Decision Making Process Paper

Decision-Making Process of Buying a House

Joshua Adams

MGT 230

November 25, 2013

Todd Lambertson

Decision-Making Process of Buying a House

Individuals in today’s society face many decisions throughout life. Purchasing a new home is a major stepping-stone in life and requires an individual to make many tough decisions. The ideal decision-making process includes six stages: identifying and diagnosing the problem, generate alternative solutions, evaluate alternatives, make the choice, implement the decision, and evaluate the decision (Batemen & Snell, 2011). Included in this paper I will discuss my decision making process, how it was similar to the one described in the text as well as how my decision may have been different if I had used the same steps included in the text.

Buying a home is one of the biggest financial decisions that an individual will have to make in his or her lifetime (Richards, 2013). When dealing with purchasing versus renting a home 98% of prospective shoppers would rather own than rent a home (Woodard, 2012). The very first thing I had to look into was the benefits of owning versus renting. The benefits of renting would be the luxury of not developing any ongoing maintenance costs, possessing the ability to pick up and move when needed without the burden of selling a home before purchasing another one (Woddard, 2012). Disadvantages would include no equity buildup potential and tax breaks that homeowners receive (Woodard, 2012). So with this on the table I decided to pursue the American dream of home ownership. First I diagnosed my problem, which was that I was spending much more on renting a home and I could save some money if I purchased a home. The alternative was to purchase a home so that I could save some money and hope I did not run into any major issues. Then I evaluated the amounts that I could borrow and looked at several houses until I found one that I liked and began the process of becoming a homeowner. I discovered that...