I don't know about you, but I love patient, selective, thoughtful buyers. I'd rather show dozens of homes before a purchase, than just one. Am I nuts? Isn't that a lot of work? No, I'm not nuts, and yes, it is a lot of work. I'm in business to work, and I'm paid fairly for it.
Like any real estate professional who has been working with buyers for a while, I've had my share of buyers who have purchased the first house I showed them. It happens sometimes, and sometimes it's the right thing. But it makes me nervous, and I strongly discourage it.
A large part of the reason I don't like it, especially for first time buyers, lies in how frequently I see buyers' selection priorities evolve through the process of looking at more properties, because they start without being able to imagine all the unexpected diversity that there is in the market at any given time. They often eventually fall in love with characteristics that they didn't imagine would be available to them before they started looking. First showing buyers forfeit that opportunity to test the resolve of their priorities against other potential priorities that they haven't yet imagined.
Occasionally, a buyer will fall in love with the first property they see, but continue looking diligently before ultimately coming back to buy the first property. I think that's great. That is a buyer who has tested their priorities and is a lot less likely to end up wishing later that they had bought something else.
I want to know that each buyer I have represented, without exception, has made the best choice at the right time for them. The single biggest threat to that ideal is rushing into a purchase, for any reason. My advice to buyers is always that it is better to miss out on a good deal, than to jump into a bad one.
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