Before house hunting, make a list of nine things you want in your new home. Then make a list of the nine things you don’t want. I call this “NINE OF THIS AND NONE OF THAT”. You can use this list as a scorecard to rate each property you see. The one with the biggest score wins! This helps avoid confusion and keeps things in perspective when you’re comparing dozens of homes.

When house hunting, keep in mind the difference between “SKIN AND BONES”. The BONES are things that cannot be changed such as the location, view, size of lot, noise in the area, school district and floor plan. The SKIN represents easily changed surface finishes like carpet, wallpaper, color and window coverings. Buy the house with good BONES, because the SKIN can always be changed to match your tastes. We always recommend that you imagine each house as if it were vacant. Consider each house on its underlying merits, not the seller’s decorating skills.