I had a buyer recently that met with me on a Friday and wanted to see homes on the following Wed. I searched the MLS all weekend looking for homes that fit his needs and started calling for appointments on Monday morning.
I found 9 homes that fit the criteria. I called all 9 agents.
3 agents answered their phones the first attempt. 3 told me to plan on showing their listings at my desired time. If they found it to be a problem, they would call me. This is always a good strategy for agents who represent sellers that are serious about selling their home.
2 called me back within a short time, 1 of those told me to plan on showing their listing at my desired time. The other one said that my desired time was too hard for both the sellers and the agent because they all worked, and could we come at 5:00?
“No, we can’t come at 5:00.” My client is from, not only out of town, but out of the country. I was scheduling 2 days= 48 hours, in advance at a time that worked with his tight schedule. Why was there not a keybox on the home? Is the seller not motivated enough to sell to allow a keybox on the home? Or, is the agent not committed to this career enough to invest in a keybox for his/her listings? I don’t know what the reason was in this case, but I took that home off the schedule because there were enough other homes to see that were trying harder to “get sold”.
Selling a home can be an inconvenience but putting up with the inconvenience is worth it in the end when that buyer puts an offer on your home instead of the one they could not get in to see.
The most surprising thing about this is that 4 agents did not even bother to call me back even though they had a 2 day time window. I feel bad for these sellers who are never going to get their home sold if their agents wont make appointments for showings.
BUYERS DO NOT PUT OFFERS ON HOMES THEY CAN’T SEE!
Story continues: One of the homes was exceptionally promising. This agent was one that answered right away. I asked to preview the home the day before as well as show it at our planned time. He said that would be fine. I went by at the scheduled time and the people were leaving. They said they were late for an appt. so could not let me see the home. I asked if I could come back later and they told me to come back in 2 hours. They called a few minutes before and postponed again another 2 hours. I showed up 3:30 and they walked me through. It was a mess. (If you want a luxury home price, you need to look like a luxury home.) They made sure to let me know they needed a lot of time to move out, so a quick closing was out of the question.
Anyway, after all this run around and feeling like these sellers were not motivated to sell. I finally verified that I was bringing my client by the next morning.
They said, “No! We have been told not to show the home.”
I thought that was very strange so I called the agent when I left. He told me they were tenants. That explained a lot and I wish I had known that before I wasted all day trying to preview it.
If you are renting a home that is listed for sale, understand that many tenants will do all they can to sabotage a sale.
The point of this post is to make sellers aware of some of the most common mistakes that other sellers make.
1. Choose an agent that will answer his/her phone and make appointments to show your home.
2. Let your agent put a keybox on your home and allow buyers to come through it when you are not home.
3. Be flexible when you show it. The more buyers that come through, the better the chance of getting an offer.
4. Keep your house clean when it is being shown.
5. Don’t have renters in a home you need to sell unless you explain to them that the buyer will have to honor the lease if sold or offer them an incentive to be cooperative.
6. Don’t waste your time trying to sell if you are not motivated to do so.
Taking these few things under consideration will give you an edge in a market that is very competitive at the moment.
