Dream House Financial Loss

Andrew Wilkinson shares a story about building his dream house that turned into an expensive mistake.

"About 7 years ago I bought a piece of property and started building an amazing house. I hired amazing architects and interior designers. If you think you want to build a house, try it - it really sucks. Everyone has this fantasy, but what it really comes down to is you choosing where electrical outlets go and approving what color tone all the lights are. You make 10,000 decisions and eventually you get decision fatigue and start making bad decisions.

Because I was building my forever home, when they'd ask 'do you want this marble or this really really nice marble with nicer designs?' I'd always choose the more expensive option because I was thinking 'this is my dream home, I only get to build it once.'

I massively overbuilt and overspent. I ended up not even liking the house when I moved in because I'd walk around going 'goddamn it, I remember making that decision - why did I make that beam that height, why did I put that light there?'

I ended up getting divorced a year and a half ago and neither me or my ex-wife wanted the house. I had to sell it and took a 30% loss on this house that I'd spent 5 years building and spent tons of money on.

The lesson is: my dad said you always want to be the second owner of a hotel - you want someone else to go crazy and build it out and then go bankrupt, and then you want to come in and own that. I think the same thing is true with houses - just go buy a nice house that someone else built."