How many houses should you look at?

By far, without a doubt the #1 most popular question I get asked is, "How many houses should we see before we feel comfortable pulling the trigger?"

The 2 most common fears they have are: 

1. What if I fall in love with the first one I see?

2. What if it takes me 30 homes before I find the perfect one?

It all comes down to the idea of paralysis by analysis - over-thinking things. There's a study I want to refer to that has nothing to do with real estate, but illustrates this point exactly.

There were some students from Columbia University that went to California and put up a stand in front of a grocery. In the morning, they put up 20 different samples of jam flavors. In the afternoon, they offered just 6 different flavors. The morning crew, 60% of people stopped. The afternoon, 40% of people stopped. This means that people like options. Now, out of the 60% of people in the morning that stopped, only 3% actually bought. In the afternoon, out of 40% of people, 30% ended up buying!

What does this prove? Although people like options, people who look at less options are much better equipped and prepared to make a decision. So when buyers come to us and ready to go, they want to buy a house, they've gotten pre-qualified, they're not just going to look at a bunch of houses for fun, they want to buy.

It is our job to make that happen. So what we tell our clients is to make sure we narrow their criteria down to be more specific. That way when you look at homes online, you're looking at the right homes, cherry pick your top 5, and choose one to put an offer on. If we send you 100s of houses online and you choose 20 to look at, chances are you will fall into the category of analysis paralysis - seeing a lot of different houses and not make a decision.

So if you're looking to buy soon, make sure you've narrowed down the specifics from the get go, look at the right houses online, so you can make your decision much, much faster.