I find home buyers take different approaches to their house hunt. Some people think with their brains, and some think with their hearts. Some approaches have positive results, others negative, and choosing the right approach can have dramatic difference on the outcome. When it comes to the head versus the heart, I can essentially narrow the types of buyers down to three different categories.
1. First, there’s the heartless investor. The investor examines a property on paper, making little note of curb appeal and, well, interior cuteness. Even if an investor is going to live in the home, they think only with their brain about the number of miles from home to work (don’t forget the decimal), the percentage increase from one prior sale to the next, or how much money a comparable property would fetch. Don’t mistake these aspects for something unimportant; they have a vital place, but this way of thinking does not leave room for a true opinion of the property in question.
2. Secondly, there’s the overzealous fairytale dreamer. To confess, I fall into this category more often than not. The dreamer has a vision of what they want to achieve; imaginations run wild with backyards full of fireflies, dinner parties next to a fireplace, or how the latest West Elm sofa would look along the front window. And while these dreams are perfectly valid to the point of motivating a purchase, it’s not like we can wrap up the dollars and cents aspects and toss them out the window. As a side note, dreamers also think they can achieve their final dreams upon closing and under budget. Again, I am guilty.
3. And finally, there’s the cool, calm, and collected home buyer. The collected home buyer has opinions on furniture placement, but also considers the drive to work. The calm home buyer tends to avoid the pitfalls of the investors and dreamers, not allowing inevitable hiccups and plan changes to derail their determination. They allow their heart to inform their decision, and they allow their brain to calculate the long term affects of their purchase.
Generally speaking, the cool, calm, and collected buyer does not exist in the wild, and most people fall into one of the first two categories. If people don’t move on from being a human calculator or a deep dreamer, they’ll tend to get burned out on their thinking. But one aspect of a Realtor’s job is to teach buyers of how think properly, striking a balance between head and heart. It’s therefore possible to move from an investor typer of buyer to a more balanced approach. Or from a fairytale dreamer to a stable thinker. Sometimes it just takes the right Realtor to tell you to “Shape up and get for real.” 😉
