Somebody narrow down my property choices, please.

Remember that famous experiment where one group of shoppers was shown six different types of jam, while another was presented with 24 different flavors? Do you remember which group bought more jam? Were you surprised that it was the group with fewer choices?

The reason why can be found in an interesting book called “The Paradox of Choice”, where author Barry Schwartz asserts that modern society buries customers by offering them too many options. The more choices that they have, the more worried they are that they’ll make the wrong one.

When you go to the Gap, you’re not just looking for jeans: you have to choose from loose-fit, stonewashed, hip-huggers, and more. In the typical supermarket, there are approximately 30,000 items for sale, and even that is dwarfed by superstores, which are so out of control that it’s hard to even know what’s there. Products just keep reappearing on the shelves, like some self-replicating alien organism.

Schwartz contends that this enormous variety is not desirable to consumers; it is, in fact, “demotivating”. Most of us know this dilemma as “paralysis by analysis”.

This same principle applies to real estate, where home buyers are faced not only with the type of house they should buy, but also where should they live. “Do I want to be close to work or the beach?” (Beach). “Do I want a bunch of stores nearby or do I want to be out in the boonies? Where’s a park to walk my dog? What about schools? My God, I almost forgot about the children!”

For these reasons, futurists predict that there will be tremendous value in helping people make choices. And just think of the benefit that a real estate agent can bring to the table. Using SpatialMatch geo-search technology on a simple map display, they can sit down with home buyers and overlay the locations and quality of different amenities, as well as the distance to nearby homes of interest.

At the end of the day, there’s nothing worse than spending countless hours with a home buyer only to have them do nothing; not because they are not qualified to buy a home, but because they can’t make up their mind. What SpatialMatch does is narrow down the list of choices according to what the home buyer wants, so that an actual choice will be made.

With the right tools, you can move a prospect from “I’m still not sure” to “I need to buy this home. Now.” In today’s complex society, it just means that you have to be more than a salesperson. You have to be become a decision-helper.