What Type of Home Buyer Are You?

Ohmyhome

April 25, 2018

Written by: Benjienen Toledo

You may be aware of your personality type from the numerous personality tests available online and offline, but have you ever wondered which buyer personality do you fit in?

Four Home Buyer Personality Classifications

Below will guide you throughout the buying process and find the balance for your own benefit. Read through the seven questions, choose the answer that best suits you and find out which type of home buyer are you.

Questions	A	B	C	D
1. What is your priority when you meet up with the seller?	My personal goal and the bottom line	Establishing trust with the seller	The seller’s well-being	Data, Fact and Figures
2. How much time do you spend during viewing and negotiations?	The shortest time possible	I take my time so the seller can guide me through the process	Just enough time to bond with the seller and feel reassured	The most practical length of time so I can get all the facts
3. What is the first thing that you look for during viewings and presentations?	Concrete information on how it will meet my goal	The big picture and emotional benefits of the purchase	Case studies to find out how my buying decision will affect my family	Facts rather than emotions
4. What factors affect your decision making?	Speed, readily available information, and professionalism	Excitement of something new, rapport, and building consensus	Intuition, spontaneity, loyalty, mutual respect, and stories	Numbers, personalised solutions, and qualitative and statistical data
5. What factors annoy you most during viewing and/or presentations?	Slow work, inefficiency, repetitive and abstract sales pitch	Non-creative solutions that are too generic	Too much facts and too structured	High-level claims without supporting data
6. What format of presentation do you prefer?	PowerPoint that is brief and will not take much of my time	Motion or Video Presentations	Word document of Case / Impact Studies	Spreadsheets and Graphs
7. Before meetings/presentations, I: (fill in the blank) ________	Carefully consider my choices and its benefits	Prepare personal questions that I can ask the seller	Ask the opinions of the people around me	Conduct thorough research to deepen my knowledge about the transaction

Count how many answers you have for each letter.

Interpretation:

Mostly A– Assertive
Mostly B– Agreeable
Mostly C– Ardent
Mostly D– Analytical

Four Types of Home Buyers and Associated Characteristics

Assertive	Agreeable	Ardent	Analytical
Also known as the driver or the director People may see you as a self-centred and opinionated person You do not want to waste time You ask questions to force attention and stress quick results You change voice inflection to maintain interest You have time limitation hence you always get right to the point You demand immediate results due to your busy schedule You want to have the power and work independently You are a risk taker but also a fast decision maker	Also known as the amiable People see you as a respectful, sociable, trustworthy person You are interested in conducting business transactions with people who meet their buying expectations You might not conduct thorough research beforehand, because your buying decision relies on how the seller values your interest in relationship-building You tend to work in a less structured manner and less time-oriented You present yourself as a friendly, calm and patient buyer during meetings You are not a risk taker and seek support from others You are very careful and build consensus before making decisions	Also known as the expressive or the humanist People see you as a creative, outgoing and spontaneous person You value mutual respect and loyalty, and tend to be a people-pleaser You are concerned on how business decisions affect people around you You have a powerful personality to convince others of your strongly held convictions You are a dreamer and you use hunches to make decisions You are willing to take risks and focus on generalities and less time-oriented	Also known as the scientist You are a stickler for timeliness and accuracy You are excellent at crunching numbers You research ahead of time to have a deeper understanding about a subject before getting convinced on a matter You have a keen eye for detail and want specific and direct information You verify each information and focus on the features to make sure of its quality and efficiency Exact representations of facts are needed to attract your attention and stir interest You tend to ask a lot of detailed questions You are logical and cautious, yet stick to your decisions You are not much of a risk taker and are likely to speak with multiple sellers or conduct several viewings before making a thorough decision

Every person has a distinct personality type which influences their buying decisions. Culture, race, social status and even corporate roles impact a buyer’s characteristic. There’s not a single person that is ever totally one personality type; we are all mixtures, but you will discover that people operate primarily in one of four types.

You may discover that a combination of two personalities describe you, or your personality shifts from assertive to analytical or from ardent to agreeable depending on the occasion. This usually happens because personality is not innate or as fixed as our DNA, the nurture aspect or the environment directly affects it. There’s usually a dominant persona that bubbles to the top, often one or two others influence and inform the buyer’s purchasing style and preferences (Schultz, 2017).

If you are an HDB seller, you need to keep in mind that most potential buyers will be a mix of these personality types and won’t fit neatly into one of the four categories above. As an exercise, you may recall the HDB buyers or clients you have encountered and analyse which personalities they belong to.

We hope you have a smooth journey in your home selling. Make the most of the opportunities to find the right buyer for your home. Once you’re familiar with the four core personalities, you’ll understand which selling strategy you need to improve on and customise each approach that will fit any situation you come across to target all these four types of buyers.

With that, instead of a 25% chance of closing the deal (targeting only one out of four types of buyers), you will increase it to 75%, if not 100%.