When a buyer finds their dream home, the one they’ve been desperately searching for, a huge weight is lifted off their shoulders. But it’s not always easy for an agent to find their client’s perfect match. Anyone can sell a home, but being a real estate matchmaker takes a strong level of commitment to your buyer and knowledge of the market. You must be dedicated to learning your buyer’s needs while also using what you know about the market and the demographics of different communities to find your buyer the right home for them. By implementing this three-step process to become a real estate matchmaker, you’ll be known for making transactions that have meaning.

1) Learn Their Needs

Before you can match someone to their perfect home, you have to know what a perfect home looks like for them. To be an effective matchmaker, you should learn your buyer’s needs and wants right away. Some buyers will be prepared with a detailed list of must-haves and deal breakers as soon as you walk in the door for your first appointment. Others will have a bunch of scattered ideas floating around their head. Either way, it’s your job to turn the buyer’s wishes into requirements that you can work with.

Be consistent when documenting your buyer’s non-negotiables by providing them with a questionnaire, checklist or worksheet to set the framework for what they want. Whatever you use, make sure that you’re specific in the information you ask for. For example, instead of asking an open-ended question like, “What kind of home are you looking for?”, break your questions down into smaller, digestible chunks. Think about asking how many bedrooms and bathrooms they need; if there’s a certain part of town they want to live in; if they’d prefer to be in a new build; and what their budget is. Questions like these can help you eliminate certain types of homes and communities from the picture, keeping your focus on what matters most to the buyer.

2) Find Possible Matches

If you take your time learning your buyer’s needs, you’ll be more confident in your ability to find what they’re looking for and have a much easier time sourcing suitable matches. Research all of the possible options that your buyer might be interested in, and then start narrowing them down. Only show your buyers homes that you know line up with their requirements. You don’t want to overwhelm them with too many choices, but instead want to appear knowledgeable and prepared with strong candidates to present them.

3) Help Them Document

If you’ve done good research, your buyers will likely be excited by the homes they see. However, if they see several homes they’re interested in but have no system to document their likes and dislikes, they can easily become confused and mix up the different homes, losing focus of what really matters to them. It’s your job to guide them through this process so they feel in control of their feelings and their decision.

There are several ways that you can help your buyers document what they see in each home. To start, encourage them to take pictures when they visit a property that they like. They can easily snap a photo of whatever feature catches their eye–whether it’s the killer view or a gorgeous kitchen. They can also take a picture of the front of the home before they walk in, which will help them distinguish between sets of photos later on.

But sometimes pictures don’t capture everything that a buyer loves about a property. This is why it’s important to have a more detailed form of documentation that they can use to stay organized with their thoughts. HomeSmart International has created a worksheet that you can offer your clients to use for note-taking, writing the pros and cons of each home and ranking them compared to the others they’ve seen. This will keep them accountable, and their feedback will help you understand how they’re feeling throughout the process so that you can find better candidates for them.

When the time comes for your buyer to make an offer, you want them to be completely confident that they’ve found their match made in heaven. By taking the time to learn their needs, find possible matches and help them document what they see, you’re sure to be known as the matchmaker who makes buyers’ dreams come true.