Buying A Home

RIGHT BRAIN / LEFT BRAIN

Which Side of the Brain Buys the House?

The two sides of the brain process information differently. The right hemisphere deals with visual activities. It likes the big picture. The left hemisphere is analytical, taking concepts and ideas from the right hemisphere and applying concrete language to them. The right hemisphere sees a beautiful house in a beautiful place, but the left hemisphere sees a 2500 square foot house on a 15,000 sq.ft. lot overlooking a 120-acre lake.

The left side of the brain uses logic. The person with a dominant left brain lines up details, arranges them in a logical order, and draws conclusions. The left brain person may be impatient with the market overview, and eager to get to the details underlying the home’s features and how the home’s value can be measured.

The right brain is the emotional side. It makes decisions based on feeling. If you are right-brained, you may have difficulty following the fine points of home purchase unless you have first talked with residents, or taken a lakeside stroll. Druing a visit to the builders' models, the left brain examines the dimensions of the windows. The right brain notes that there will be ample light.

The left brain processes information sequentially, makes lists, and takes pleasure in checking off tasks when they are accomplished. The right-brained person approaches tasks randomly and jumps from one detail to another. If you’re right-brain dominant, the decision to buy a home may take longer -- not because you don’t love it, but because you need to absorb every aspect of the purchase. You may even rebel when asked to make the decision because you’re not ready -- you need more information.

The right side of the brain is imaginative and creative, and needs to visualize the home’s decorating scheme before a sales contract is signed. The right brain person wants to spend time in a decorated model home, moving about from room to room, making notes about color matches and furniture placement. The right brain loves the process; the left brain wants to cut to the chase – what are the taxes, how deep is the lake, what financing options are available?

Of course, we make home-buying decisions with both sides of our brains. Buyers will come to a conclusion on the basis of many factors, regardless of which brain side is dominant. A home with superior value, beautiful natural surroundings, and a community full of happy residents will convince even the most skeptical parts of both brains. If one half of a couple is right brain dominant and the other half is left brain dominant, the process of buying can be challenging (“Don’t rush me,” we hear the right brain saying). Nevertheless, with the eyes on the prize, the right brain will work happily with its counterpart, feeding ideas and images that the left brain will methodically translate into the operative words, “It’s just right for us. We’ll take it.”