The real estate sixth sense

Flickr photo by Menage a Moi.

Editor's note: This is the final article in a four-part series on sensory homebuying. See Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

At this point in this series, we've explored sight, smell and sound -- the primary physical senses involved in sensory or, more accurately, multisensory homebuying. Taste is, obviously, implicated much less frequently (although I did swipe a staging apple from a bowl a few weeks back during my third back-to-back appointment without a break on a day of "cardio house hunting" -- and yes, I did check first to ensure that it was a real apple, not a staging prop).

The other physical senses, touch and balance, are similarly tough to use on a house hunt, except to the extent that we perceive things like a funny wall texture, distinguish between hardwoods and laminate by feeling for wood grain, or sometimes feel slightly off-kilter when our footsteps alert us to an older home's sloping floor.

But the last sense we need to explore is not classified in the textbook lists of somatosensory perceptive senses. I submit that it ought to be listed in the real estate books, though.

The last sense is the real estate equivalent of a sixth sense. Let's call it "feel."

A few weeks ago, I showed one of my more discriminating buyer couples two homes back to back. We'd already gotten clear that they needed quiet, preferred the clean but warm austerity of the mid-century modern to the nook-and-cranny charm of the Mediterraneans and Victorians, and that San Francisco Bay views were strongly preferred.

So we looked at two places about a half-mile away from each other, both high up in the East Bay hills. They looked pretty comparable from the street -- both built in the 1950s, both in the general style these folks preferred. One was higher up on the hill and significantly larger -- that one was priced a bit higher, too. But the smaller one was the standout winner. Why? It had the "feel."

So much so that I actually wished, out loud, that the multiple listing service had a check box in the property description section where listing agents could indicate whether the property had the "feel." I'm using the term "feel" to describe both the perceptive sense and that quality of a home, which perceived, is interpreted in a buyer's brain/mind as "feel."

If you're a real estate fan, you likely already have a nonverbal concept of what feel is. But before we try to define it, let's get clear on some feel need-to-knows. First off, every buyer is not looking for feel. Some folks are simply pragmatic in their tastes, just grateful to be able to buy anything at all, or have other priorities and values for their home that trump feel by far.

Second, if there was an MLS check box for feel, I have no doubt that the rotten apples amongst my real estate colleagues would simply check it every time, even for places without feel, so that there would be little to no true information value added for having the box in the first place. In fact, it would very likely very quickly devolve to the point that if a property's listing did NOT have the feel box checked, you'd know it was pretty stinking bad. ...CONTINUED

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