Justifying Your Love
In a previous posting, I talked a little about the notion that a home shopper’s “HEART” usually fall in love with a home first , then they justify their reasoning with their “HEADS” . Some say that a home shopper’s first impression of a home makes them decide in mere seconds whether they will buy that home. I would take that one step further in saying that a home shopping ideal would be to turn the entire tour of a home into a series of “first” impressions.
That is to say, when the prospective home shopper enters the home, they must have a good first impression. Then as they enter each new room, they are ideally having a series of good first impressions. The Master bedroom must have this first great impression, the kitchen, the great room, the finished basement, and so forth. If the home shopper has a great first impression, but , for example, the master bedroom is then ho-hum, that can break the love affair. I am suggesting that if you want your home to “sizzle” with interest and excitement, you need to take the presentation as seriously as you do the actual inclusions of the features themselves.
This means that a successful designer can not just be satisfied with the fact that they have included ,say, and island in your kitchen, or enough space for a King-sized bed in the master, or a whirlpool tub in the master bath, it is more about HOW you are placing those items for that first impression than the fact that a home does or does not include the actual items themselves. I have seen experienced home salespeople and shoppers alike , fall in love so hard that they easily overlook what I see as the obvious.
To start the process of creating great first impressions, try the exercise of finding the first area that folks will be standing at when they first enter any room. Let’s call this the X-spot When a person is standing at that X-spot, what will they be seeing directly in front of them? What will their first impression be of that room as they enter.
I know folks who have designed their dream homes on paper only to find that something is missing when they actually walk into the finished home. They are not excited. I know home designers who know all about puzzling the prices together so the homes have everything they think the client wants(and they have checked-off all the wish-list items given to them by their clients) but the home fails to excite the buyer. I have had buyers come to me who have designed, or had others design, their home, but just don’t like the finished design. The novice designer has never taken that step beyond the level of being a good home draftsman to the elite level of of being a good home artist. This subject of creating great first impressions as you wander from room to room, is often the cheif difference between good and average designs.
I will get into a few examples inpart 2 of this blog but first, let me tell you that seeing a good design on paper and seeing what the design wil look like in reality can often be two different things. Yesterday, I had one of my sales people come to me and say that he had met someone , over the phone, and that someone had a certain home they loved which was being offered by another big-name(respectable) builder. This salesperson was experienced and so I asked him to show me the design that this new client had fallen in love with. He got me the builders website and model and I proceeded to look at the design of a big 2-story home which was over 3,000 square feet in size. At “first impressions”, it was indeed a lovely home. The exterior was quite upscale in looks. As I viewed the video tour and the photo page, the sales person told me things like,”see how neat the ceiling designs are” or “see how nice those 2-story tall windows are”. I could tell my sales person was impressed. In his own way, he too had fallen in love with this home. I could see why the new client may be impressed as well. I see plans all the time that impress me, but this one did not impress me personally because it was missing so many things that I see as being “must-haves” in any home of this size. These things however were not being seen by either the prospective clinet or my salesperson.
Remember, this home was over 3,000 square feet in size. The home however had no walk-in pantry. The home had no private toilet compartment in the master bedroom. The home had the twin-sink master vanity placed so when one person might be standing at one of the sinks, this person would block the way going into the bathroom. This home had three bedrooms upstairs(master on the first floor) yet only 2 had walk-in closets. The single master closet was surprisingly small and if the master bedroom door was to be left open, passer-bys could see the bed! This home had a game room in the basement that was 10 feet wide. A 4.5 by 7 feet pool table will require 14.5 feet of width which means this game room can not fit a pool table. The laundry room had a short 3.5 foot long counter top for folding clothes. The dining room was able to only seat 6(it even showed that in the photos), where a home of this calibre should usually seat 8 to 10. There was no broom/cleaning closet, no great room game closet, and the front and mud room closets were one- doored small closets that would force guests to throw their coats onto some couch or bed. The point is that the fancy ceilings, a second- story “bridge” hallway, and colors of the home caused my salesperson, (and perhaps his clients as well) to fall in love with the home, and they were now apparently in the phase of trying to then justify their love because their first impression was so strong.
I wanted to meet these potential clients so I could better understand their desires. They were nice enough to come into the office this morning. They were very nice people(as I have said, we only build for “nice” people), and it was not long before I started asking questions like, ” I noticed that this home did not have a walk-in pantry. Shall I therefore assume that you do not wish to have a walk -in pantry in your design?” Their answer was to the effect of, ” We would want a walk-in pantry IF it could still fit into our budget”. I would say , ” I noticed that this home does not have many closets such as a cleaning closet or game closet. Does this mean that this closet space is not a priority to your living style?” They answered to the effect , (the lady in particular) ,”No, I did not notice the design did not have a cleaning closet and I WOULD like more closets”. At the end of our meeting, I had a much better understanding of what the clients actually DID want in their design and it WAS NOT the home they fell in love with. Nonetheless, it was still very helpful to use that design to discoverwhat they were looking for.
This reminded me of the Kenosha model home I visited last year. It was a huge national home builder’s model home. Surely desinged by a team of excellent home designers. The home was again over 3,000 square feet. As I walked into the home, I saw several folks who obviously had “love” in their eyes. They loved this home. It was hard not to fall in love. It was wonderfully merchandised and decorated. I asked the salesperson, “is there a front foyer closet , or did I just miss it?”. She said , sheepishly,” no we don’t offer one, but there is one in the back hall”. This home also had no (that is to say ZERO) drawers of any kind in any bathroom. This was only the start of a long list of things which few had seemingly noticed.
What these 2 examples of really big homes did have was an understanding of making a great first impression as you walked through the home, into each new room. When you stood on the X-spot in every room, the designers understood that if you could get the shopper to focus on some striking design element, or color, or decoration, you could win over the “love” of the home shopper.
In the next part of this 2-part blog, I will explain a few examples of how excellent home designs use this first impression device , and how , with a few simple ideas, you too can use it in your next home design.
On a closing note, the market again seems to be maintaining it’s surge upward and one of my sales staffers is presently signing another new home contract tonight. This is becoming our longest streak of new home activity in 4 years. Are we now out of the housing slump? Time will tell. As for the Government stimulus money, if you want to build and still want that check, we got some new news today about getting in on this and still having time to build.
Thanks for blogging with me. I love to hear your comments, so keep them coming. If you would like me to address anything in particular, let me know.
Blessings,
Tom Hignite
