By John Engel
Last week’s column picked up where the first one left off. After using Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus and Prospect Theory to frame how people process stress, risk, and potential loss, we stepped into actual living rooms and watched those instincts play out. We saw partners reacting to the same house with different thresholds for danger and possibility, sellers who either expanded their field of vision or narrowed it to the simplest path, and couples whose “disagreements” were really just two operating systems trying to solve the same problem.
Together, the first two columns made one thing clear: Gray’s metaphors and behavioral economists’ findings show up in real estate constantly — during inspections, staging decisions, contingencies, and every moment when possibility becomes commitment. This week, in the final column, we add timing to the equation and look at how the Spring Market, uncertainty, and even the wiring of agents themselves shape what happens next.
When the Starting Line Becomes the Stumbling Block
Selling decisions reveal a lot about how people process risk, but buying decisions reveal even more. So after watching those two sellers in last week’s column take opposite paths, I found myself thinking about a very different kind of situation, one that’s years in the making, not months. If the single man and the perfectionist renovator show how people behave when the finish line is in sight, the next story shows what happens when the starting line itself becomes the obstacle.
The clearest example I’ve ever seen of risk-processing in real estate was a couple — both lawyers — who spent five years trying to buy a house. They saw more than a hundred properties. They made offers on at least five. They had multiple acceptances. And each time, the same pattern repeated: They sailed through the search, sailed through negotiation, and then unraveled during inspections. What looked, from the outside, like indecision was really two highly trained risk analysts doing exactly what their professional lives demanded: finding the flaw, anticipating the liability, protecting against the downside. Gray would say they were scanning for emotional safety; Prospect Theory would say they were reacting to potential loss with twice the intensity of potential gain. I only knew that every time we crossed the threshold from “possibility” to “commitment,” they switched into litigation mode. Inspections weren’t information; they were exposure.
To their credit, this couple never rushed, never forced it, and they finally bought a house that felt safe enough, solid enough, and predictable enough that the risk finally aligned with the reward. Watching that moment, after five years, was like watching two operating systems finally sync.
What struck me most wasn’t their caution; it was the choreography. They didn’t argue. They didn’t contradict each other. They ran the analysis together, like two litigators preparing a brief. One would spot a structural concern; the other would dive into legal exposure. One would question resale risk; the other would go straight to worst-case scenarios. In Gray’s language, they weren’t operating from “cave” or “connection,” but they were doing something different entirely: They were co-authoring the same anxiety script. And as their agent, I learned that my role wasn’t to talk them into anything. It was to give them the time, data, and space to let the defensive perimeter run its course. The moment their system felt safe, they moved. And when it didn’t, they didn’t. Simple as that. Their eventual purchase didn’t happen because the house was perfect. It happened because, for once, the facts didn’t trigger the circuitry that had stopped them a hundred times before.
Early Birds, Late Bloomers, and the Spring Market Clock
Every year, right after the Super Bowl, the Spring Market begins — long before Connecticut looks anything like spring. Brown snow, bare trees, and frozen yards. Nothing photographs well. Nothing feels inspiring. And yet, this is when some of the most decisive buyers make their moves. Gray would probably say it’s because different people experience uncertainty differently. Some feel energized by getting ahead of the pack; others need the environment to “feel right” before committing.
I see it every February and March. The early-season buyers walk into a house, see past the mud and salt, and make decisions quickly because they’re focused on beating competition, not waiting for perfect conditions. The late-season buyers, by contrast, want context-green lawns, leafy canopies, a sense of what a house becomes in June. They’re not slower; they need to process more environmental data before the decision feels safe. Prospect Theory would say the early buyers are minimizing future loss (fear of missing out). The late buyers are minimizing present loss (fear of choosing wrong). It’s the same inventory, same town, and same prices, but two entirely different timing instincts shaped by how each person experiences risk, beauty, uncertainty, and momentum.
For sellers, the psychology of spring timing is just as revealing. Early in the season, when nothing looks its best, the prospects who show up are often the ones who have already been through a fall cycle, lost a bidding war, or watched inventory evaporate the previous year. They’re primed, motivated, and less sensitive to cosmetic imperfections. By late spring, the buyer pool shifts: people who waited for good weather arrive with higher expectations and lower urgency. They’re picturing summer barbecues, end-of-school routines, family visits. They want the house to match the season they’re imagining. This means sellers who list early don’t need perfection; they need competitiveness. Sellers who list late need presentation. It’s not that one group of buyers is “better” than the other; they simply carry different psychological clocks. Gray would say some people move when the internal decision feels resolved, and others move when the external world aligns with their emotional picture.
Couples reveal even more in how they navigate timing. Some arrive at an open house in February and immediately sync: One sees potential, the other sees urgency, and together they move. Others collide. One partner is energized by acting before competition arrives; the other cannot imagine committing tens of thousands of dollars based on a yard full of snow and a landscape that looks nothing like the listing photos. They’re not disagreeing on the house; they’re disagreeing on readiness. Gray’s framework makes that visible: One partner needs resolution; the other needs resonance.
When couples disagree on timing, I’ve learned it’s rarely solvable through data alone. They don’t need comps; they need alignment. And sometimes, the answer is as simple as waiting until the trees leaf out, because one partner can’t feel the house until the house is fully itself.
The numbers support all of this. Days-on-market data across Fairfield County consistently shows a dip in late April and May as the largest wave of buyers enters the market. Mortgage rate lock research shows that when rates dip even slightly in the spring, urgency spikes. Buyers act faster, offers concentrate, and competition increases. The school calendar adds a psychological deadline: Families who want to be settled by September start writing offers between March and June. This is why June and July closings peak every year, regardless of macroeconomic conditions. It’s not the market — it’s human wiring. Early buyers act to avoid loss; mid-season buyers act to capture opportunity; late-season buyers act only when the picture of their next chapter is fully formed. Gray would say these aren’t market forces; they’re timing personalities.
Teams, Temperaments, and the Power of Two Lenses
What ties all these stories together isn’t gender, or personality, or even the houses themselves. It’s the simple truth that real estate forces big decisions under imperfect information, and people reveal themselves under that kind of pressure. Some retreat. Some expand. Some need the facts. Some need the feeling. Some can’t move until the picture is perfect; others can’t wait that long. Gray gave us the metaphors. Behavioral economics gave us the math. The field gave me the case studies. And taken together, they explain why no two buyers move the same way, no two sellers evaluate risk the same way, and why the same house can look like opportunity to one person and danger to another. If we began by asking whether Gray’s ideas show up in real estate, we’ll conclude by suggesting that the answer is yes — every weekend, every season, every negotiation.
Which brings me to the part of this conversation that feels the most personal to me: how we work as agents. If couples reveal their wiring when buying or selling a house, agents reveal their wiring in how they guide people through it. Gray didn’t write about real estate teams, but his framework makes something obvious in hindsight: This is a business that benefits from dual operating systems. One person notices the numbers; another notices the nuance. One person sees risk; another sees potential. One can read the room; the other can read the inspection report. Melissa and I see it every day in our own partnership: Buyers gravitate toward one of us for reasons we sometimes only understand later. And because they get both, they get a fuller view — not because of gender, but because two different lenses pick up more than one.
The industry itself quietly reflects this. Most agents are women. Many of the most analytical, data-driven agents I know are women. Many of the most intuitive, client-attuned agents I know are men. The point isn’t that Mars sells better than Venus, or vice versa. It’s that the work demands a blend: presentation and pricing, logic and instinct, strategy and empathy. The longer I do this, the more I see that no single style captures the whole process. Buyers need information and reassurance. Sellers need clarity and vision. Negotiations need backbone and diplomacy. And very few people — agents or clients — carry all of that in one operating system.
There’s also real evidence that teams outperform solo agents. NAR’s Member Profile shows that team-based agents consistently close more transactions per year and handle a wider range of client types than individuals, even when controlling for experience. Teams convert more leads, move listings faster, and manage negotiations more efficiently because no one person is trying to carry every role. Behavioral researchers would say that teams reduce cognitive load: When one agent is running numbers, the other can read the couple. When one is analyzing inspection issues, the other can manage the emotional arc of the decision. It’s not that teams work harder; it’s that they distribute the psychological weight of the process. In a field where buyers and sellers are already managing uncertainty, the structure itself becomes a stabilizer.
I see this in my own work with Melissa. People assume we divide tasks by gender, but we don’t; we divide them by wiring. She notices what people feel before they say it. I notice patterns that will matter three steps later. She can walk into a house and understand immediately how a buyer will move through it. I can look at the same house and understand immediately how an appraiser will. Clients don’t always articulate why they connect with one of us first, but they do. And when they work with both of us, the process gets steadier. We’re not proving John Gray right. We’re proving something simpler — that two complementary operating systems catch more of what matters than one can.
We began this series with the framework and continued with the field. Now, I’ll offer the practical conclusion: People buy and sell homes in deeply human ways. Gray’s metaphors don’t explain everything, but they explain enough to make the work more interesting, to remind us that decisions about money, risk, timing, and home are never just logical. They’re personal, patterned, emotional, and sometimes contradictory. And if that’s true, then the best way to guide people through them is with more than one tool, more than one temperament, more than one way of seeing. A good team doesn’t eliminate the stress of real estate. It absorbs it, balances it, and makes space for people to decide in the way that fits their wiring. In the end, that’s the whole point: one house, two decision-makers, and a process that works better when no one has to navigate it alone.
This week’s final column pulls together the entire series, from Gray’s metaphors to Nobel Prize-winning research, from sellers’ choices to couples’ choreography, and finally, to the role of teams. The throughline is simple: Houses are where psychology, money, stress, and hope collide. The more honestly we see how wiring, timing, and partnership shape decisions, the better we can build a process that doesn’t just deliver a closing, but makes people feel safer and more understood on the way there.
John Engel is a broker with the Engel Team at Douglas Elliman in New Canaan. This is the season for baking, sewing, needlepoint, and ornament making. John’s parents made ornaments as newlyweds back in 1965, John made them in school, his kids made them in school, and now his adult children feel that they need to make a few more. Funny thing about ornaments: There’s always room for just one more.
