How We Pick The Home We Buy

Interesting post from the Zillow blog that puts a little science behind what I’ve always told my sellers – home buyers make decisions based on emotion, usually within the very first few moments they’re in the house.  In my experience, those first few moments make about 80% of the decision for a large portion of the population.

The post references a Katherine Salant column.  Excerpts:

In the first two or three minutes you are in a model home, your sensory organs are feeding data into the emotional centers of your brain. As you glance at the living room, these emotional centers rapidly register the details.

Then, on the spot, the emotional networks vote up or down. The deal starts or ends with the firing of a few billion neurons.

If our nearly instantaneous visceral response is positive, our dopamine receptors go into overdrive, Lehrer said. They make us want that house, and they make us want it immediately.

Once your emotions have voiced their opinions, a different set of neurons in the frontal cortex, which control your brain’s "executive function," start to kick in. They generate seemingly logical reasons why a particular house is the one, Lehrer said. As you continue to think about this purchase, your list of good reasons gets longer: It has all the formal living and dining space that we need for resale! We’ll have a place to put great aunt Julia’s living room set, which we just inherited! We can have romantic dinners for two by the fireplace in the family room!

home in tucsonThis is why I’ve always argued that the point of good home marketing is to get a potential home buyer inside the house.  When I represent home sellers here in Tucson, I want to show people enough information, pictures, and details that they’re curious to see more, that they’re drawn to see the house in person.  I want that visceral emotional reaction from those home buyers.

I don’t want someone looking online and rejecting a house because they looked at 50 pictures and decided they don’t like the oak cabinets or the guest bedrooms seem to small in the virtual tour – I don’t want potential home buyers dismissing a house out of hand because of some perceived flaw or omission, most of which could be changed or otherwise addressed.  I want people in the house, seeing it in person, getting that emotional reaction.  That’s successful home marketing.

All of which – if you’re looking to buy a home -  is why you should work with an agent who knows your wants and needs, who understands that you can get caught up in that visceral reaction, and can remind you to evaluate the house from a more objective view point.

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Equal Housing Opportunity Realtor