Why you might reconsider always trusting your first impression.
There are several mistakes people make when buying homes: searching for houses without being pre-approved for a mortgage; failing to have the home inspected before they buy; making an offer based on the asking price and not the market value.
But if you can believe it, one of the main mistakes buyers often make is placing too much value on their initial instincts.
Wait? You ask: Isn’t the first impression everything?
Well, yes and no. First impressions are definitely important. There’s a certain logic that tells us our instincts are reliable and that when we see ‘ the one’, we’ll know it. This mindset has actually been cited as the single most influential factor in guiding people’s choice to buy, or not buy, a home.
Yet despite this fact, the ‘first impression’ approach to buying can be problematic. And, with so many people in Calgary buying homes right now, we think it’s important to debunk this myth — just a little bit.
The problem with the ‘trust your instincts’ approach is that buyer’s tend to see houses subjectively, and not objectively.
What does this mean?
Well, when a buyer visits a home they are susceptible to details that really do not have all that much to do with whether or not the home is the right fit for them. Things like, are the rooms messy or clean, has the home been staged, what colour the walls are painted.
Bad decor choices or untidy rooms aside, some homes — although they may pique your ‘this is the one’ spidey sense — could actually suit your needs and offer you a structurally sound base to build off. Likewise, it’s not advisable to jump at a home just because you love the owner’s sense of decor!
Here’s a simple story that serves as a good example.
I once took a client to a home that checked all their boxes. But there were several holes in the walls, the carpets were stained, and the owner’s belongings were scattered everywhere. Before we’d even made i t to the upper floor, my client wanted to leave. She was convinced this home wasn’t ‘the one’.
After several weeks of looking I convinced her to return to the home, except now the owner had moved out, the walls were fixed, and the carpets had been removed. Two days later, we closed on the sale.
What changed?
Well in my mind, nothing. In the client’s mind, everything.
The moral of the story is to trust your instincts, but to also trust your Calgary Realtor®. A hot Calgary real estate market can make you feel pressure to jump on the first home that even remotely sparks your interest.
A good real estate agent is a master of looking at things objectively, so they can talk you down from overspending on an impractical home that “looks pretty” or help you see the hidden pluses of a home that doesn’t at first scream out that ‘this is the one’.
At the end of the day buying a home is a balance between instinct and reason, initial appeal and future potential, and first impressions and second visits.
Why don’t you let us help with that?
Trung Bien
