The home-buying decision

I'VE been thinking about the big decisions in life: How do people choose careers, colleges, spouses and towns? Of those decisions, buying a home ranks with the most difficult.

It is difficult emotionally. Like a lot of the biggest decisions, it is more emotional than coldly rational. People generally don't select a house; they fall in love with it.

Part of that falling-in-love process is aesthetic: the sense you get within 10 seconds of walking into a place that it just feels happy and right. Part is aspirational: When people fall in love with a house, they aren't really falling in love with the walls and the roof; they are falling in love with a beautiful vision of their future lives.