Dealing with Kneejerk
January 14, 2009 | By Kelley Koehler | Filed Under Home Selling
So I submitted a low offer yesterday.
Well, let me rephrase. I submitted a reasonable opening offer on an overpriced house yesterday. When the same house is under contract 2 streets over at $80,000 less…
Within about 4 hours, I had a rather terse call from the listing agent, saying his clients were not going to respond to our offer. But they had another day and a half to consider it. Why not sleep on it, get over that initial emotional kneejerk response, and at least counter with something? I know our offer wasn’t what they were hoping for. But they ain’t going to get what they were hoping for. And when that house 2 streets over closes for $80k less, they’re going to be hurting, and our offer is going to start looking better. But we’ll already be gone.
Now, if they’d gotten over that first emotional horror when confronted with the reality of the market via our offer, we might still be talking. And when there’s no other buyers on the table and a 48 hour acceptance window, there’s usually time to turn it all over in your head, time to step back and think rationally. Why answer in 4 hours?
Oh well. We can find other houses in this market, no problem. Sorry, home seller.
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What part did the listing realtor play in setting an unrealistic price?
I’ve met realtors who told me the cold facts up front, and were ready to walk away from an unrealistic listing. I’ve also met a few who were more than happy to indulge price fantasies to get that precious listing.
In the case you describe, I think the seller emulatated a few decapitated kings of old, and picked the wrong advisor.
Scott – hard to know. But you’re likely correct.
Kelly, You and I both know that this quick emotional response will most likely cause a case of “seller’s remorse” somewhere down the road.
Kelley,
I closed one at the end of last year with the same circumstances. However, I represented the seller. I went through the “low-ball” offer with her, showed her that values were decining and showed her that the competition was continually dropping their list prices. Then I had her sleep on it for a night.
The next morning she called back and we began to negotiate in earnest with the buyer. That “low-ball” offer didn’t look so bad.
It has only been a few weeks since we closed, but no homes have sold and three of “the competition” have reduced prices again.
Her option was to chase the market down or sell her home for a fair price and get on with her life. She wisely chose the latter.
Hopefully if your client is still insterested in the property, they can go back in a week or two and the seller might wake up to the realities of the market. If not, definitely move on.
key Kelley,
great point on the knee jerk…this market is kind of crazy right now but i always try and explain to the seller that i’d rather see an offer counter offer situation die or dry up (trying) rather than just reject and have the buyer move on to the other 10-20 homes in the area that they are looking to buy in. Foreclosures and short sales are really hurting the non distressed home sales on the market but as we all know they aren’t going away anytime soon…good luck !!