Whether you are buying or selling a home, you will face all kinds of people - people motivated by a variety of factors. By identifying their skills and preferences, you can form a strategy that will improve your negotiations skills during real estate transactions. When negotiating the sales price or purchase price of a home it can be helpful to classify people into three broad types - analytical, visual, and intuitive - in terms of the way their thinking influences their behavior.
Analytical People - The analytical home buyer/seller is mostly influenced by financial, statistical and factual matters. As you might guess, analytic people tend to choose analytical jobs that require working with numbers such as accountants, financial analysts, auditors and tax consultants. They tend to be left-brain thinkers. You can more easily persuade an analytical home buyer/seller by being fully prepared with data related to the financial or factual side of the home purchase or sale. You can possibly even down-play aesthetic or intuitive matters, like the quality or beauty of the home, it's close proximity to shopping malls or how you are a trustworthy seller/buyer.
Visual People - The visual home buyer/seller will focus on how things look and feel. In terms of buying your home, a visual person may actually give you a better offer than a potential analytical buyer. In terms of selling a home, they will undoubtedly stress the aesthetic pleasantries of the home including the surrounding good neighborhood. Many artists, writers, actors, interior designers and other people who work in creative jobs tend to be art conscious. Usually, visual people tend to be right-brained thinkers. When selling your home to a visual person, consider emphasizing the appearance, condition, and quality of the home.
Intuitive People - Intuitive thinking home buyers/sellers are influenced more by how they feel about the home, you or situation. People who work in jobs that require rapid analysis, diagnosis, and action are often intuitive thinkers. This includes doctors, lawyers, general managers and salespeople. It will go a long way if you work hard to build a strong bond with this type of home buyer/seller. While you should do this with all people, the intuitive home buyer/seller places more value on ensuring they work with people they like and trust.
In reality, this is over simplified because you can't categorize a home buyer/seller into a single personality profile. Everyone has different experiences, emotions, and preferences that influence their behavior and cause them to straddle between the three personality types. The home buying/selling process further complicates the characterization because you are often not dealing directly with the buyer/seller, but rather their real estate agent. Because of the nature of their job, real estate agents must have the capability to straddling all three personality types. However, everyone including the real estate agent will have a stronger preference or alignment with one of the personality types. Once discovered, you can modify your strategy and approach accordingly.
You best learn a home buyer/seller or real estate agent's personality type during small talk and by asking general questions. This can be done casually early in the discussions. As you begin learning more about the home buyer/seller or real estate agent, be thinking about the three personality types and think about comments, questions and/or arguments that will help convince the various types of people. Be aware, just because you are dealing with a visual thinking person, does not mean you can ignore or fudge the financial aspects. Doing so is naive and will leave you vulnerable. Once you determine the type of person you are dealing with, don't act like you have special insight about that person. Continue to act as you would normally while inwardly work on your strategies, comments and arguments to fit the type of person you're dealing with.
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