Helping Your Buyer Prioritize Their Criteria

Many first time buyers as well as any buyer who has not purchased in a long time have the tough job of defining their priorities about the home they want to purchase. I am working with a couple new to the Frisco Texas area and they are really trying to prioritize their list of wants and needs. There are a lot of ways to do this.Here are just two.

Prioritize Like An Eye Doctor

Some people start by making out their list and doing the "eye doctor" test. They take the first two on the list. They say is the first one better or is the second one better still. The third one now gets compared to the second. Is the second one better or is the third better still. Of course the one that is better moves up and then compared to the top one. Eventually you will end up with a prioritized list. However what happens when they can't decide between several. They are so close that they do not want or cannot differentiate the priority. Then you can move to the geometric manner of prioritization.

Geometric Visual Prioritization

You got to love the name of this heading. Pretty fancy huh. You can use this method with your top "x" number of priorities. Lets say that the number is 3 top priorities that will help them determine the best home for them. You start by drawing a triangle. Then you label each point of the triangle with the priority so that each point has one of the top three priorities (price, kitchen, location.) You can then put a center point in the middle of the triangle and draw line out from the center to and through each corner. These lines will end up being the rating scale for each priority. Place a 1 on each rating scale at the center. Place a 5 at each corner and a 10 at the end of each rating scale. Your triangle should look like the image below without the dashed red line.

The red dahsed triangle represents a home with a great
location, good price but the kitchen just doesn't measure up.

Now when your buyers are in any home they see they can rate each of those three priorities. Then connect the dots and you will have a triangle (see the red dashed triangle above.) The largest most uniformed triangle is the best fit. The problems occur when you get some funky looking triangles. One or two of those ratings are too far off and should be a point of discussion. A small (less than a five in all three priorities) well shaped triangle is not a good fit as you would be settling equally bad on all the priorities. When you find that large perfectly shaped triangle, you found your home. Any triangle with all three points outside your original triangle could be a good fit. The bigger and more equally shaped will typically be the one to consider most.The funny thing is emotions will overrule all.

Putting It In Practice

If you had 4 priorities you would draw a diamond. 5 priorities creates a pentagon. 6 priorities a hexagon and so on. This now gives your buyer a way to prioritize by comparison one by one or when they can't differentiate as easily a visual shape to help them decide. Just today I watched a couple talk about location, price, bedrooms and kitchen. They are a young couple with a small child. They starte4d going around in circles and then I laid this out for them. I told them to take the homes they saw today and use a diamond shape. While this may not be the final measurement, it will certainly help them get their focus on what is truly important.

They were excited to try this and see what would happen. I already know what the results will be but they will have to find out for themselves. Like Benjamin Franklin said, "People are best convinced by reasons they themselves discover." When you are a client of mine you discover another thing—Your Success is My Focus.