What Gilligan's Island Taught Me about Real Estate - Part One
One of my favorite shows when I was growing up was Gilligan's Island. While it was only on TV for three seasons, it has become an enduring piece of American iconography.
An while I'm sure Sherwood Schwartz never thought his sitcom about seven diverse castaways would one day be a source for someone's real estate musings, hardly an episode goes by without me thinking about my profession!
One of my favorite episodes was "Ring Around Gilligan," with mad scientist Dr. Boris Balinkoff trying to hypnotize the castaways to commit a Fort Knox robbery.
(Click on the YouTube picture above to view)
What on earth does this have to do with real estate?!?
Well, as real estate professionals, we have to make sure that our buyers don't get hypnotized about their dream house. Especially when we know that their dream house might just turn into a nightmare.
Sure, every buyer wants to fall in love with a home. And every buyer's agent wants to make a sale! But are you doing your clients a disservice by letting them fall in love with a home that has serious faults?
I always play devil's advocate with my buyers - just to make sure they're not being hypnotized by the house they just saw.
I point out where the house differs greatly from their original wish list.
I point out over-pricing issues.
I point out glaring deficiencies (I'm not a home inspector, but some things are just too obvious!).
I challenge the buyer to make sure that this is "the one."
Could I have made some quick sales by letting buyers get hypnotized into buying the wrong home? Sure.
But my goal is to have happy clients! And while the decision is, of course, ultimately theirs - I will always do my hypnotism test!
I'd rather show a buyer ten more houses to find the one that is truly "the one" than let a client get hypnotized into buying a home that they'll regret down the road.
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