Flash or Substance?

Working with Buyer clients can be quite challenging and very rewarding but sometimes they need some serious hand holding and some serious advice. Just recently we began working with a couple who had been looking at homes with a traditional real estate agent. Over the course of several months they had seen numerous homes and even made an offer on one of them. I asked them if they still wished to purchase the home they had made the offer on and they seemed ambivalent. I probed a little deeper to find out what they had liked about that particular house and it seemed the answer was "the price". I kept asking what else they liked about the house and they really couldn't say all that much except that it was in decent condition. So the following day I presented them with a list of homes that fit their price range and looked like they had far more amenities than the house they had previously made an offer on. They were excited and so appointments were made for them to visit several more houses. The one house that they liked the most happened to be the smallest but was in pristine condition. In our opinion the home was too small for their needs and so we told them so. They seemed disappointed in our assessment of the home but called back the following day to express their gratitude that a real estate agent would actually go out on a limb and suggest that a home wasn't right for them. The moral to this story is that it is easy to be swayed by either good looks or a low price but ultimately that is not all the buyer should be searching for. They should be searching for a home that will really suit their needs for the amount of time that they will be living there. A good looking home in a poor location will lose it's charm real fast and a poorly built home that sells for a cheap price will soon cost the buyer more money and lots of aggravation. Two bedroom homes are really not that suitable for families, even if they are in great condition they will still be too small. When picking the right home for your family make sure to choose substance over flash. As a buyer's agent we will always guide you appropriately.