Helping Home Sellers See Their House Through The Trees

Last Thursday was Take Your Kid To Work Day, so my 8-year-old daughter, Jade, came with me.  Other than the big breakfast of eggs, bacon, and rye toast with lots of butter, I asked Jade what she thought of the day.  Jade said, “Dad, you work with a lot of stubborn people”.  I laughed, as I never thought of it that way.

One example was a meeting we had with clients on an offer we had on their home. My reply to Jade was that the people were not stubborn, but it was my job to help them clarify the situation so they could make an intelligent decision.  A home sale is a stressful event.  Money is involved, people don’t know where they are going, etc. My worst fear is if they call me in a week to ask if the buyer is still interested, only for me to say that they purchased something else or felt it “wasn’t meant to be”. Clients end up regretting their initial ‘stubbornness’.

The offer on the house was lower then what my client wanted and their ‘bottom line number’ was not going to keep the negotiations alive. If they didn’t work out a deal, my clients would probably have to wait at least 6 months for another offer because their home was more of a seasonal buyer purchase.  That becomes 6 months worth of taxes, insurance, cost of money, depreciation, HOA costs, and worry.  I outlined those costs for them and asked them to fast forward a month into the future. Would they still be happy hanging onto the house, paying all of the costs, going through hurricane season, etc? They ended up countering at a number which ensured a better chance of a deal happening.  Today the house went under contract! And thankfully there will be no regrets at having been too stubborn a month from now.

I guess I owe Jade a referral on this one!