Two numbers, and both are right

I have a number in my head. I have never said it out loud to anyone, but it is there, and it has been for weeks, and it is remarkably precise for something I made up myself.

Soon an agent is coming to value the house. That will be the first time someone tells me a number that is not mine. I already notice that I want that appointment and dread it at the same time. What I would like most is for him to simply say my number.

The first number is mine

My number comes from what the house cost me. I built it two and a half years ago, and I built expensively. What I have in mind today is well below that. So I have already written a lot off before anyone has even made an offer, and I feel quite reasonable about it.

The other number comes from the area. Out here in the countryside houses cost what they cost, and that is well below what I have in mind. That number does not care what I paid.

Both numbers are right. Mine is right for me, because I still have every invoice. The other one is right for anyone who looks around here and compares. And because both are right, nothing happens at all for now.

What I paid is not a property of the house

That is the sentence I am currently teaching myself.

What I paid is not a property of the house. It is my story, not its own.

Whoever buys here is not buying a house with my past attached. They are buying location, square metres, condition, year of construction. My invoices matter to them about as much as how long I took to pick the colour in the hallway.

I know this. I even understand it. And still I keep calculating with my number, and every time I hear a lower one my first thought is that the other side must be wrong.

What makes a house expensive does not make it valuable

This is the part I had not understood before. When you build, you build for yourself. You make hundreds of decisions, and almost every time you choose what you personally like better. Those are exactly the decisions nobody else pays for in the end.

For me that is the insulation, for instance. I built a low energy house and I did not want plastic in the walls. That mattered enough to me to pay more for it. It is also the one thing in the whole house you can neither see nor touch. In the listing it comes down to a single line that probably nobody reads.

Or the doormats. Mine are set flush into the floor so nothing sticks up at the doors and nothing slides around. I have enjoyed that every single day for two and a half years. I still do not believe anyone will pay a euro more for it. Most likely they will not even notice.

And then the KNX system. It was expensive, it works, and I suspect it even costs me points with some people. Anyone who has never dealt with it does not see elegant technology, they see something they will have to understand first and possibly have repaired later.

What makes a house expensive are the extras. What sells a house are the basics. Those are two different lists, and from a seller's point of view I spent two and a half years working on the wrong one.

In my area the place seems to matter more

In my area a house seems to sell less on its fittings than on the place where it stands. In a city there is probably someone for almost every house sooner or later. Out here the pool is small. It has to be people who want to be exactly here, and who can afford it and want it at exactly this moment. There are not many of them, and there is nothing I can do to make more of them.

That is not a complaint about the area. I put myself here on purpose, and the very reasons that make it quiet here are the reasons the pool is small. It only means that I pay with patience what I would have paid with money in a city.

What I do not want to forget

I am complaining at a very comfortable altitude. I have a house. I even have the choice to sell it. Plenty of people never have this discussion at all, because they were never in a position to have it. That belongs in here if I want to stay honest.

And the loss I am talking about is a loss on paper. I lived in this house. I had breakfast in it, worked in it, slept badly in it and then well again. This was not an investment that went wrong. It was a home that cost money.

The question I have not answered yet

This is where it gets uncomfortable.

As long as nobody pays my price, I do not have to decide anything. I can wait, and from the outside waiting looks like good sense. I have written before about how a reason can be genuine and still do the work of an excuse. I'd love to be free. Just not today.

Back then the house was the reason to stay. Now it is a price. And I wonder whether I have just built myself a very elegant extension with this number.

Maybe my number is a market price. Maybe it is a permission slip to do nothing yet. I honestly do not know. I think I will only find out the first time someone says a figure out loud and I notice what I feel.

The house is the largest single item in every plan I have. Which makes this valuation not an appointment but an answer.

I will write here what comes out of it.