The Emotional Sea of Real Estate - Part 1

  One of the seldom acknowledged and or appreciated aspects of real estate is the human emotion that typically plays a significant role in the buying and selling process.  As real estate practitioners, one of our fundamental roles and perhaps the most important one, is to remove or at the very least minimize, the amount of emotion associated with the real estate buying and selling process and to treat it emotionally unbiased for what it is, a business transaction.

  Emotion involves and affects every person that is party to a real estate transaction.  Sellers are often reticent about leaving their home.  It is a place where memories have been made.  It represents a significant portion of most people's net worth and often includes large amounts of sweat equity for the work they have put into their garden, the basement and or other improvements they completed on their own and so forth. 

 Buyers on the other hand are filled with trepidation as well.  Is this the right home/neighbourhood for us?  Is there something wrong with the place? Can we afford it?  Are we paying to much?  All these questions and more create a flood of emotion with buyers especially when it comes to actually signing an offer to purchase.

  REALTORS® are not immune to the emotional aspect of real estate either.  One of the issues we face is the realization that every day we wake up unemployed.  We have no idea when and or where the next pay cheque may be coming from but that is all part of being self-employed in a commission only based profession.  You either accept it and control the emotional uncertainty of being a REALTOR® or get a none to five salaried job.   

  If you have ever been involved in a real estate transaction think about how you felt and you'll agree, emotion plays a huge role in the process.  As such you need someone working on your behalf that calms the stormy seas so-to-speak.  Too often, REALTORS® fail to accomplish that and in fact only whip up the waves into more of a tempest than what already exists.  In Part 2, I will delve more deeply into the emotions REALTORS® need to manage on behalf of clients to safely navigate through the often stormy seas of the real estate buying and selling process preventing them from landing on the rocks.