In Real Estate – As In Life – Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
July 17th, 2009 Categories: Buyers, Sellers, The Realtor's Life
But – Occasionally – It’s the Only Option When an Annapolis Home Seller and Agent Can’t See Eye to Eye
We parted ways with a seller client recently.
These things are never easy, though there was a time when it would have been much harder than it was: the longer you’re in this business, the more you realize you simply can’t help everyone.
Ours was much pretty much a straightforward case of an overpriced listing in a range that is VERY price sensitive. Miss the mark by a little bit and you won’t get showings. Or you’ll get them, but only from a clever agent who’s out to demonstrate the value of ANOTHER home to her buyer client (we do this all the time with our own buyers.)
Miss it by a lot, and the silence of the market will be deafening. Which is precisely what was happening.
It’s perplexing how, even with the market correction and the economy on unstable footing, homeowners will cling to the hope of a sales price that they “could have gotten” – or a neighbor did get – three years ago.
That Market No Longer Exists
Today’s market is buyer driven and ruthlessly value focused. The buyer pool is smaller, money is tighter and neither buyers - nor their agents – will so much glance at a home if it’s not priced to sell and in excellent condition. Make an offer on an overpriced home? Why bother, when you can make a better offer on one that’s priced to sell?
What sellers don’t often realize is that even if – by some strange fluke – a buyer WAS willing to pay more than market value for their home, no lender is going to finance it if the home does not appraise. And you can rest assured that it will not.
I wish it would have worked out with these sellers, I really do. But real estate agents are marketers and market experts, not miracle workers. We analyze market data for our clients, present and discuss their options and – ultimately – trust that the facts will guide our clients to do the right thing. For the most part, that’s the way it works out. Occasionally, it does not.
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Unfortunately, too many sellers have a difficult time putting the past in the past and pricing their homes for today’s market. The truth is that homes priced “right” for today’s economic conditions ARE selling. REALTORS have the experience necessary for helping sellers determine what “right” is today.
Hello, Margaret – thanks for stopping by. You’re absolutely right: homes that are priced right ARE selling. Without fail, all of the listings we’ve sold this spring and summer – once they got to the correct market price – had lots of showings; several have had multiple offers. Nobody but nobody likes the fact that home prices have softened and sales have slowed…but, like you say, an experienced Realtor has the experience to help a seller walk away from a sale with the best possible deal.
The truth is hard to hear isn’t it? I recently lost a listing to another agent who quoted a higher price point to the eager sellers. The house was on the market for 90 days before selling at the lower price I had quoted originally. Interestingly, the sellers came back to ME when they decided to buy a vacation property and wanted help in finding an out of town agent.
Michael