What the Numbers Don’t Tell You About a House
Home buyers today have access to more information than ever. A typical real estate listing tells you about a home’s square footage, property taxes, room dimensions, lot size, heating system and dozens of other details. Add in online searches, municipal records, neighbourhood data, automated valuations, and recent sales, and buyers can do a remarkable amount of research before they ever walk through the front door.
That should make buying a house easier – and sometimes it does. But sometimes it just gives people more things to worry about.
Too Much Information?
I’ve had buyers send me a link to a recent sale online, asking why the house we’re considering isn’t priced the same way. But that “comparable” might have a basement apartment, be substantially larger, sit in a different school district or have been renovated to a completely different standard. The information isn’t wrong. It just doesn’t necessarily mean what it appears to mean.
There is a difference between having formation and being informed.
When I’m evaluating a property with a buyer, I’m not trying to collect every available fact. I’m focusing on the facts that actually matter. Listing history, days on market, condition, location and the key differences between comparable properties help explain the numbers, rather than simply adding more of them.
Value in Use
There’s also something called value in use – the ‘worth’ that a property has to a specific buyer because of how it fits their life. A home might be around the corner from grandparents, within walking distance of a specific school, close enough to start walking to work, or have accessibility features. Those critical but intangible qualities of a home don’t necessarily show up neatly in comparable sales, but they can absolutely affect what a home is worth to a buyer.
None of this means that comparable sales stop mattering. It just means there can be a difference between market value and personal value. Sometimes the numbers simply aren’t measuring everything you’re buying.
Being informed doesn’t require you to know everything there is to know about a property. It’s really about knowing what information deserves your attention – and what is mostly noise.
