Posting about your house hunt on Facebook/social media

[Anonymous]

This is a s/o of a thread I posted elsewhere, but I never got much of an answer to this narrow question-- I guess broken up into these subquestions, which don't have to be answered individually, but...

If you're house hunting, do you post on FB/etc. about houses you're considering?

Do you know people who do?

What do you think about it?

Does your answer change depending on your means vs your friends' means?

Does it matter if you're seriously considering houses vs just starting to look around?

[Anonymous]

I did a few posts about it, but they were just funny posts. I didn’t mention the neighborhood, and I only posted quirky things about the houses we were looking at. People knew that we have a high HHI so it’s not like there was a reason to hide the fact that we were looking for house.

[Anonymous]

I'm not a big social media user- but I have certainly tried to let as many people as possible in our target neighborhood know we are looking b/c it is a hot neighborhood and we would love to get an off market sale.

[Anonymous]

Oh and I don’t know anybody who posts stuff about house hunting.

I would think it was kind of weird but unless they were gushing over expensive things it wouldn’t bother me.

Means does matter; I think people who have more money should exercise more caution about posting things about what they purchase.

I don’t think it matters if you’re seriously looking or not.

[Anonymous]

I was buying at the very low end of the market and I didn't post about it. I didn't want to invite advice that was not helpful to me.

I mostly see people post only after they have closed unless they have a specific question about what a certain neighborhood is like or lead remediation (for example).

[Anonymous]

OP, here. Thanks, folks. Interested in hearing from another couple of people before I share what prompted this (though you may be able to guess).

[Anonymous]

I mentioned on social media when we finally got a house. It was the seventh offer we had put in, so by that time, enough people knew about our house hunting struggles. I didn't post the actual house though.

We live in what is lovingly referred to as a "shitshack" in this area. The people that I grew up with in the midwest certainly don't need to see that I paid nearly $1M for my shitshack.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was buying at the very low end of the market and I didn't post about it. I didn't want to invite advice that was not helpful to me.

I mostly see people post only after they have closed unless they have a specific question about what a certain neighborhood is like or lead remediation (for example).

Same. I texted a lot with a few friends in the area where I was looking and shared listings, but didn't post publicly. Wasn't too worried about them knowing our budget because we're all feds of similar grade levels so they basically know my salary. After we closed, we posted an exterior photo of the house.

[Anonymous]

Honestly, given how quickly most houses sell in this area, how is there even time to post about what you're considering before it's gone?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, given how quickly most houses sell in this area, how is there even time to post about what you're considering before it's gone?

That's a good point!

[Anonymous]

We are in the process of buying a house, and no I have not posted about it.
We are looking in an area that is far from where we live now, and none of our facebook friends live there either--so it's not likely that they would even understand the market. The area we are buying in is pretty low priced--you can get a nice single family 3 bedroom home for less than $300,000. Most of my facebook friends live in the DC area or California (mainly San Francisco and Orange county) so I feel like I'd mostly just get a lot of comments about how shocked they are that the house is so inexpensive.

I've never seen my facebook friends post about their searches either. Some of them will post AFTER they have bought the house, and I've also see a few post when they are selling ("If you know anyone looking..." type.)

[Anonymous]

Other than maybe mentioning the fact that you are house hunting, I would never post links to houses or neighborhoods I was looking at on social media. Why does anyone need to know that? If you want to send the link to your family or a close friend, do that by email. Totally inappropriate for social media.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh and I don’t know anybody who posts stuff about house hunting.

I would think it was kind of weird but unless they were gushing over expensive things it wouldn’t bother me.

Means does matter; I think people who have more money should exercise more caution about posting things about what they purchase.

I don’t think it matters if you’re seriously looking or not.

This is such an obvious thing that many people don’t understand. There is no good reason to post about purchases when you are well off. None. There are many good reasons no to, ranging from manners (it’s rude to brag about buying things others might not be able to afford) to self-serving (it can make you the object of jealousy, gossip, and even crime).

The only reason people do it is the dopamine hit they get from sharing, and having people like and approve. That’s not a “good” reason. It’s a sign of insecurity and lack of self worth. Maybe spend some of your ample funds on some therapy and self-help courses instead.

[Anonymous]

I don't and I have never seen anyone else do it. I didn't even post when we bought the house and moved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh and I don’t know anybody who posts stuff about house hunting.

I would think it was kind of weird but unless they were gushing over expensive things it wouldn’t bother me.

Means does matter; I think people who have more money should exercise more caution about posting things about what they purchase.

I don’t think it matters if you’re seriously looking or not.

This is such an obvious thing that many people don’t understand. There is no good reason to post about purchases when you are well off. None. There are many good reasons no to, ranging from manners (it’s rude to brag about buying things others might not be able to afford) to self-serving (it can make you the object of jealousy, gossip, and even crime).

The only reason people do it is the dopamine hit they get from sharing, and having people like and approve. That’s not a “good” reason. It’s a sign of insecurity and lack of self worth. Maybe spend some of your ample funds on some therapy and self-help courses instead.

+1 We were discreet when we were looking for a house because we were spending more than a lot of people in the MCOL city we moved to - and CONSIDERABLY less than folks in DC, where we moved here from. We didn't want to rub it in the noses of either camp, what we were looking at and buying.