Leo Tolstoy once wrote, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
One of the easiest ways to create an unhappy family? Ask for advice from your parents just before you make an offer on a home.
Buying a property is a big decision, financially and emotionally. It’s only natural to want advice from someone you trust with past experience. Often, that means parents - especially if they’re helping with the down payment.
Parents are protective by nature. That doesn’t stop when their children become adults. They have the life experience and want to make sure you’re making the right decision.
The problem isn’t asking for advice. The problem is asking for it at the very end, when they haven’t been through the experience you have as you go through the process of buying a home in today’s market.
The problem arises if parents only see the final property - the one you’re ready to make an offer on. If they haven’t experienced the weeks of showings and ridden the ups and downs of properties that didn’t work, or didn’t see the properties that were overpriced, poorly laid out, or unrealistic and they haven’t experienced the trade-offs that led you to this decision, they won’t quite understand the work you’ve put into finding “the one”.
Without that information, it’s easy for questions to surface:
Have you seen enough places?
Is this really the right one?
Should you keep looking?
Those questions are reasonable - but they’re much harder to answer at the eleventh hour.
If you’re going to involve your parents, involve them early. They don’t need to know every detail of your pre-approval or monthly budget, but they should understand what’s happening in the market. Bring them to showings when possible. Loop them in on listings. Keep communication open throughout the process.
When they’ve been part of the journey, they’re far less likely to derail it at the end. They may very well have good reason to “derail it” based on how they know you and your needs but without seeing all you’ve seen, they won’t understand how you’ve come to the moment to make the big decision.
I learned early on in my career to identify who the real decision-maker is. If a parent is going to influence the purchase, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that BUT they need to be part of the conversation from the beginning so they understand the market and stay as informed as you are as listings come in.
Buying a home is stressful enough. Keeping everyone informed early makes everything smoother later.
