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A House Buyer's Advice To Real Estate Agents
A Buyer's Plea for Some Respectvote for this page on reddit.com
Just because I don't happen to have my agent with me on
this visit, doesn't mean I don't have one. Without an agent with me, we both
know that your first question is likely to be, "are you working with somebody?"
This really means you're trying to find out if there's any chance you can
function as a dual agent and double your percentage. Or, maybe that same question is your way of
determining if I'm really a serious buyer or just one of the neighbors from
down the block. See those MLS sheets and
Google maps in my hand? I'm not a
neighbor from down the block. I'm
looking to buy something. You'll see
that in my eyes once you stop worrying about "establishing a dialog" or
"getting to know your buyer" or when you stop asking yourself, "How can I tuck
in an extra 2.5 points on this deal?"
Aside from pointing out something notable or unusual, I really don't need you to announce, "...and this is
the hall bathroom..." as we tour the house.
I know what bathrooms and bedrooms and kitchens look like already, thank
you. Perhaps you're used to dealing in
twenty-room mansions where the function or location of each room might have to
be explained, but I'm just a regular guy looking for your average 3/2 suburban
rancher. It's not likely I'm going to
get lost or confused about what a particular room is, so save your chatter
until you have something really informative to tell me.
In fact, hold your chatter, period. Unbeknownst
to you, my wife and I have just flipped a coin in the car outside to determine
which one of us has to take the chore of talking to you and answering all your
questions so the other one of us actually gets to look at the place in a
somewhat uninterrupted manner.
If you think you're going to entice me into making an
offer by claiming that you have
other offers coming in soon, or telling me how many other folks have seen your
open house today, expect me to turn on my heel and exit your open house.
Attempting to create the appearance of scarcity is so 2004. There's no point in me getting into a bidding
war, real or imagined. If you don't
believe that, please revisit the months-of-supply and DOM numbers for your
area. Hint: I've seen those numbers!
I know what new paint looks like, and I know what old
paint looks like. It's not super important for you to point out
the difference, since $50 bucks at Home Depot, a few beers, and a few hours on
a Saturday are all that are required for me to solve any paint issues in a
room. I'd rather you let me decide what
the value of such "upgrades" are. Hint:
You are not going to get a few extra grand in value just because the seller
took $50 bucks, a few beers, and an afternoon to slap some trendy color on the
walls. Same story applies with crown molding and wainscoting. Forget what you and your sellers have seen on
HGTV; you are not going to get a 10X return-on-investment for a few hundred
bucks worth of DIY projects. If the basic value of the house in not there due
to the number of rooms, location, or dollars per square foot, no amount of
superficial "upgrades" are going to change that basic value. Conversely, if the basic value is there, I'm
very prone to overlooking lime green walls, chipped tile, and a myriad of
cosmetic issues.
The whole staging thing is getting really old. Does the
house you live in have strategically placed bottle of wine with a pair of
glasses on the patio table every night of the week? My current house doesn't, I can assure you
that the only time there's a big bowl of fresh-cut flowers on the kitchen table
is on Valentine's Day, or when I've made my wife mad. Normal people live in homes where the coffee
table has a bunch of remotes, chewed-up dog toys and six-month old
magazines. A staged house always seems
to have a book of Tuscan sunsets, a bowl of teal-colored marbles, and nothing
else on that coffee table. Sure, ask the
sellers to tidy up a bit. But don't
stage the place to the point where it's a cliché, or to a point where it's not
even plausible that actual people might live in the house. Really, I'm trying
to look through all the fruit bowls, cute soap bars, and other doo-dads you've carefully placed. It insults my intelligence that you think
crap like that might make me want a particular property more than what I would
have without the staging. In spite of what you have heard, a vacant house with
no furnishings whatsoever is fine.
You know all those apple pie-scented candles in your
trunk you've been packing around for
each open house you do? Dump them. Put them in your own garage for the next
power outage. Give them to some
homeless. Do anything but use them to
give potential open houses that "home" feeling. Virtually every single one of
your competitors is already trying the same idea. Unless your property has dead animals
underneath the floor boards, or had the living room used as an indoor kennel,
there's really no scent that you can add that is going to want to make me want
to buy something I wouldn't otherwise.
Back to the intelligence thing:
Do you honestly believe that people make large, 30-year financial
commitments because they caught a whiff of punkin' pie? Don't even get me started on chocolate chip
cookies or popcorn. Yes, I've read the
studies about how the rational mind can be strongly influenced by scents. When
you try that play, all I really smell is your desperation.
Basic literacy: FYI, the windows that you're
trying to tell me about are spelled: "dual pane", not "duel pain" or duel pane". I only bring this up because I've really seen
these spelling variants in many listings.
Same issue with !!! $ALL CAPS DESCRIPTION$ !!!! and TXT THT LKS LK A 14YO
GRL might be sending me a text message. I expect to see that kind of writing
for Beanie Babies on eBay, not on a $500,000 home listing. Again, it's a mistake for you to think I
might be dumb enough to give your listing any more than the usual amount of
attention due to the number of exclamation points. Fact is,
I'm less likely to look at such a
listing because your writing skills look like you dropped out of high school
and I'm not likely to trust you with such an important purchase.
It's not 2005 anymore, and buyers like me are getting back to pure
fundamentals: Dollars per square foot,
and location. Stuff you can't change
with new paint or by "spicing up" your listing
description. Remember, I'm looking at
buying in a down market and maybe having to sit through a few years of little
or no appreciation. You can help me by
explaining how the fundamentals of your property might work for me. You can save us both some grief if you can
help your seller to understand that it's not 2005 and that the next buyer is
not likely going to enjoy a 20% per year price appreciation and the price
should be set accordingly. Sorry, it's a new market now.
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