Help your clients sell their home... to their friends

Let’s face it; we all make purchase decisions based on our emotional response. You don’t buy a BMW just because it will drive you from point A to point B, and you don’t buy a home because you need a roof over your head. We all make the decision to buy something because of how we believe ownership of the item will make us feel. If you look at real estate, the purchase decision is fundamentally an emotional one. Buyers preview a house and make the decision to buy based on a number of features that justify how they think they will feel living in the house. This fact is proven over and over again by professional home stagers and effective sales people.

Given the importance of the emotional response associated with a purchase decision, many real estate agents overlook the follow-up conversations that clients will inevitably have with their loved ones and peers. Unfortunately, if the client is not equipped with the proper language to justify their purchase to their peers, they may end up suffering from buyer’s remorse. The client signs the contract and is very excited. They then call a family member and tell them that they just bought a house. If the client has fully prepared their justification for the purchase, they can describe the features and benefits of the home and hopefully gain support for their decision. However, if the client has not fully worked through the language that supports the buy decision, they may end up being talked out of the purchase by their peers….

Just to reiterate, your client’s make purchase decisions based upon emotion. They then justify the decision by describing features and benefits. With this in mind, it is important to equip your client with the language and verbiage that they will use to sell their decision to their friends and loved ones. You can help by repeatedly articulating the benefits and features of the property that you client is buying. Repeat in a number of ways the features that they find most compelling, and use terms that they can repeat to their peers. Buying a home is a very emotional decision and it is typically up to the client to “sell” the property to their friends and family. By making the process as easy as possible, you can avoid a lot of buyer’s remorse.