The Luxury Hotel Effect
The Week In Review: June 23rd, 2026
Luxury hotels have long understood something fascinating about human behavior. Guests rarely remember the exact dimensions of a room. But years later, they remember precisely how the experience made them feel.
Homebuyers discover something similar.
At the beginning of a search, most people arrive with a carefully constructed list of requirements. A certain number of bedrooms. A minimum square footage. An open floor plan. A formal dining room.
They are convinced they know exactly what matters.
And they’re not wrong. A successful search requires parameters.
Then they start walking through houses.
I’ve seen buyers insist that a certain square footage is their highest priority, only to find themselves talking endlessly about a smaller home filled with natural light. Others begin their search determined to find an open floor plan, yet consistently feel more comfortable in homes with defined rooms and softer transitions between spaces. Families convinced they need formal entertaining rooms often discover they are drawn to kitchens connected to everyday living.
The clues are subtle. A buyer lingers in a particular room. They return repeatedly to the same window. They begin imagining ordinary moments unfolding there: morning coffee in a sunny corner, grandchildren gathered around a kitchen island, the quiet ritual of coming home after a long day.
As an agent, those moments are often more revealing than any list of requirements. They tell me how someone is reacting to a house, not how they think they should react.
Eventually, many buyers arrive at a surprising conclusion. The square footage doesn’t matter quite as much as they thought. The extra bedroom isn’t essential. The feature they considered non-negotiable suddenly seems negotiable after all.
That’s usually when I know they’ve found the one.
My clients have heard about my 85% rule. No house is perfect. 85% is really good - the other 15% is pure emotion.
Because people rarely fall in love with a floor plan. They fall in love with the life they can imagine living inside it.
And that’s a feeling no checklist can fully capture.