The $130,000 Bling Spot Or The Dog That Did Not Bark

by Elena Garrett, Realtor, Feb 2026

Why Smart People Lose Big Money by Over-Optimizing Small Fragile Things

You are about to read one of the stories I repeat a lot, because this story really illustrates several inter-connected logical blind spots that home buyers whom I would call ANALYTICAL or CAUTIOUS sometimes run in to. Take a look and see if you recognize the outcome and the conclusions before I even bring them up!

This story isn’t about being someone being wrong. It’s an illustration of how over-optimizing small, reasonable things can quietly pull attention away from much larger ones — and how that gap can turn into a surprisingly expensive blind spot.

Now let me tell you about a couple who were doing almost everything right.

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Buyers Who Were Doing Everything Right

At one of my open houses, I stopped to chat with a couple who told me that they were looking but not ready to buy yet. Upon a short conversation, I found out that they were renting separately while planning to buy a home together. One of them was paying about $1,200 per month in rent. The other was paying about $1,600 per month. On top of that, each of them was paying their own utilities, which averaged about $400 per month per household.

They began seriously searching for homes in 2024. They were fully approved, and they had toured dozens of homes over the past 1.5 years. They liked many of them, and if they had wanted to move forward at any point, they absolutely could have. But they didn’t. I asked them “Why?”

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The Over-Optimization Time Loop

They told me something that I have heard many times before. They said that every time they got close to making a decision, they would start researching whether the interest rates were projected to rise or fall. And every single time there would be some official announcement, or an expert forecast, or an article in Wall Street Journal suggesting that interest rates might come down by 1/8 or 1/4 of a point in the next quarter as a result of this and that.

In their minds, buying at the current rate would be smart, but waiting just a little longer could make the purchase very smart. So they would decide to pause and wait to see if the interest rates would actually go down.

If rates went down, they would feel validated and rewarded for their patience and planning ability, and they would re-start the search again. If rates didn’t move or go up slightly, they would wait for the next announcement and reassess then. Quarter after quarter, they kept very close eye on all analytics videos or news updates on the matter.

If you recognize yourself in this couple, then read on, as things are about to take a humorous turn.

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Let’s Do a Very Simple Calculation Together

At that point in their story, I walked back to my table, and pulled out some blank paper and motioned them to come closer. They were curiously watching my next few moves. I simply pulled out my phone, opened the calculator, and started entering their current expenses, asking the to write the following numbers down on the paper.

I opened my mortgage calculator, and calculated the approximate monthly payment on the house we were standing in at the 2024 interest rate (when they started to shop), and then the approximate monthly payment if they bought right now (the 2025 interest rate). The difference between the two payments was $147, which we rounded up to $150.

I then calculated their monthly total – $3,200 between the two of them for rent and utilities. They confirmed that this was approximately correct.

Then I multiplied that number by 36 months, which is how long they had already been waiting and were prepared to continue waiting if the next forecast didn’t materialize.

When I told them to write down total carrying cost of $129,600, they looked incredulous. They pulled out their own phones to verify my numbers. Once their phones showed the same final amount, they went silent.

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The Fragility They Hadn’t Considered

While they were punching in their numbers, I made another small observation. There was another assumption quietly built into their strategy that they hadn’t consciously examined. While they were waiting for interest rates to improve, they were also assuming that rates could only move in one direction. That improvement was treated as a matter of timing, not uncertainty. But interest rates don’t behave that way. They can just as easily jump a full point higher — or more — triggered by something no one predicts in advance: a new geopolitical conflict, an sudden economic shock, or a financial crisis due to gold doing this or that….

The buyers said if the rates did jump higher, they would just wait to buy and continue to rent. Then, I pointed out, while they were waiting to maybe save $150 per month, they were guaranteeing a $129,600 loss while betting on a fragile future improvement that could take a long, long time to materialize.

That’s what made the strategy logical in theory, but fragile in execution.

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The Story Of The Dog That Did Not Bark

While they were absorbing the numbers, I asked if they ever read the Sherlock Holmes case where police detectives in a murder were obsessively collecting tiny fibers from a crime scene floor, convinced those details would eventually solve the mystery. While they were focused on fingerprints and fibers, Sherlock Holmes made a quiet observation about something else. According to all the people in the house, the large guard dog located in the same building didn’t bark during the supposed time of the break in. Once that observation was made, Sherlock Holmes’s own investigation shifted focus.

By focusing on something small and visible, people have a tendency to leave something large and very significant of out their focus.

The fibers were easy to spot, count, collect, and focus on, while the dog’s silence required stepping back and looking at the larger picture BEFORE considering the significance of smaller details. And in their case, the home buyers in this case were so focused on analyzing small interest rate decreases that they completely missed a very serious but silent factor – the dog that did not bark.

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Math Calculations… Continued

While they were looking up the Sherlock Holmes story on their phone, I took the moment to make some additional calculations. It was a bit messy, but readable. Here is a less messy version of that table.

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Ownership-Adjusted Waiting Cost Table

Category	Renting (Current Situation)	Buying (If They Moved Forward)	What This Means
Monthly rent / mortgage	$2,800 (2 households)	$2,600–$2,700 / month (one household)	Comparable
Necessary utilities	$400 x 2 = 800	$400 x 1 = 400	Extra utility payment is unnecessary expense
Total monthly carrying cost	$3,200 / month (rent + 2nd unnecessary utility payment	$2,600–$2,700 / month (mortgage, one household)	The real value is removing unnecessary expenses
Monthly “waiting cost” (renting minus owning)	—	—	$500–$600 / month
Waiting period	18 months	—	18 months
Guaranteed total cost of waiting	$600 compared to mortgage X 18 months	—	$10,800 spent on waiting costs

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Fragile Future Benefit vs Guaranteed Loss

Category	Amount	Certainty
Guaranteed loss from waiting (18 months)	Up to $10,800	Guaranteed
Possible benefit from lower interest rate	$150 / month	Uncertain
Months to recover a $10,800 loss at $150/month	72	~5 years

That means that if they bought at this rate, they would still need to live in the home for nearly 5 years just to break even.

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Important Notice: Renting Has No Upside, Ownership Does

When you pay rent, that money is gone. Every month is a guaranteed expense, and at the end of the year you don’t own anything from it.

When you pay a mortgage, you are at least paying toward something you own, and you are buying into future upside that renters don’t get — the ability to recoup value later, and potentially benefit from future price increases. Even if your payment includes interest, taxes, and insurance, the difference is that you’re not just paying for shelter — you’re also paying into an asset you control.

That’s why the “cost of waiting” is not just the monthly difference on paper. It’s also the lost time you could have spent owning the home and owning whatever growth came with it, instead of paying an expense with no upside.

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One More Thing We’re Intentionally Leaving Out (To Keep This Simple)

There’s one more layer to this comparison that actually makes the gap even wider, but I usually leave it out of the main calculation to keep things clean and easy to follow.

When you rent, nothing is deductible. Your rent payments and utilities are pure expenses with no tax benefit at all.

When you own, that’s no longer true.

Mortgage interest, certain closing costs, and property taxes are often tax-deductible, which means a portion of what you pay every month can come back to you in the form of reduced taxable income. Over a couple of years, those deductions alone can add up to several additional thousands of dollars.

If we included those tax benefits in the math, the amount of money they missed out on during the waiting period would be even higher.

We’re not including those numbers here on purpose — not because they’re insignificant, but because the conclusion is already clear without them.

Even using the most conservative, ownership-adjusted math, waiting still meant a guaranteed loss with no upside, while buying would have meant ownership, potential appreciation, and tax advantages on top.

In other words, the table above is already the friendliest possible version of the waiting strategy — and it still doesn’t hold up.

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If This Sounds Familiar

If you recognize yourself in this story, even a little, there’s a simple question worth asking:

Can you ask your agent (or me) to create a similar table (see above) to see what makes more sense at the moment for YOUR situation?

Because once that number is visible, clarity tends to arrive very quickly — and if waiting truly is the smartest move, the math will confirm it.

But if it isn’t, you’ll know before another quiet quarter passes.

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