Taking a leaf out of Right Move’s book

I finally decided I really needed get on the housing market and buy my own property.

Once I’d made that decision I started to look around for the right high street estate agency to help me (there’s a whole article there itself!).

I’d decided exactly what I wanted and where I wanted it to be, and knew exactly what my budget was and knew there was lots of property available.  It turns out buying a house isn’t that simple…..

No-one would give me what I wanted!

I told them I wanted a 2 bedroom semi detached house or a small ground floor flat in a certain part of town only.

But what they kept sending me was details of 3,4 and 5 bedroom semis or of bungalows and a whole host more to boot. It was driving me mad.

And then by chance I saw a TV documentary about internet dating and I suddenly realised what was going on. You see dating turns out to be very like house buying….

The really big online American dating agencies spend a huge amount of time (and money) analysing their customers’ behavior. Every click of their mouse is tracked, analysed and reviewed, and this data then feeds the way their run their business. What they’ve discovered is this: most customers state their preferences for a certain type of man or women to be ‘served’ to them in their search results.  But what is then so interesting is that these people then proactively look at people who don’t have these said characteristics. So for example (and we’ll make it easy to just imagine here) men might say they are looking for tall, blonde, athletic type women of a certain age…. But then they’ll spend considerable time looking at the profiles of women who are, say, tall, non sporty and brown haired. Now one can question why this is the case, but the answer doesn’t really matter. The fact is serious research shows it to be the case.

Exactly the same is happening with estate agents and I PROVED THE CASE.

I’d wanted a 2 bedroom semi or a small ground floor flat and what I ended up buying was a four bedroom house in a completely different part of town to what I thought I’d wanted.

You see 9 times out of 10, what we say we want and what we ‘settle’ for are two completely different things. ‘Settle’ probably isn’t the right word here because it’s not that we settle for someone of different criteria, or settle for a house that is different from what we wanted.

No, it’s just that our imagination is limited by what we know or believe to be the case, whereas the reality of what is ‘right’ for us – whether in a partner or a home – is often completely different.

The estate agent knows it’s worth sending the particulars of 3 or 4 bed houses to you even though you said you wanted a 2 bedroom semi….. because masses of previous clients saying the same thing as you have gone on to buy the 3 or 4 bed house…… and been completely thrilled and delighted with it – and I was no different.

And so too in dating. People say they want a tall, athletic, blonde and yet find a short, non sporty brunette and are absolutely thrilled with what a perfect match she turns out to be.

It’s certainly food for thought. So next time you meet/get introduced or are told about someone who doesn’t fit your criteria just remember that research from America and what happens in the house buying industry. It may lead you to find your perfect match just where you weren’t expecting it!