have to balance your emotional wants and your logical needs, because there will almost certainly be a time when the two conflict. So, you want to be buying a house that will also be a home.
When viewing a property, most people are looking for a home, so they look at it emotionally and have visions of their loved ones enjoying living in the safe, happy, comfortable home. Later, when making the actual offer to purchase or filling out a home loan application, their logic may begin to kick in, and they start thinking about the property as a house.
For example, you may want a home with a view, but the bond repayment on that house would be higher than what you feel comfortable with. So, what do you do?
Do you buy the same kind of property without the view, and get the house that much cheaper, or buy a smaller home and still get the view? Do you buy the property anyway, and budget more carefully for the next few years, or do you choose to pay a larger deposit, to obtain a lower monthly bond repayment.
Buying a House or a Home?
The trick in buying real estate is to view property with a healthy balance of logic and emotional perspective. If a situation presents itself that requires a trade-off, decide whether there is a huge conflict between the logic and the emotional perspective. Logic should always win the big conflicts, but the emotions should always be considered as well. And if some aspect about a home would make you very happy emotionally, without going against all reasonable logic, then emotions may even be allowed to win, sometimes.
You want to end up owning a warm, happy, safe home, as well as a house that is an investment for the future.
