Buying Experience Real Estate: WHY TO Guide
We’re Not in a Rush — The Fastest Way to Miss the Home You Wanted
We’re Not in a Rush — The Fastest Way to Miss the Home You Wanted
There’s a phrase I hear constantly in real estate: “We’re not in a rush.”
It sounds calm, strategic, and in control. Buyers say it because they think it keeps the upper hand. Sellers hear it and assume time is on their side. But more often than not, it’s the exact opposite. In real estate, hesitation is the fastest way to watch the home you love sell to someone else.
And when it comes to lifestyle or vacation properties especially, the damage is worse: it isn’t just that you miss a deal — you miss years of enjoyment. You miss sunsets, family trips, moments around a table, and memories that can never be bought back.
I know, because I’ve lived it myself.
How We Decide to Buy a Home (Our Real Story)
I don’t want to sound arrogant here — this isn’t theory, it’s just how we live our own buying decisions. My wife Gayle was an original owner in Rosemary Beach back in the mid-90s. At that time it was nothing but bramble fields, but the sketches promised a European-style village with cobblestone streets, tile roofs, and walking streets. She believed in the vision, and she bought.
Years later, in 2017, after she and I had become a couple, she sold that home so we could do something different along 30A.
Fast forward to 2021. During the COVID pandemic, our friend Robert Orr won the Palladio Award for his design of Plaza Central in Las Catalinas, Costa Rica. We decided to visit that May to see his work — and also to get some rest.
As we drove from the airport with a driver, Gayle looked around and said something simple but telling: “I feel safe. This is clean. This looks beautiful.” I knew right then the landscape had made an impression.
When we arrived in Las Catalinas, Gayle saw the old Rosemary Beach drawings come to life. Not the way Rosemary actually turned out, but the way it had been promised — narrow streets, Mediterranean styling, concrete construction, no cars, just walking and beauty everywhere. She loved it immediately.
Were we “in a rush” to buy? Not at all. But here’s what happened:
🏡 We looked at many of the homes for sale.
✏️ We found one with an interesting layout. As builders, we could see what it might become.
🪄 We spent hours alone in that home, sketching remodel ideas. Magic Wand thinking.
✅ Once we could see it, we turned to the decision-making framework we always use.
📌 Magic Wand Thinking
Before you run numbers, spend time in the home. Picture what it could be. Sketch ideas. Walk the space. Once you can imagine the life you want there, then move to the decision framework.
The Framework We Use
💰 Can we afford it responsibly? For us, that meant: could we rent it enough to cover annual carrying costs? The answer was yes.
👨👩👦 Would our family enjoy it? Absolutely. They’ve already used it and will continue to.
🌅 Would we enjoy it? Easy access, natural beauty, Pacific sunsets.
🔑 Would it trap our liquidity? No. We weren’t putting tomato soup money into a house. If we ever needed out, we felt the market would allow it.
What we didn’t do? Run a spreadsheet on ROI. That wasn’t the point. This was about lifestyle. It was about deciding whether we could “deposit” money into the “bank account” of owning a home in Costa Rica — and feel that it was a good bank to put money into. One that would return sunsets, family gatherings, and time well spent.
📌 The Bank Account Test
Ask yourself: If I put money into this “account,” will it return joy, memories, and life well-lived? If the answer is yes, then the ROI takes care of itself.
We still own that home today. It pays for itself through rentals, it’s worth more than we bought it for, and we’ve been able to systematically remodel it to make it brighter, more luxurious, and more “us.” We go on average once a month, and a few times a year we’ll stay two or three weeks at a time.
That home is both pleasure and purpose. It wasn’t bought with a calculator — it was bought with clarity.
The Trap of “We’re Not in a Rush”
Now imagine if we had said, “We’re not in a rush.”
We would have gone home. Waited. Thought about it. Watched another buyer step in and take the very home we had already started imagining our family in. By the time we would have come back, the house would be gone.
And here’s the part most buyers don’t consider: it wouldn’t just mean missing a deal. It would mean missing the last four years of sunsets on that patio. Missing four years of family trips. Missing four years of joy.
That’s the cost of hesitation. You don’t just lose the property. You lose the time in it. And that is something you can never get back.
How Buyers Can Make Decisions Without Regret
Saying “We’re not in a rush” is usually code for “We don’t know how to decide.”
But deciding doesn’t have to be reckless. It has to be clear. The framework we use as buyers is the same one I guide clients through:
💰 Affordability: Can you own it responsibly without straining your life?
👨👩👦 Family: Will the people you love enjoy it with you?
🌍 Lifestyle: Does it make your life better, richer, easier, more fulfilling?
🔑 Liquidity: If you needed out, would the market allow you to exit in a reasonable way?
When those boxes are checked, delay doesn’t add wisdom. It just adds risk.
The Takeaway
The buyers who win are the ones who have already thought through their framework and are prepared to act when the right home appears. That doesn’t mean rushing blindly. It means moving with clarity.
Because in real estate, “We’re not in a rush” is rarely a strategy. More often, it’s a regret waiting to happen.
And the regret isn’t just that you lost the house. The regret is that life passed you by while you were waiting.