Why Do We Trust Gossip Over Data (Especially in Real Estate)?
For most of human history, survival meant acting fast not sitting with spreadsheets.
If someone said,
âDonât eat those berries my cousin died after eating them,â
you didnât ask for research papers.
You just stopped eating the berries.
That instinct is still driving decisions today, especially in real estate.
Itâs easier to believe:
âGurgaon real estate is a house of cards.â
than to process:
âGurgaon residential prices rose 84% last year, verified by actual registry data.â
One is dramatic. The other is data.
Our brains pick the dramatic version because itâs simpler. This is called Cognitive Ease.
Then comes Confirmation Bias.
Once you believe a narrative like âthe market will crashâ you start noticing only the things that support that view. Every WhatsApp forward, every LinkedIn post, every dinner table conversation starts to sound like proof.
But look back over the last 20â30 years. Has Gurgaon ever really âcrashedâ?
Or has it gone through growth, corrections, and more growth?
Most people get stuck between two traps:
⿥ FOMO â âIf I donât buy now, Iâll miss out.â
⿢ Regret Aversion â âIf I buy now and it falls, Iâll look like a fool.â
So they choose to do nothing. It feels safer.
People arenât angry because the market is irrational.
Theyâre angry because it moved without their permission.
Data may not trend as fast as opinions but in real estate, it usually wins the long game.