WEEK TWO

He Wants to Waive the Contingency, She Wants to Wait: Inside Couple Dynamics in Real Estate

Brief recap of Column One

Last week’s column began with Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus—a book we weren’t reading for real estate but that nonetheless gave us language for patterns that show up every weekend at open houses. The point wasn’t the gender sketch itself so much as the framework: stress responses, “caves,” connection, and the way people switch into loss-aversion the moment a negotiation turns into an inspection report. Behavioral economists have spent decades proving what John Gray mapped metaphorically—people react to potential loss with twice the intensity of potential gain, and you can watch that play out in staging budgets, bidding wars, and decisions about debt.

The first column argued a simple idea: no one approaches a house like a neutral calculator. They arrive with wiring. This week, we move from the metaphor to the mechanics—from the audiobook to the kitchen table—to see how those internal operating systems shape real couples, real sellers, and real transactions.

Risk, Relationships, and the Reality of Bidding Wars

In housing markets, that risk-tolerance gap expresses itself in down-payment choices, borrowing behavior, and comfort with debt. Zillow’s Consumer Housing Trends Report shows that men are more likely to borrow the maximum allowed, while women are more likely to choose a mortgage payment that preserves future flexibility. When buyers waive mortgage contingencies to win bidding wars, the decision tracks the same pattern: the partner who is more risk-tolerant tends to see the contingency as an obstacle; the risk-averse partner sees it as a necessary safety valve. It’s the same house, same price, same lender – but a different internal calculation of potential danger.

And then there’s seller behavior. Some sellers look at a major staging or painting project as an investment with a likely return – a risk worth taking to maximize their outcome. Others experience the upfront cost as a threat, a sunk expense with no guarantee of payoff. One is thinking in terms of opportunity; the other in terms of potential loss. Behavioral economists would call this framing. Gray would say they are simply wired to feel safety differently. In practice, agents see the consequences: deals that never make it to market because risk aversion wins the argument.

Feelings, Facts, and the Two-Track Mind

Consumer-decision researchers have long shown that people make buying choices through two systems: affective (emotion-driven) and cognitive (analysis-driven). Gray’s metaphor neatly maps onto this dual-system model. Some buyers fall in love with a house because it “feels right” – light, flow, neighborhood, potential. Others evaluate structure, mechanicals, comps, and resale value first. When partners operate on different channels, their timelines and thresholds diverge. One is ready to write an offer; the other is still gathering data. From the outside it looks like disagreement. Inside, it’s simply two systems solving the same problem using different tools.

Real-estate is uniquely suited to expose these differences because the product is both financial and emotional. A house is an asset and a dream. It’s shelter and identity. Research on dual-process decision making shows that when purchases combine risk, emotion, and long-term consequences, couples often shift back and forth between the two systems – sometimes in conflict, sometimes in synch. Agents watch this in real time: the partner who was analytical at the open house suddenly becomes emotional at inspection; the partner who fell in love on day one suddenly panics at the appraisal. It’s not inconsistency. It’s human decision-making under uncertainty.

Add time pressure – the spring market, disappearing inventory, a competing offer – and the decision process tilts even further. Studies on choice overload show that people perform worse when forced to choose quickly with imperfect information. In real estate, this means a higher fall-through rate, more post-inspection withdrawals, and more “cold feet” moments that have nothing to do with the house and everything to do with how humans process stress. Staging, renovation decisions, buying before selling, taking out contingencies – all of these are filtered through each partner’s unique blend of emotional and analytical reasoning. Gray’s model doesn’t explain everything, but it names the tension couples feel: two people trying to buy one house while using two different operating systems.

The funny thing is, none of this feels abstract when you’re standing in a kitchen with a couple trying to decide whether to offer. You can almost sense which instinct is firing. One person is imagining hosting Thanksgiving; the other is calculating resale value. One is picturing morning light; the other is worried about the roof. They’re not disagreeing-they’re processing. Gray calls it different emotional needs; the scientists call it different evaluative pathways. I just see two people trying to make one decision with two entirely different sets of chemistry behind it.

Let’s look at a few situations I’ve run into recently and see whether Gray’s framework actually clarifies anything.

Painters, Profits, and Polar Opposites

Two recent sellers illustrate the contrast better than any theory can. About a year ago, I advised a New Canaan woman preparing to move overseas to finish her painting but avoid taking on more big projects. She didn’t listen-because she couldn’t. She had a vision for what her home could be, and she wanted it to present perfectly. She poured more than $300,000 into restoring a cottage, renovating a master suite, and upgrading a kitchen, all in the months before listing. It was emotional, yes, but it was also excellent business: the house received multiple offers and sold for roughly $600,000 more than we originally projected, all in a single weekend. She had a partner, and together they talked through every decision, every risk, every possibility.

Now contrast that with a single man I’m advising today. He also inherited a home in his divorce, has rented it for a decade, feels no emotional attachment to it, and is preparing to leave the country. We have time. Nothing happens in December. Stager is ready to go. I recommended a $40,000 paint and stage that would almost certainly add $100,000 in value by spring. He chose not to do it. Not out of stubbornness or budget constraints, but because, as he put it, “the next owner will want to pick their own colors anyway.” To him, the house is just a house, and the path of least resistance feels like the logical one. No partner to talk it through with; no emotional imprint; no vision beyond “get it listed and go.”

If Gray were listening in, he’d say these aren’t just two different temperaments-they’re two different stress responses. She expanded her field of view, imagined possibilities, and pursued completeness. He moved toward simplicity, narrow focus, and lowered friction. She leaned into vision; he leaned into efficiency. One response maximized the upside. The other minimized disruption. Same market, same season, same advice. Two entirely different internal operating systems.

Closing Summary – Week Two

The second column shows how couples and sellers translate risk, emotion, and analysis into real decisions. Sometimes that produces spectacular upside; sometimes it produces missed opportunities. What looks like conflict is often just different wiring. In the final installment next week, the lens widens again: we will look at timing, the psychology of the spring market, and the way real estate teams themselves mirror the dual operating systems buyers and sellers bring to every transaction.us jobs, and freeing the prop is a Mars job.

Check out John Engel’s Podcast, Boroughs & Burbs, the National Real Estate Conversation here.

Read this article on the New Canaan Sentinel website here.

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