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Anthony: More deals falling through, more buyers getting grumpy, getting picky, making big deals out of little things after they do a home inspection. This is totally normal for the time of year, as soon as buyers see more choices they cause more trouble. Happens all the time and it happens at times of the year that there’s slightly less motivation. There is no denying that this time of year, generally speaking, there is less motivation among buyers than there is in the first half of the year. It’s just the way it goes, which shows that more people should buy at this time of year and less people should buy in the spring but we’ll never change that. I’ve never been able to change it in 15 years of talking about it and I’m not even going to try. How do you prevent that? You can not totally prevent it but you can substantially decrease it and it’s how you handle your deals, how you massage the transaction, call it, setting expectations with your sellers, managing a buyer or a buyer’ s agent on your listing.
Let’s say, for example, an email comes in from a buyer’s agent with 12 different things after a home inspection. Do not take that email and simply forward it onto your seller and say, “Read it later, I’ll call you in a while”. I’ll tell you a story, I did that one time. 2007, I was at Realty Executives, at a friend of mine’s company before we went on our own and I did just that. I was bus, I forwarded the email. I said, “I’ll call you in about an hour but wanted you to look at this”. All of a sudden I see an email from my seller. He emails the buyer, the buyer’s agent and copies me and says, “If you think that all of this is wrong in my home you should find another home”. Everything blew up. The truth is, the buyer wanted that house, the seller wanted to sell, but everyone’s emotions got involved.
I actually think I talked to you guys about this one time. Here’s the deal guys, when you’re a listing agent don’t just forward an email. Look at the email, separate the questions from requests. Make sure that they’re separate, speak to your seller first, don’t be in a rush. Everybody’s on their phone in a rush. Call your seller, explain some background, explain that the buyer has some questions, some issues, things like that. Warn them that you’re going to send a list.
Send the questions that the buyer has and then send the requests that the buyer has. Massage it a little, do it over the phone, warn them that it’s coming.
Think about how life goes, everybody’s a tough guy. Tell them either face-to-face or they’re on the phone. When they’re on the phone, “Okay, I hear you”. We’ve all done it, I’ve done it with my family. You get fired up over text or email, you get on the phone, they explain something, you explain something and you both go, “Okay, I see what you mean, I understand” and we’re all more reasonable. Treat your transactions this way.
Guys, when the market is slower, even though this has been a pretty good fall, much better in the last year, you have to make sure to do things correctly. The people that are good, the realtors that are good in this business, you shine in a market when it’s slower. Markets that are busy and every buyer’s fighting over homes, when you have listings, you’re the king. You start thinking that, “Oh my God, I’m untouchable. I’m the greatest thing that ever happened to real estate, everything I touch turns to sold”. I actually know a realtor that says that, he’s a great guy.
The point I’m getting at is, all of a sudden you hit a little bit of a slower market. When you’ve got to work your deals a little bit more, you’ve got to talk to people a little bit more. Well guess what, guys, do it. We’re heading into winter, more fall throughs happen on deals from about September to February 1st than any other time of year. You’ve got to work the deals a little bit more, work a little harder, have conversations. If you need to, go see your seller, go talk to your buyer in person. If your buyer comes out with some crazy requests there’s nothing wrong with calling the buyer on the phone, not email or texting, “Hey, let’s look at this list. Is it really necessary, all this? Remember, you knew a lot of this when we made the offer. You knew the house needed a new roof, you knew the downspouts, the gutters and the soffits were rotted. Now, you’re pushing for more here”.
Get them in line because guys, and I mentioned this in a video last week, show them the data. More homes– I shouldn’t say more homes, homes sell for more in the winter and spring than they do now. Show them that so that they know not to push their luck too damn far. Buyers do it all the time, greed costs people money every day of every week. We have a deal right now where sellers didn’t take an offer a while back and they should have. Now they’re in a situation where they’re taking more than seven figures less than they would’ve got had they listened to our agent, I don’t want to be too specific because it’ll give it away. Had they listened to our agent nine months ago when they got an offer, they would have got a lot more money.
That’s all my friends, massage your deals, work with people, talk to people, don’t just text and email. Warn them of what’s coming. We’re actually going over this in training tomorrow and I had it on my mind. All right, talk to you soon everybody. Have a good week.