HOW TO CLARIFY YOUR THINKING IN MAKING REAL ESTATE DECISIONS

After 28 years of helping people buy and sell I have found that, in modern times a lot of people suffer from what Zig Ziglar referred to as “stinkin’ thinkin’”.
Real estate salespeople are often heard to lament “Why can’t they make up their minds?”.
Hopefully the following will help, having been gained from a variety of the best trainers in the world as well as my own experience.
My first suggestion is;
Divide a piece of paper vertically with a line.
Put a heading on the left “Lifestyle”
Put a heading on the right “Investment”

The primary reason people get confused is that they try to combine these two without giving priorities.
For example if you are going to invest in a property for some years but also want to retire to the property you may find the best investment property you don’t ever want to live in and the home you would die to live in will be a poor investment.
Once you have the investment vs lifestyle columns sorted you can give them priorities.
As an example, if a retired couple are moving because one of them has health problems then the primary reason for selling is one of lifestyle. Given this, they should give a low priority to whether prices are up or down, assuming of course they can afford the move.
I have seen many couples who are divorcing let the property deteriorate in order to harm the other party without paying heed to the fact they are also hurting themselves. The best approach if they can’t agree on how to split the proceeds is to sell the property while it is still presentable and have the Settlement Agent put the proceeds in a trust account while they sort out who gets what.
Let’s look at some lifestyle versus investment decisions.
Reducing the mortgage so one party can stop work – lifestyle.
Health issues – lifestyle.
Inability to accept current values – investment.
Trying to pick the top/bottom of the market – investment.
Buying a special rural property – lifestyle.
Comparing the current value to the top of the market instead of the difference between what you paid and the current value – investment.
Hopefully this may help someone get to the stage where they can move on.

Ross Cutten

Owner / Director

Noble Real Estate