House Hunting

I have been searching for a new place to call home recently and it has given me a whole new appreciation for the stress that buyers go through.  The on-again, off-again nature of this process has really caused me to shut down quite effectively, so I apologize if I haven't been too vocal of late on the blog.  I've been overwhelmed. 

When I started this search, I wasn't sure what I wanted, and that has caused much of the challenges along the way.  I knew that I didn't want to live alone.  I am a social person and I will tend to hibernate and be miserable or never be home and be miserable if I live alone.  I have lived in a home with many roommates in the past and really enjoyed the sense of community that came with that environment.  But I may be getting a bit too old to deal with the inevitable drama that comes from living on top of others.  So I have finally weeded it down to the idea that I want no less than one and no more than 3 roommates.  It took me several weeks of looking at places and feeling through the options to come to this decision and that has taken a lot out of me energetically.  Now that I know what I want, I can focus more clearly on accomplishing the goal.

This is going to be true for your buyers as well.  Often times buyers want to look at too many towns (more than three) or too many options (single family, condo, multifamily, etc.).  When you're not comparing apples to apples you end up driving yourself crazy trying to make a decision.  Encourage your buyers instead to choose one set of criteria and look at all the options in that set before moving on to another set.  Have them pic their top choice first and then work down the list.  It will become apparent in the process if this set of criteria will be a good match or not.  That way, if you're going to eliminate something, you're eliminating an entire set, rather than a single property. 

Remember, buyers can't make a decision when there are too many options.  You have to narrow the options before the brain can wrap itself around any one solution.

Now I'm off to go and look at other places that would fit my 1-3 roommate scenario.  Toodles!