Look in the mirror and say hello to your competition.

Look in the mirror and say hello to your competition.

All cases are unique, and very similar to others.

T.S. Elliot, The Cocktail Party

I'm beginning to realize that we all think we're unique cases.

For example, many homebuyers don't understand that they're competing for that scarce resource called "the perfect house". But more than that, the individual homebuyer often doesn't understand that 95 percent of the other buyers out there like what she likes in a house, think what she thinks about the market and wait for the same market events she waits for.

Homebuyers aren't the only ones not always aware that they're part of a greater whole, and of the effect that whole has on the marketplace in which each is a player. We boomers have driven the marketplace in innumerable ways over the past sixty years without giving it much thought. We just assume that an entire industry will always be there whenever we need a new product or service en mass. After all, it always has been, and it always will be.

No matter which generation you belong to, few of us care to think of ourselves as "part of the herd" or even part of the herd's various sub-sets. Maybe it's Western society's worship of the idea, if not always the practice, of rugged individualism. Maybe it's because most of us aren't used to matching wits in a highly competitive marketplace. You don't need to outmaneuver the next guy to buy a shirt at Nordstrom.

My most extreme experience with the idea of the unique, "one-off" or "custom" consumer occurred years ago when I first started selling real estate. Back then I showed a young woman a small, inexpensive house that, admittedly, wasn't all that compelling: overpriced, in need of work and not in the best location. However, it was one of the few homes in her price range in the expensive city she wanted.

We met at the house, kicked its tires, hung around, shot the breeze and left. At no time did my client convey a sense of urgency. At no time did my client tell me she was committed to, or even mildly interested in, the house. Meet-kick-hang-shoot-leave had always been the way clients told me, without actually telling me, that "this house don't move me none. Find me something that does".

And at no time during meet-kick-hang-shoot-leave did I say, "If you like this house, you'd better make an offer before someone else does". Not only would this have smacked of high-pressure salesmanship—something agents are infamous for, something I bend over backwards to avoid—thus damaging our relationship. I also figured it was obvious.

She wasn't the only buyer for this house. She had to know that. It's a big world out there.

I was too green to know that in real estate, as in life, the obvious must always be said and said again. And again, and again.

A week or so later, she asked to see the house again. But a check of the MLS showed that it had gone into contract. When I told her, she got upset and said she would have made an offer if only she had known that someone else might be interested.

Well, I don't know what flabbergasted me most, the idea that she was the only buyer for this house, or the idea that it was my fault she hadn't been committed enough or communicative enough to get the job done. But the customer is always right and, needless to say, this agent revised his approach. To this day I've never said, "You snooze, you lose", even though that's the exact language the situation calls for. Nor have I ever even said the relatively innocuous, "If you like this house, you'd better make an offer before someone else does". But I have said, "I think there will be interest in this house". Sometimes I've gone so far as to say, "I think there will be serious interest in this house". Even then I sometimes get a funny look, but at least I've gone on record. No buyer can ever say, "You didn't warn me".

Probably the most typical example of buyers not realizing they're part of a mass trend occurs when new clients describe to me the house they want. Since 95 percent of buyers want the same house, I can almost email them their wish list before I meet them. Yes, I listen, but I keep on listening as we look at homes, and I watch as well, and after a while it almost always boils down to this:

The house can't need much work, especially in the kitchen. In fact, it pretty much has to be in move-in condition. In fact, it pretty much has to be lavishly remodeled with high-end finishes and designer flourishes. The house must also be imbued with charismatic curb appeal. In fact, its curb appeal has to reach out and grab you by the lapels and hurl you headfirst through the front door. The neighborhood has to be attractive and safe, welcoming and suited to walking. Infrastructure is important, especially to buyers with kids: good schools, a nearby park and shopping. Trees—but not too many; heavily forested is definitely a minority taste—also usually makes the short list.

All reasonable requests, of course, and lest the above sound like a cynical dismissal of all (or 95 percent of) homebuyers as hopeless lemmings, I'll remind the people most prone to cynically dismissing homebuyers as such that they themselves are part of a trend, one that's lived in the shadows a long time waiting for the Internet to bring it into the cleansing light of strident self-affirmation as it rushes over a cliff. But what surprises me about homebuyers who hand me this wish list that it rarely occurs to them that it's the same wish list almost everyone else is simultaneously handing their agents. And if almost everyone has the same wish list, then a whole lot of people are going to have to compete for the same limited number of homes, because even the most cursory glance at the housing market shows that there isn't enough of the good stuff to go around.

In a hot market, competing with almost everyone else can mean fighting off three, five, ten, even twenty or more offers, depending on the area. In a hot market, competing with almost everyone else can mean settling for less than every item on the wish list, because more affluent and less risk-averse buyers keep swinging for the fences and getting the best homes. In a slow market, competing with almost everyone else (even with fewer buyers in the market) can mean fighting off one or two other offers to get an outstanding house, while the other 90 percent of the homes on the market don't get any offers except at steep discounts. In a down market, competing successfully means always being the first out of the blocks while everyone else mills around waiting for the starting gun to go off.

Competing successfully in real estate means moving quickly, decisively and effectively. Because if you won't, someone else will. Just like in sports.

Just like in real life. It's no coincidence that a successful track record in life indicates a potentially successful homebuyer. No, it isn't quite that. Let me put it this way: a track record of driven over-the-top over-achievement—a gung-ho, balls-out, take-no-prisoners approach to grabbing life by the gusto—indicates a potentially successful homebuyer. A good agent recognizes and works in harness with this exalted motivation, but even the best—or most high pressure— agent can't supply it.

What's the moral here, the lesson you can take to heart and take to the bank?

If you're a buyer waiting for some marketplace event to occur, chances are that almost everyone else is waiting too. Maybe you're waiting for a macro event like, say, signs of a reviving housing market—so that you can buy with complete confidence. Maybe you're waiting for a micro event like, say, a rise in the limit on conforming and FHA-insured loans—so that you don't have to pay as much for your jumbo loan. Maybe you're waiting for the day when no one else is looking for the home you and almost everyone else is looking for—so that you don't have to compete. Whatever you're waiting for, most likely you have lots of company.

"Lots of company" means "trend". "Trend" means "market mover". A "market mover" means "market movements": "prices going down" or "prices going up".

Don't be surprised if you're part of a trend. In fact, bet on it.