Nobody Said, "House Is Where the Heart Is"

Do you have friends or do you have friendships?

It’s a tiny but profound nuance that defines a relationship.

Do you sell houses, or do you sell homes?

Again, a tiny but profound nuance that defines a relationship.

I spent a great deal of time visiting my Portuguese grandparents as a child, and I can remember their home like I was there yesterday. I remember a gazing ball in the front yard garden and the grass that was always dry and prickly on my feet. There was an eagle hanging over their front door, and when you walked through the door into the house, there was a brick vestibule and a tiered plant holder with cactus, spider plants, and the smell of potting soil. I remember the patterned brown rug throughout the living room and the brown paneled walls. I remember the blue couch, the unused fireplace, and the curio cabinet with my grandmother’s Hummel collection. There was usually a paper plate of Vienna Finger cookies on the kitchen table, and always a game show or soap opera playing in the background. There was the darkly stained coffee table with the TV guide, earmarked with my grandparent’s favorite shows. On the days my grandmother cooked, it was usually something with tomato sauce and there was a thick smell of garlic throughout the home.

If you are just selling homes, you can stick to the standard litany of Q&As when working with buyers, for example, “How many bedrooms do you need,” “How much land would you like,” and “Do you need a garage?”? Whereas if you are selling homes, your paradigm shifts in a small but profound way. When selling homes, the questions will trigger deeper feelings and emotions than the previous questions. Questions for selling a home would include, “What’s your favorite memory of a home,” or for sellers “What are some of your favorite memories living in this home?”? If you can get to the heart of these types of questions, you can get to the hearts and souls of your clients. And when you get to their hearts and souls, you build not only better businesses but better relationships with people who work with and refer you to others who want to work with you because you make them feel something. Not only do you trigger a nostalgic sense of the past, but you simultaneously suggest that they can rebuild that good feeling moving forward.

When you start a new relationship with anyone, including a new client, you are starting a memory, a new pattern of neuronal activity, and connections. By triggering a past memory and emotion from the start, you thereby start with something a bit more tangible, a positive thought pattern that can now be associated with the present home purchase, and carried forward as part of the decision making process during the sale, and long after the closing has taken place.

There’s a difference between selling a house and selling a home. There are many transactions that may be had by agents who simply sell inventory off the shelf. However, I think there’s something greater out there for agents who trigger memories, feelings, and emotions for their clients, thereby transforming each house into happy memories and a meaningful future, in other words, turning a house into their home. Good agents sell houses. Great agents sell homes.

Nobody ever said, “House is where the heart is,” because there’s no heart inside those walls until the inhabitant sees it as a home. It’s your job to start that process.

“Home is where the heart is.”