Future home, investment, or both?
The Hidden Hurdle of Double Distance
This month, we’ve been talking about Double Distance, the invisible weight of buying a property remotely.
It’s more than physical.
It’s the emotional and psychological stretch that happens when you’re trying to make high-stakes decisions from far away.
When your timezone doesn’t line up.
When you haven’t walked the street or stood in the kitchen.
When you’re not even sure if you're buying as a future local… or a distant investor.
And out of all the forms Double Distance takes, there’s one that quietly holds more buyers back than anything else.
It’s the question that seems basic on the surface, but knocks the wind out of expats when they try to answer it:
“Why are you buying this property?”
The Layer We Don't Talk About
Let me tell you about Michael and Talia, a couple living in Singapore. They’d saved hard, been watching the Melbourne market from afar, and felt ready to act.
They knew they wanted to buy.
What they didn’t know was why.
Not in a vague sense. In a specific, line-in-the-sand kind of way.
Were they buying an investment property to lease out for five years?
Or were they buying a future home for their return, whenever that might be?
Or something that did both?
Every time we got close to an answer, the conversation spiralled back into “but what if” territory.
“What if we don’t end up in Melbourne?”
“What if the kids want to stay overseas?”
“What if we buy the wrong thing and regret it later?”
That’s the kind of double distance nobody warns you about, when your indecision about the purpose of the purchase becomes more paralysing than any timezone, inspection video, or currency fluctuation.
It’s not just distance from the market.
It’s distance from your own direction.
Why This Step Is So Exhausting
When you’re not clear on the intent of the purchase, it touches everything:
- You don’t know where to look.
- You don’t know how to prioritise.
- You don’t know how to judge value.
- You second-guess every listing and lose momentum quickly.
And when you do speak to an agent or broker, you end up using vague language:
"We're still figuring it out..."
"We're open to anything..."
"We want something that makes sense..."
The problem is, without a clear intent, you can’t create a clear shortlist. And without a clear shortlist, you end up endlessly browsing and never actually buying.
This Is Why We Built the Shortlist SearchKit
Step 1 of our Shortlist Method is completely dedicated to this.
Not to strategy. Not to finance. Not to property.
But to help remote buyers pick a lane.
Inside the Shortlist SearchKit, our free self-guided workbook, the very first thing we ask you to do is choose between three paths:
- 🏡 Future Home - you’ll live in it one day
- 💰 Investment - it’s for performance and growth
- 🔀 Hybrid (Dual-Purpose) - it needs to work now and maybe later
This sounds simple, but for remote buyers, especially expats who don’t know where they’ll land. It’s one of the most liberating decisions you can make.
We also explain why the Hybrid path is so common and so confusing. Many buyers don’t want to commit to living in the home, but they want the option. It’s a smart stepping-stone strategy that we see a lot and when done well, it gives you flexibility without losing focus.
Subscribe. Get the Kit. Cut Through the Fog.
If you’ve been circling this decision for months, quietly browsing listings, speaking to brokers, maybe even flying home, the Shortlist SearchKit is for you.
It’s:
✅ Completely free
✅ Designed for remote buyers
✅ Full of examples, exercises, and clear thinking
✅ The exact tool we use to help clients go from idea to action
🎁 You can get your free copy by subscribing to our newsletter, The ShortList, our fortnightly dispatch for remote buyers who want to buy smarter, clearer, and faster.
👉 Join the newsletter and get your free SearchKit now → join The Shortlist