The dirty little secret is that most homeowners are currently experiencing buyer’s remorse. According to a 2017 Harris Poll survey sponsored by Trulia, over half (51-percent) of American homeowners “have a regret about their current home or the process they went through when choosing it.”

These feelings of regret confirmed with NerdWallet’s Home Buyer Reality Report, where they found that 49-percent of American homeowners “said they would do something differently if they were to go through the home-buying process again.”

If buying a home is the biggest financial decision people make in their lifetime, future home buyers can learn from the mistakes of current homeowners, rather than joining the woulda, coulda, shoulda club.

Having talked to hundreds of house hunters over the years, there’s three common missteps people make that increases the likelihood they will experience buyer’s remorse in the future.

Misstep #1: Basing the home search off the lender’s maximum loan amount. The pre-approval letter tells a person how much they can borrow. That’s it. Your loan amount doesn’t factor in what features, characteristics, and aspects of the home are most important to you (and your family). If price is the ultimate determiner of the home you get, be prepared for some major regrets.

Misstep #2: Not really knowing what they’re looking for. During peak season, there are too many homes being listed to humanly keep up with. But most people try. By the time a contender is found and your agent contacted, the home will likely be in contract by someone else who figured out what they specifically need in their home. This causes tremendous frustration, and physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion; increasing the chances to choose a home out of desperation.

Misstep #3: Allowing unknown, unrealistic, or unrealized expectations for the future home to stay hidden. They are real, they exist, and they will reveal themselves. And when they do, they can blow up the search process, delay the home buying experience, and potentially damage the relationships of everyone involved. By not identifying these expectations ahead of time, the chances for post-purchase regret are extremely high.

Too often, home buyers make these missteps…wasting a lot of time, expending too much energy, and losing out on finding the right home.

How do you avoid these missteps? A new user-friendly tool helps home buyers by giving them a huge advantage with their home search…saving home buyers time, energy and sanity (and helping them find the right home at the right price faster)!

The Wishlist for Your Future Home walks home buyers through a four-part process to figure out their top priorities for their home, property, and community. Ultimately, The Wishlist can help people find the best home for them (and their family).

The Wishlist saves people time, reduces the emotional stress points during the home search, and helps people avoid buying a home they might later regret.

Most people know a few general characteristics they want in their future home, such as the number of bedrooms, square footage of the home, or the general vicinity they would like to live in. The Wishlist helps home buyers think through nine major categories to self-identify what they really need, would love to have, and what they definitely do not want in their next place.

If there are other people involved with the move (spouse, kids, other family members, or housemates), The Wishlist helps reduce chances for conflict, uncovers personal expectations, and sets everyone up to successfully find the right home AFTER everyone has agreed upon what their collective needs, wants, desires, and nots are for the home.

Ultimately, The Wishlist addresses homeowners’ top three complaints about the home buying process from the NerdWallet survey: it’s stressful (42-percent), complicated (32-percent), and intimidating (21-percent).  Because buying a home is the biggest and most important decision a person makes in their life, The Wishlist makes the home buying process less stressful, less overwhelming, and lot more purposeful and successful.

Everyone benefits by home buyers compiling their own Wishlist. Obviously, the home buyer (and others who will call the place home) benefits, but so does your Real Estate Agent. The Wishlist gives them invaluable insights into what’s needed in the future home and makes their quest to find the right home for you easier, faster, and with better results.

The seller, the listing agent, the closing agent, and the lender all benefit too. When a home buyer knows what they want, and are confident about the home they’re buying…it tends to make a transaction smoother, easier, and results in making everyone happy. Especially the new home owner!

Give The Wishlist a try. It’s free. It’s informative. And it might just help you find the best home possible for you (and your family), and avoid the common missteps too many home buyers make.