Every house we walk through together will have its pros and cons.

Sometimes it's a large, beautiful kitchen at the expense of a smaller living room. Sometimes it's plenty of bedrooms but only one full bathroom. Sometimes it's an open floor plan with everything flowing together, and other times the rooms and spaces are clearly divided. Some homes have great outdoor living space but limited storage. Others have a fantastic location but a quirky layout.

None of those things are inherently good or bad.

One perspective I often encourage buyers to adopt while touring homes is this:

How will the patterns of your life be the same, different, better, or worse if you live in this house compared to where you live now?

Thinking and talking about that question can be more helpful than simply thinking about whether or not you like a house.

For example, maybe you currently live in a home with an open floor plan, but the house you're considering has very separated living spaces. The kitchen is closed off. The living room is its own room. The dining room is behind a door. Life will almost certainly feel different there. Is that change something you'll enjoy, tolerate, or resent over time?

Or consider how and where you eat and gather. If you now have a dining space where you share meals, have conversations late into the night, and where family and friends connect -- and the new house has no dining area but does have a large kitchen island with stools -- how might that change the flow of daily life? Will conversations feel more casual? More rushed? More connected? Less so?

Another common example involves bedroom locations. If you're used to having all bedrooms on the second level, but the new home has one bedroom on the main level and the rest upstairs, that's not just a detail of the floor plan. It can potentially change bedtime routines, privacy, noise patterns, and even how you move through the house each day. That change could be a positive, a negative, or something that requires adjustment.

As we walk through homes together, we won't just be evaluating square footage, finishes, or price. We'll be trying to imagine how your life will live and feel in each space.

There will almost always be tradeoffs. Buying a home almost always means some changes to the patterns of your days and how you use the space in your home. The goal isn't to find a house with no compromises -- it's to understand which changes will feel positive and exciting, and which might feel limiting or frustrating over time.