Lights! Camera! Home tours! It all looks so glamorous and, more importantly, simple when seen through the shiny black frame of our flat screen. If only it were as simple as showing my clients three homes, one after the other, and then leaving them to discuss the pros and cons of each and finally choose which home to make their own. What a carefree, relaxing job I would have if this were truly the world of house hunting! Unfortunately, it just isn’t this easy. Nor should it be. A house is probably the most expensive purchase you will ever make, and there is a lot of emotion put into it, not to mention the piles of documents, property related and loan related, that go along with such a transaction. Below are five of the house hunting myths I’ve noticed being propagated by televised property search shows.
Myth 1: 1, 2, 3 and Done! For the world of a perfectly packaged television show, three homes is about all you can neatly fit into a 30 minute time slot. In reality though, most home buyers end up looking at many, many more. True, some buyers do purchase the first or second property they see, but in reality you’ll probably tour closer to 5, 10, or even 20, before finding the right fit for you.
Myth 2: Minor details are deal breakers. It always gets me when the screen shoots to an interview with one of the buyers and he or she says “purple walls are just a deal breaker!” or “I could never live in a house with paneling!,” or “I can’t live in a house without stainless steel appliances!” If clients were this particular in real life, not a single house would ever get sold. In reality, the aesthetic details of the house can be relatively simple to change. What isn’t so simple to change is location, layout, and bones. While its nice to have stainless steel appliances or a soaker-tub already in place, the fact of the matter is, a buyer isn’t going to decide to not purchase a well priced home because there is fresh carpet in the bedrooms rather than hardwood floors.
Myth 3: Negotiations? What negotiations? If you gathered all of your information about house hunting from TV reality shows you would be completely unprepared when it came time to start dealing with the negotiations. Why? Because they never show them, and rarely, if ever acknowledge them! On TV, its as though the buyers decide which house they’d like to purchase, and boom, they own it! In reality, there are negotiations, paperwork, loan documents, title documents, and inspections that need to be dealt with at a minimum. Hopefully though, you have a real estate professional assisting you who can help to coordinate and manage all of this red tape, so you can focus on any full time job you already have, as well as the business of getting ready to move.
Myth 4: Real estate agent? More like used house salesperson. Readers may disagree with me on this one, but it seems to me that more often than not, the real estate agents on TV property search shows are made out to act like used car salespeople, rather than service professionals. Yes, an agent’s job is to sell their client a home, but it is also to point out the pros and cons of each house, and assist them in making the right decision. It is not to push any property, regardless of its perceived pros or cons, onto their client. Maybe its the editing, but it seems to me that most of the agents featured in these shows provide the latter sales pitch, rather than the former service.
Myth 5: Over budget is completely out of bounds. OK, here’s where this list gets a bit tricky, but I think its worth noting, and worth the consumer thinking about. I’d like to preface what I’m about to say by clearly stating that I believe that every real estate agent should honor and respect the budget their clients set. That being said, a real estate agents job, in part, is to know and understand the market. Therefore, it is very plausible and not-uncommon, for an agent to choose a property that is slightly above budget, based on the information he/she has about the market at that point in time. Based on the buyers’ reactions on TV shows, you would think the agent has committed a deadly crime by proffering up a home listed $5000 over their budget. In realty, this property may just be their dream home.
The takeaway? Don’t stop watching these entertaining reality shows, I certainly won’t! But please know, they are not the place for realistic or accurate real estate advice. If you are serious about buying, it may be time to call Herron Realty Group and set up an appointment to talk .