Lifestyle Issues and House Buying
January 28th, 2009 categories: Real Estate
How to understand your buying psychology
The challenge of melding tastes and keeping peace is a real art and a good realtor can make the experience enjoyable. Helping clients analyze their styles will take deliberate communication between the buyers to determine what the basic, no negotiation necessities are for comfortable living. Keep in mind your lifestyle and activity level to help you decide if you want to pay the extra to live next to bike trails vs the convenience of being close to shopping. Thinking you’ll be happy in a particular neighborhood simply because it’s well regarded is a bad assumption especially if you find yourself compromising on your natural inclinations.
There are the usual assumptions of style for each sex (she likes large open kitchens, he wants room for his projects) but frustration arises when one person is totally in love with a particular house only to find out their mate wouldn’t even consider putting in an offer. I see this a lot when one party loves the floor plan because it reminds them of the house they grew up in but the other party can’t get past the style of siding on the exterior let alone what’s inside. Hammering out the details can be accomplished in a number of different ways but the point is to have that established as a baseline.
One tip for figuring out what works is to look at the basic personality types of the buyers. Are you a type A and your mate a type B? When I worked in interior design you could always tell the A’s…they were attracted to serene motifs, clean lines, calm colors. The type B’s on the other hand wanted energy from their homes so strong contrasts, lots of accessories and bold statements in furnishings caught their eye. Here’s an interesting link to an article on colors and personality types.
Translating all that into the home environment can help you understand why certain floor plans and styles are more attractive (notwithstanding basic design principles.) Trying to talk someone into liking something that their emotions dislike is like mixing water and oil but the result is a lot of frustration and short circuits the buying process. Taking the time to understand what you want from your home helps all parties and makes the process of buying much easier on your agent.
