The flat they could not describe

A young couple ask a broker in El Shorouk to find them a flat to rent. Something nice, they say. Not too far. Not too expensive. A good feeling.

Over three weekends he shows them eleven flats. They turn down every one. Too dark, too high up, too close to the main road, a strange kitchen. Each objection is reasonable. None of them was mentioned before.

The broker is not the problem here. He was given a brief that could not be met, because it did not say anything. A good feeling is not a requirement. It is a hope with no shape.

The couple could have written it down in five minutes. Two bedrooms. Ground floor or a lift, because her mother visits. Walking distance from the school. A ceiling on the rent, said as a number. With that, the broker would have shown them three flats instead of eleven, and one of them would probably have been right.

It seems strange that people resist doing this, since it so obviously works. But a clear request has a cost. If the couple say exactly what they want and the flat still disappoints, the mistake is theirs. The broker found what they asked for.

Staying vague keeps that door closed. If nothing was specified, nothing can be blamed on the person who specified it. Every failure belongs to the one doing the searching.

It is a comfortable place to stand and an expensive one. And it rests on a strange belief: that a person who cannot say what they want today will somehow recognise it tomorrow.

Being specific means accepting the blame in advance. That is exactly why it gets results.