Before you call or e-mail me with your hate mail, hear me out. Typically the first time I meet with potential buyers we sit down and go through a series of questions to get a general idea of what they expect. What I’m looking for at this point, are what I call the non-negotiable items. I ask questions like; How many bedroom/bathrooms do you need? What’s your budget? What area are you wanting to be in? Do you want to be in a house, townhouse condo etc.? Quite often I’ll hear things like, “The house needs to be at least 2000 sq ft”. Or, “ We only want to look at ranchers”.
Part of my job is to give the buyer all their options. That includes the ones they don’t know they have or even want yet. So when I show property I purposely go outside their non-negotiable criteria. At no fault of the buyer, the majority of the time the property they purchase doesn’t contain all the items they thought were non-negotiable. At times, what they buy will be completely different than what they said they wanted. Whether it was because they over or under compensated what they could get for their money, didn’t realize what they wanted till it was in front of them or most commonly they were willing to sacrifice one thing for another.
Whether you’re a first time home buyer or a seasoned veteran in the art of home purchasing, my advice to you is to keep an open mind. Sometimes you don’t know what your looking for till you walk in the front door. Having tunnel vision can cause you to miss out on an amazing property you may have not even known you wanted. Have an open mind and trust that your Realtor will lead you in the right direction.