Tale of Two Tellers - the House - vs - Home

What does this have to do with the Tale of Two Tellers?

Remember when I say there this the financial decision, which is logical, and the final decisions which is typically emotion. This is true of much of investing, but it has a special please in the world of real estate.

Borrowing (pun intended) from our CLA course, one of the key considerations when talking to anyone about any financial decision is their two sided brain. Two sided? You could say they have their house side of the brain (the logical - my house is a shelter) and the home side of the brain (the emotional - my home is my life experiencing inside a house).

These are two very different things, and if you are talking to a couple you will often have one that is focused on the home, and the other that is focused on the house. Listen when you speak to someone, do they reference their house or their home? That tells you which side you need to balance if they are going to hear your story clearly.

We talk in the course about how you engage both sides of the brain constructively, but know that the Tale of Two Tellers story there is the math (logical) of how it works and there is the feeling (emotional) about whether you can do this or want to learn it, etc.

Investing is difficult because we focus on who we are and what we want right now, forgetting there is a future version of us that will want many of the same things we enjoy now at some point in the future. The right now often wins.

Paying off a house with additional cash flow because your want your home paid for is more of an emotional decision. Paying off a high interest rate credit card first because it is the right thing to do financially is a logical decision.

TIP: Over my 15 years on the retain side of lending, it amazed me how often the 'home' won as people tended to default to an emotional state when talking about money. Your job is to help manage both sides of the brain - the home doesn't exist - it is a mental construct only possible because you live in a house. You can have the same experience of home in an apartment, the different is most of the financial benefits of a house are claimed by the landlord.