Nobody ever: "I love the square footage." Everyone: "I don't know, something just feels off" — and that was the end of it.

In a property market where homes are sitting unsold, the question worth asking isn't "what's wrong with the price?" - It's what's wrong with the product?

Because buyers haven't stopped buying. They've stopped settling. And the difference between a property that sells and one that doesn't is rarely what anyone puts in the brochure.

The actual decision happens within 90 seconds of the front door opening. The brain doesn't deliberate — it concludes. Everything after that is the buyer constructing reasons to justify what their nervous system already decided in the hallway.

And he and she are not concluding the same things...

What sells it to HIM:

— Parking. Ideally a garage.

— A layout that reads immediately. No explanation required.

— Ceiling height and structural confidence. Nothing that whispers "future money."

— Storage that suggests everything has a place.

— Outside space he can do something with.

What sells it to HER:

— Natural light. Where it falls, at what time, in which rooms.

— A kitchen connected to the rest of the house. Isolation while cooking is a hard no.

— A bathroom that feels restorative — not a legal requirement with a showerhead.

— A walk-in wardrobe. Or storage that actually accounts for how women live.

— Somewhere for life's physical evidence to go — coats, shoes, school bags, the stuff that exists whether the staging likes it or not.

— Whether the whole thing feels calm. Or slightly unresolved in a way that's hard to name — but impossible to ignore.

That last one is responsible for more lost sales than any structural survey.

Women influence over 85% of home purchase decisions. A RICS-cited study found poor layout was the deciding factor in walking away in over 40% of cases — ahead of condition, price, and location.

Understanding what actually drives a buyer's decision — before the brief is written, before the budget is committed — is where the real value sits.

That's the work we find most interesting.