Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-09-22
WHIMS OF THE BUYERS
SOME PEOPLES NOTIONS HARD
TO OVERCOME.

Eccentricities in buyers are not al con-
fined to the handsome women who haunt
the bargain counters of the big stores
says the Pittsburg Dispatch. You will find
them among real estate buyers. and their
whims are no less noticeable than the
tantalizing notions of the woman who asks
to have Scent spool of thread delivered
to her home ten miles away on a Saturday
afternoon. They are thorns in the flesh of
the average real estate broker. for there
is no broker but has some of these odd
customers. and they prevent the consum-
nation of many sale that would other
wise go through.
Real estate buyers may be divided into
three classes. the man who wants prop
erty, the man who thinks he wants it
and the man who buys it because somebody
else tells him to do So If a man really
wants a property. whether for home,
investment or for speculation. he Is COM
paratively easy to deal with. for he is
| usually ready to go a little more than half
way in making the deal. But there are
many violent exceptions to this rule.
Examples could be multiplied of shrewd
business men who have desired properties
for years and have stubbornly refused to
buy for one reason or another. Very often
it was a case of too high prices they
imagined they were being held upo and
that the property owner knew they wanted
or must have his lot. They waited, saw
the price advance again. made repeated
overtureS, and once more sat down to await
another price advance. For. with the
marvellous growth of Pittsburg. prices are
certain to go up.
Years after they started negotiations for
the property they have often purchased it
for twice the original price Stubbornness
has cost many business men in this city
thousands of dollars a year although 1t Is
true the sum they finally paid for the
property was one that they could better
afford than the original figure at the time
it was presented.
The man who thinks he wants a prop
erty-thnks so by spells-is the hardest
kind Of a customer. You may work him
up to the point of signing agreement
convince him that the property will just
suit his wants, agree with all his arguments
regarding it's probable speculative value,
and go home convinced that he will have
the hard money ready In the morning. and
come back the next day to be disappointed.
Your customer has lost confidence in him
self
He is not sure that he really desires the
property after all. Maybe stocks or oil
will offer him better investment. The
trend of real estate values in that particu-
lar locality may not be upward the next
few years, and the property may not rent
readily as he imagineS. All these doubts
he conjures up in his mind with the result
that he gets busy" and invents some sort
of an excuse which he may offer to his
broker as a plausible reason why he shall
not close the deal
Most tickle of all is the man who buys
does not buy at the advice of his many
offcous friends. He listens for the slight
est varia ton in their sons of approval
He watches the newspapers for any stray
comments that may tell him whether he is
making wise investment. One after an
other of his supposed oracles he consults.
asking divers questions and often pretend
ing an interest in some outside buyer hop
ing to hide his own identity as the real
buyer. His pretenses are generally SO Shall
low to be ridiculous but his friends are