Editing 1894: Real Estate

{{comic
| number    = 1894
| date      = September 25, 2017
| title     = Real Estate
| image     = real_estate.png
| titletext = I tried converting the prices into pizzas, to put it in more familiar terms, and it just became a hard-to-think-about number of pizzas.
}}

==Explanation==

In this comic, [[Cueball]] is speaking with [[Ponytail]], his real estate agent, about an ongoing negotiation over the price of a house he is looking to buy. This is probably his first time buying a house and he is very overwhelmed by the process, a very common feeling among first-time home buyers. Houses are the largest single purchase most people will ever make, involves sums far greater than most people typically deal with. The housing market is so complicated and ever-changing that it is almost impossible for the layman to have a clear understanding of what a piece of property is worth. One must rely on the opinions of their real estate agent, building inspector, friends and family, along with research regarding the housing market in the area (average property values, what houses recently sold for, etc). Despite the comic mocking it as an obvious stalling tactic, telling the agent that you need time to think about it is a good strategy to research further while seeming to know what you're doing.

In the caption [[Randall]] makes it seem that he is in Cueball's situation in any financial negotiation, not only for such large ones as when buying real estate.

In the title text Randall mentions that he tried to convert the prices into the equivalent numbers of pizzas that amount could buy. Humans can't directly comprehend large numbers, and the value of money is what it can buy, so thinking of a sum of money in terms of a commodity you regularly buy is a pretty good tactic. However, when dealing with the sums of money involved in real estate purchases, that once again becomes meaningless: the $10,000 price reduction translates to hundreds of pizzas and the typical price of a house translates to thousands of them. At this point, the volume of pizza becomes as incomprehensible as the amount of money itself. A better tactic might be to think in terms of the equivalent months of income. Alternately, one could do the mortgage calculations and determine how much the prices translate to on a monthly basis (which would likely convert to a more reasonable number of pizzas per month). 

This comic is in line with the much older [[616: Lease]] and the more recent [[1674: Adult]] regarding buying real estate and not feeling sufficiently grown-up to handle such an important transaction (see also [[905: Homeownership]]).


==Transcript==
:[Ponytails and Cueball sits in office chairs on either side of a desk. Ponytail looks at a piece of paper she is holding in her hand, more papers lie on the table. Cueball sits with his hands in his lap, thinking in a thought bubble before he replies to her remark.]
:Ponytail: The sellers offer to drop their price by $10,000 ''and'' cover the driveway repairs.
:Cueball [thinking]: These are all staggeringly large amounts of money that I have no idea how to even ''think'' about, let alone compare.
:Cueball [speaking]: Tempting. We'll need a few hours to consider it.

:[Caption below the panels:]
:Me in any financial negotiation.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category: Comics featuring Ponytail]]
[[Category: Comics featuring Cueball]]