It's All in the Vibe

As a photography enthusiast I love images of houses.  My favorite magazine is Architectural Digest.  I can spend hours looking at the photos and reading about the amazing houses they showcase.  As a Realtor I strive to take the best photos I can of the houses that I'm listing for sale.  I often go back to the house and reshoot photos to keep them current or to find a better angle or a better moment, like when the sun is shining through that huge window bathing the house in a warm glow.  Making the house as appealing and as enticing as I can through images is my job.  The old adage "a picture is worth a thousand words" has never been more true in marketing and advertising a home in today's Real Estate market. 


But photographic images are not the real world.  Lighting and composition can create a mood or evoke a feeling.  Like that cozy sun filled room.  There are images that remind us of a childhood memory, or make us smile or bring tears to our eyes.  Advertisers have been using images to great success for years and years.  But again, images are not the real world.  That fast food burger always looks so appealing to me when I see it on TV, but I know what I feel like once I eat it.

For buyers searching the internet images are a huge help in selecting which houses to put on their "must see" list. As a Realtor, this is what I want my clients to do.  But I can't even count the number of times my buyers have been let down once they've actually seen the house.  The "I'm dying to see that house, I know I'll love it!" goes to "That wasn't at all what I thought it was going to be".  Some of this can be attributed to the Realtor photos, you know, the ones that are taken with super wide lens that makes every room look like it's the size of a football field.  I for one really hate those, but to each his own.

But for me, the real reason isn't the misleading advertising.  No, for me it's something much more subtle and intuitive.  For me it's the "Vibe" the buyer feels in the space.  All of my buyer clients will tell you, I talk a lot about "vibe".  According to the Cambridge online dictionary the word vibe is defined as such:

• the general mood a person or place seems to have and the way they make you feel

And that's it to a T.  I always recommend to my buyers to pick their favorite houses out of the listings that I send them, but I also encourage them to look at other houses as well, or I will bring them to houses that I've seen that they might like.  It's important to get in the space.  Feel what the house does to you.  See how it fits.  I also encourage my clients to image their day in the house.  How would they use it?  How would it feel using it.  Picture yourself cooking in the kitchen, entertaining friends.  Where do the kids play? Where do you eat your meals?  It seems like that would be a pretty obvious thing to do.  But it's not natural for buyers coming into a strange house, filled with another families personal items.  It's difficult on an emotional level to displace the current homeowner from their house and call it your own.  Yet it's something that buyers need to do to make sure they get the right home.

On more than one occasion I've gone into a house with buyers who had a baby with them.  And upon coming into a house the baby has started crying for no reason.  No reason to you or I, but there's something about the place that creeps the baby out.  Call me crazy, but pretty much all of the time the baby is unhappy in a space, the adults don't get a good feel for the place either.  Of course the opposite has happened as well, and I'm very quick to point out the smiling, happy baby to my buyers.

I'll never forget my first visit to a particular house that I was going to list.  It was very small, kind of rough around the edges.  The couple who lived there raised two children in the house.  As soon as I walked in I felt it, it was overpowering.  It the feeling of familial love. This incredibly family was so warm and loving that the house exuded it.  It took all of 3 days to sell that house...  I see the new owners of the house periodically and they're still very happy in the house.

So my advice to buyers is to get into the space and let go.  Let yourself "feel the vibe" of the home.  You'll know if it's the right house is for you. 

It's all in the vibe....can you feel it?