Are You Pinning Your Dream Home?

Raise your hand if you are a Pinterest addict... Ahh, yes, I thought there would be a few of you out there. For the uninitiated, Pinterest is a social website that lets you 'pin' images to your own virtual bulletin boards, and share with your friends. It's easy to spend a ton of time there, lost in boards centered on recipes, fashion, home decorating, hairstyles, or a million other topics. As you can see from the photo, I've spent a little time there, creating a few boards. My favorite is my So LoCo board, which is all Loudoun County photos...some are mine, some were taken by others and I 're-pinned' them there.

The best part of Pinterest, for me, is browsing other folks' pins. I guess you could call me a Pinterest voyeur. Here's why: the real estate dreamers. Their pins are the best. Want to know what someone's style truly looks like? Check out their boards. From gourmet kitchens to outdoor fire pits, creative kid room designs to space saving ideas, you can peek into their dreams. Think about this from a buyer's agent perspective....when you are helping clients narrow down which homes to see, it's often difficult for them to articulate what they like and what is most important to them. If they have created a Pinterest board of dream homes or dream rooms, how much easier would that search be?  Providing examples of the homes and rooms that resonate for them gives you a visual roadmap to help them find the perfect house.

A buyer that takes the time to pin six or seven photos of their dream kitchen can tell me visually that they prefer a center island that acts as a cockpit overlooking a family room. Or that they like darker wood cabinets and high ceilings. A pinboard with lots of outdoor spaces (check out the fire pit in the board above) tells me that the patio and deck could be much more important than the layout of the master bath. The first question I always ask as a buyer's agent is "What is your best case scenario?" A Pinterest board can answer that for me, in a very detailed way.  If you want to see some great real estate pinboards, check out what the Corcoran Group has done there.

What you think..could you see yourself as a Pinterest voyeur? Will you start pinning your real estate dreams?

~Heather