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by Wally Conway,
Host
of the Home and Garden Show on WOKV
Homebuyers are an interesting study. Watching people make their
home buying decisions has brought me to the conclusion that every
decision that every one of us makes is based in emotion. You heard
me, it's all about the emotion. Before you deny what I am describing
to you, let me begin with me.
Painful as the revelation is for me, even I as a Naval Academy
graduate, retired Navy pilot, and home inspector extraordinaire,
make decisions based on emotion. It took some bridging for me to
get there, but I am there.
Have you ever had a feeling in your gut about a decision? A hunch?
That's emotion. We make decisions that reflect how we feel about
the event or expect to feel when the outcome is completed. People,
especially those that are highly educated and technically trained,
rarely realize and usually never concede that their decisions are
based in emotion.
 Before
discussing the particulars of the emotional responses, I will admit
that logic does play a role. What ends up happening is, after the
near immediate emotional response and decision, the backfilling
of logic begins. Logic is used to make the emotion seem reasonable.
Emotional responses as I see them fall into two broad categories.
The first is the desire for pleasure and the second is the avoidance
of pain. When we are contemplating a decision, we weigh the balance
of the desire for and probability of a pleasurable outcome with
the fear of and distain for pain.
What real estate agents are faced with is responding to issues
presented as logic that are truly emotions. It takes a tremendous
talent to listen to the logic, but hear the emotion. What are people
really saying? That is the challenge.
Find and understand the emotional issue and you can keep any deal
together. This thought applies no matter if your role is buyer,
seller, agent, or inspector. Ultimately, you must seek to understand
why people feel as they feel in order to fully comprehend what they
really mean in what they are saying.
Not long ago, I inspected a home for an electrical engineer, a
very bright and successful individual. The home had a beautiful
swimming pool in the backyard. Our intrepid engineer had out his
digital tape measure and was measuring the distance between each
electrical receptacle along the rear exterior of the home. He would
measure, then ponder, measure more, and then ponder more.
Finally, he approached the real estate agent and me announcing
that there was an unsafe condition relating to the unequal distance
between the electrical outlets. He then spouted large quantities
of electrical engineer babble and finished with, "I'd be shocked
if this were not a code violation". I wanted to respond with
"No sir, the code is intended to prevent you from being shocked",
but decided that "hmmmm" was a better response.
After much debate and some real listening, the man's issue had
nothing to do with electrical engineering or the National Electric
Code. In his mind, he had the perfect place for his lounge chair,
but there was not a receptacle adjacent to that location for him
to plug his radio into! He was laying logic, however flawed, on
us in order to justify his demand that a new receptacle be added.
Listen to the logic, hear the emotion!
Copyright © Florida HomePro, Inc. and Wallace
J. Conway. All rights in all media reserved.
About the Author: Wally Conway is your weekly Host of the Home
and Garden Show on WOKV, and author of the book "Secrets of the Happy
Home Inspector", available at GoHomePro.com.
Wally's expertise and experience has been sought after by HGTV's "House
Detective", DIY Network's "Finders Fixers", the National Association
of REALTORS®, newspapers, and corporations. As a speaker, writer, and instructor,
Wally blends the right amount of up-to-date information with just the right
amount of humor, insight, motivation, and real-world application. Visit WallyConway.com
for more information!
Reproduction of this article: Permission is granted to use this article
in any media provided that the article is reproduced in its entirety as shown
above, with the authors resource box/bio included including links to http://www.gohomepro.com
and http://www.wallyconway.com
as the original publisher.
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