Buying Property is like looking for book in library

Q.
Similarity of buying property to looking for a book in a library. Discuss and illustrate.

A.
Many of us remember going to the school library. For most, you probably had some experience with even bigger libraries like University Library. UKM has one of the best libraries in the region, and mind you, I never really go there to look for (Red Spot) books.

This article is about who is who in real estate as compared to library. This will make you understand what is real estate industry, in particular the estate agency practice.

The four parties in library are:

1. Book seeker (potential reader or student)
2. Librarian
3. Library software system (library system)
4. Books

These are quite similar to estate agency:

1. Purchasers/Tenants (similar to book reader/student)
2. Estate Agents (similar to librarian)
3. Software or Listing (similar to library system)
4. Properties (similar to books)

When you go to the library to look for material, you can do a few things:

1. Randomly search the shelves.
2. Use the catalogues or library system.
3. Ask the librarian.
4. Check the Book Return Bin (for those books just returned)

There are a few things that will determine your selection of which library and what system to use for your best selection of books.

What type of book/material that you are interested. (Type of property)
How specific is the information that you are looking for. (Specificity)
How extensive is the search which you require. (Time urgency)

Therefore, imagine you need to look for a very specific book by a title or author, you would not go to every bookshelf and try and search for it, right?

This is the same as when you have a budget and specific type of property in your mind, you can go to the listing, type in the selection and let the system search for your best fit.

However, in most cases, your dream book by that particular author might not be available in the catalogue! So, what do you do?

You turn to the librarian, who will suggest a similar but not the exact book which you are looking for. Let us use an example, a book on "Parenting your child", you cannot find the exact book, but there are many 'Parenting' books around. There may be some popular topics on parenting which suit you! Hence, the librarian might be able to assist you to arrive at a good title.

Similarly, in estate agency, many are looking for properties, but unable to arrive at the exact fit. Hence, the listing might be able to shortlist some, and the estate agent can help you arrive at the correct (but not exactly similar) property of your needs.

Ref:
Own account.