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Dave Karoly: I can’t think of too many things more frustrating in this business than working with a buyer for months, sometimes even years, writing up a lot of offers for them, showing them tons of property. You finally get that offer accepted, and what do they do? Get cold feet, sometimes back out. Hi, I’m Dave Karoly with Crush It In Real Estate. That happens especially a lot this time of year. You have to put yourself in the buyer’s shoes. This is a huge decision, potentially one of the biggest ones they’ll ever make. What do they do? Exactly what you would do.
They called their loved ones, their friends, their family. Now, those people have the greatest intentions, but they’re not actually in the business. They tell them things like, “You paid over asking price for a home?” I wouldn’t even pay asking price. You waived your home inspection? What if something happens with the home? You covered your appraisal gap, all these things we know happen every day, but to the outsider, they don’t happen all that often. What else happens? They continue to search for properties.
They want to make sure they’re overpaying so they’re scouring that neighborhood just to make sure that doesn’t happen. Now, can we avoid it? No, but it’s in our best interest and our client’s best interest to make them see the big picture. How do you think those buyers felt last year and two years ago that backed out? Maybe they found a home, maybe they haven’t, but they’re now looking at the home that had minor issues. The value has greatly increased, and they’re stuck on the sideline. What can we do to help avoid these situations?
Couple of tips, we talked about all these in our buyer client roadmap. Of course, we offer, but number one, don’t just run over to them and tell them the offer has been accepted. Make them wait a little while. The quicker you go and tell them, the more they’re going to think, “Oh my God, was that the only offer? Oh my God, did I overpay?” Don’t run to tell them right away. They can wait a little while. Number two, it’s always close. Now, don’t go telling your buyer, “oh, your offer was tops by $10,000.” It was always close, there were other offers.
Now, another tip, number three, remind them as they’re getting ready for the home inspection of issues that they knew about. You knew that the roof was a little older. The seller’s disclosure said this, the seller’s disclosure said that, caution them. Number four, I know that your loved ones have the best intentions, but when was the last time they bought or sold a home? I do this every day.
Number five, if you have them searching for properties on an IDX system, we use RealScout, shut that off or they can continue to searching for properties on their own, but why are you blasting them with new listings in that neighborhood, making them potentially things they’re going to overpay? Remember, they’re not seeing the sold price on those new listings. They’re only seeing the list price. Then most importantly, if they’ve seen all along that you’ve had their best interest in mind, they’re not going to worry about overpaying.
In this market of such appreciation, can you really overpay? Think of the cost of waiting. Remind them of those. If home braces continue to appreciate, if they continue to pay rent, all those factors that we know about that they may not be considering. You can’t avoid every client getting cold feet, you can’t avoid especially first-time homebuyers looking to back out, but if you take some of these steps, you’re going to minimize the amount that it happens and maximize the amount of time you actually get them to the finish line. Hope it helps.