Boogie-Boarding Home
During our initial interview, my client Sandra handed me a spreadsheet. It specified all the features her new home should have, arranged in descending order of importance. Here are the top 10.
Fireplace
Parking
Single family home
Not on a busy street
View of some water
3 bedrooms or 2 + den
2 bathrooms
Walk to coffee
In-unit laundry.
East of Arguello and north of Fell
We conducted an exhaustive search, touring and/or considering several dozen properties over a dozen weeks.
Guess how many of those top-10 features her eventual home included? Two. The property was on a quiet block and had its own washer and dryer.
This incongruity between aspiration and actuality happens because our dream of home can’t be translated neatly into a checklist. There are too many intangibles.
In Sandra’s case, she knew her future home (a condo, not a single family home) was “the place” as soon as we entered the front door. And I guessed it from the hesitant excitement I read in her sideways glance towards me.
“Property sells itself” is one of my favorite real-estate adages. By that I mean there’s nothing anyone can say to “sell” someone on the desirability of a home. The buyer either feels it, or they don’t feel it.
It’s like boogie-boarding. You belly onto the wave as soon as you enter a property, but you sense almost instantly whether or not you’ll ride the board into shore.
It’s kismet. It’s chemistry. It’s love, not real estate.
Cynthia Cummins is a Top Producer and Partner at McGuire. For info on SF real estate visit http://CynthiaCummins.com. This article was re-posted at McGuire.com.
