Sometimes people don’t make sense. They make decisions or judgements that we don’t understand. They seem completely illogical to us. We forget that people make decisions based on feelings, then use logic to justify them. No matter what we think, people are not the creatures of logic and reason we like to think we are.
I remember an interaction I had one day with a homeowner. I had gone over to do an inspection for him, and we got to talking about how he had had another guy come through earlier to do an appraisal of his home. To make a long story short, this man felt like the first appraisal had come in lower than it should have. He mentioned how his brother’s home of a similar size had sold in a different market for a much higher price. I enjoyed the opportunity I had to talk to him and teach him about how the appraisal process works. We talked for about 40 minutes, and I left feeling like I had helped him understand a few things about how appraisals work and why his home would not be valued at the same price as his brother’s home many miles away.
I got an email the next day that had been forwarded to us by a lender. This gentleman was talking to them like our conversation the day before had never happened. He was still talking about price per square foot, and trying to reason that since his brother’s property had sold for a certain price, his should, too. It seemed like such an illogical, unreasonable thing to do. Why would he have acted this way?
We have to remember that people are emotional beings. This is true especially when we are talking about something like their home. There is an innately emotional connection that we form with our homes that we can easily become distraught if it is deemed less valuable than we think it is. This is can be true of other things as well. So, when people don’t seem to understand what you’re telling them, when they seem to be irrational, don’t get frustrated. Real-estate agents, homeowners, appraisers – we’re all human. We’re all emotional beings. You may just be looking at a situation through a different lens than they are.
For more information on this subject, please listen to The Appraiser Coach Podcast Episode:
