In the first two or three minutes that the buyer enters your home, sensory organs feed data into the emotional centers of the brain. On the spot, the emotional networks vote up or down. The deal effectively starts or ends with the firing of a few billion neurons.
A book by Jonah Lehrer, a former neuroscience researcher, "How We Decide" explains how quickly our brains make their decision. Strong, positive visceral emotional responses make us want that house immediately. Experienced real estate agents watch carefully for that positive response from buyers during those first few minutes.
The human condition can work for you, or against you, when you try to sell your Lake Chelan home. Smells, sounds, and details can make a huge difference. The Lake Chelan market, like most resort area markets, are even more emotionally driven than typical. A home that is pristine and orderly feels relaxing, but a home with lots of little things undone feels like work. A home that smells like baking cookies is far preferable to a home that smells like it has a septic problem.
When you work with Criterion Properties to sell your home, we will leave little to chance when getting your home sold. That is why we insist that your home is clean, staged, spruced and primped to its very best. But that's just part of what it takes to actually get your home sold.
Sellers look at a house completely differently than buyers. They see the old rusty swing set as something that just needs to be moved. The house just needs some paint, picked up, some drawer pulls replaced, some faucet washers changed, new toilet seats and a couple of little things fixed. Most of those things the seller doesn't even notice anymore.
We help with all of that. We'll go through your home like your mother-in-law, seeing every issue as a buyer might see them. We'll make lists and help get it ready to wow that potential buyer so they simply can't go past your home. We will work with you to make your home feel good and right at the emotional level.
Of course, we can't control everything. The kitchen that is fine for many may just look small to others or the master bathroom colors might not be "right." Or, a rug may remind a buyer of the one their ex-wife got in their divorce.
But, when the buyer does come though that your home appeals to, we want them wowed. Because after that emotions have voiced their opinion to buy your home, they set to work on a different set of neurons in the frontal cortex that control the "executive function" of the brain. They generate the seemingly logical reasons for the buyer to buy your home.
The neural responses that make a person want the instant gratification of a particular home immediately are fairly short-lived. A home won't sell simply because it shows well, but it sure helps!
Comments (1)Subscribe to CommentsComment