We’ve all embraced the concept of Spaced Repetition as being the best way to learn a new approach. Yet Agents overlook the opportunity to use this approach to overcome the resistance clients must change. Keep the following in mind:

Buyers Have Mastered Just “Sitting on the Fence”

Buyers have spent, in some cases, up three years now sitting on top of the fence. They have mastered the habit of just sitting on the fence because they have practiced it day after day for so long now. Even if the best deal hit them over the head, they may not act because of their unproductive habit. Talk about a habit from spaced repetition, buyers have become the best at doing nothing.

Why not use Spaced Repetition to teach the buyer a new more productive habit of taking advantage of one of the best buying opportunities in history. How do you do this? Continuously barrage your buyers with compelling reasons to buy now. One strong argument won’t work. When there is no spaced repetition, people don’t change even their bad habits. So, keep sharing articles and arguments on the reasons to buy, until they develop new more productive habits and buy!

Replacing Price with Quality of Life

Buyers have also learned one other unproductive habit over the past several years. Through constant (more spaced-repetition) media reminders about price depreciation in Real Estate (teaching them another bad habit), they have learned how to focus exclusively on price. This makes absolutely no sense because most people buy to improve the quality of their life, or because of lifestyle. Why not use Spaced Repetition on the Emotional benefits to the buyer? Re-teach the buyer that money isn’t the only consideration, it just buys the quality of life they are looking for.

Sellers Resisting Selling at Market Price: The “I’ll Just Wait For Prices to Recover” Strategy

How about those Sellers? Talk about Paralysis. Even after three long years of loss, after loss, after loss, they still cling to the misconceptions that prices will rapidly rise and save them. This Habit didn’t come about from spaced repetition as much as it did because of the Impact their loss will have on their net worth. If they just stay in denial, they can avoid the loss. We know the loss is already there and this doesn’t work. But, how do you convince the Seller to move on with their life?

Use the same strategy you applied to Buyers above. Use Spaced Repetition by barraging the Sellers with information that verifies the actual value of the property and the likelihood of a long-drawn out recovery. Seller ProForma’s are ideal for this purpose. So is information on all of the challenges we are facing both economically at home, and with geopolitical issues abroad, both of which could stunt the market.

There you have the best strategy to use for both buyers and sellers in this market.