5 Tongue-In-Cheek Reverse Psychology Tricks Worth Trying if You’re Having Trouble Finding a House to Buy

Forget about finding your dream house, finding any house to buy in today’s market can feel like an impossible dream. So if you’ve been house-hunting without luck, it’s understandable if you’ve considered throwing in the towel.

But what if you tried something a bit unconventional to change your luck? Perhaps a little reverse psychology might do the trick!

Here are five tongue-in-cheek tactics that’ll at least give you a laugh about the house-hunting journey, but who knows… they might even work!

1) Go on Vacation

One surefire way for the perfect house to hit the market is for you to go on vacation. This is a time-tested strategy that agents can vouch for, since every time an agent goes on vacation, they get busier! New buyers and sellers pop out of nowhere needing an agent’s immediate help as soon as their flight takes off, or the cruise ship sets sail. So perhaps if you go on vacation, your dream home will be listed.

Pro tip: Try doing a “staycation” so you don’t have to choose between cutting your vacay short to get home and see the house ASAP, or risk losing the house of your dreams. The mere notion that you’re on vacation may be enough to trigger events.

2) Give Up

It never fails in life: whenever you finally give up on something, that’s when fate brings you the opportunities you were waiting for. So, even if you don’t actually want to throw in the towel, pretend that you do, and hopefully the perfect house will be listed soon thereafter!

3) Sign a Year Lease

One of the quickest ways to prompt the universe to provide you with a house that meets all of your criteria (and at a great price!) is to simply decide to continue renting a home and signing a year lease. The lord of all landlords loves a good laugh, and there’s nothing more amusing to see than a renter who hoped to buy a house, give up, sign a lease, and then see a house they would love to buy hit the market.

The trick to this tactic is to add a clause into the lease that states you can cancel the lease at any time without penalty, if you find a house you want to buy.

4) Whittle Down Your Wish List

Most buyers begin their home search with a long list of “wants” and “needs” in their ideal home, but over time buyers often adjust their “needs” down to more of a would-be-nice-to-have status. But merely going from 3-4 bedrooms, with a spare room for an office as a “must have,” to “OK, fine, I’ll settle for 2 bedrooms and use the corner of the kitchen as an office.” may not be enough of a concession.

Instead, consider paring down your wishlist to a structure with at least four exterior walls and a roof. If you don’t expect more than that, every single house you see on the market should blow your mind with how many amenities they have… even if they’re just toilets and tubs.

5) Go On Strike

Y’know what… perhaps real estate agents aren’t doing enough to generate more listings! Gather up all of the other local buyers you keep seeing at open houses, grab some poster board and sticks, make some protest signs and picket outside of their offices until they list more houses!

Then, as soon as a house hits the market, use your sign to fend off all of the other protesting buyers so you can get to the new listing and make an offer before they do.