A New House – Decision
University Of Phoenix
XECO/212, Week 9, Final Project
April 21, 2012
Catherine Higgins

The decision to purchase a home is often the most important financial decision and individual or family will be faced with. The largest single financial purchase in an individual's lifetime is often the purchase of a house and one of the largest factors of personal wealth. All ten of the principles of economics are directly related to the decision to purchase a house on some level. These economic principles will have an impact on the purchasing decision and the long term financial aspects of home ownership so it is wise to incorporate these ten principles into the decision making process to ensure a sound financial decision is the outcome.

When considering the purchase of a house, the ten principles of economics that need to be addressed can be broken down into three stages of the decision making process. The first step is to examine how the decision is made by incorporating the first four principles of economics which include, the trade off that comes with every financial decision, the real cost of any item or service is what is given up to get the item or service, rational people think at the margin, and people respond to incentives. Once it is clear how the decision is made, the next three principles of economics address how people interact with economics and include factors such as, trade is beneficial to everyone, markets are a good way to organize economic activity, and the government can improve the markets with fiscal policy and all three will have an impact on the decision to purchase a home. The final leg of the decision making process includes taking into consideration the last three economic principles which speak to how the economy works as a whole and include economic principles such as, a country's