HOME HUNTING PART 9: THE MATRIX

I know kung-fu.

Oh. Well, I don't actually.

But what I do know is Microsoft Excel!

I made a matrix today, a kind of weighted scoring system to help me work out how to rate the houses I've seen. After a while, I forget how I felt about some of them and I can easily skew my opinion based on instinct rather than data.

Not that I'm throwing out instinct. Not at all! One of the places I saw after work today came across as a little bit dingy and claustrophobic - my instinct told me that, the very moment the estate agent keyed open the door and asked me to 'mind the step'. But are there positives to outweigh those vibes? How do you balance them?

So, I decided to take a bit more of a detached approach.

First I listed the five categories that I think are important when looking for a home. I didn't include price - my budget isn't really a negotiable thing, but other things are flexible, things like location, light-space, does it have a garden, for example. Then I listed them out in an Excel table and split my ten votes between them. The more important a thing I think it is, the more votes it got.

It works out like this for me:

location - 2

light/spacious - 2

garden - 2

no. of rooms - 3

character/quirkiness - 1

I know it's different for a lot of people, but for me, these are the weightings. Then, I just scored each of the houses I've seen so far out of ten for each category, multiplied it by the weighting and added up their scores. Obviously, the maximum possible score is 100, so what comes out is effectively a sort of percentage. It's a pretty simple system.

You might be interested to know that there hasn't been a single property that's made it over 50 - so that's interesting - though it probably says more about me than it does about the matrix.

What intrigued me was that the numbers felt about right for the places I've seen over the last few weeks. It was an eerie reflection of what my instinct had already told me. The scientist in me appreciates the numbers though, and it's nice to have a matrix which proves that my heart is in-line with my head - not to say of course, that either can't be overruled with a miracle! I'd love that! It'd be like that moment when Neo realises he can control bullets. Actually, why did he need kung-fu at all in the end? Hmmm.

I just wish I could be so sensible with other decisions.