Be Afraid (Agents), Be Very Afraid
Reading time: 3 minutes
Working for buyers and sellers can be like watching:
a slasher horror pic where the slutty teenage girl runs screaming straight into the house where you know the serial killer is waiting with a big butcher knife.
a zombie movie where our hero expends all his ammunition on his slobbering snarling newly-undead buddy only to watch, frozen by shock, as his Best Friend Forever (and I do mean Forever) rises again.
a creature feature where a slimy and menacing dinosaur-serpent-insect mashup climbs out of the crater an errant spaceship just punched into the middle of the high school football field.
You aren’t particularly surprised by these developments. You knew they were coming. And you’re pretty sure what’s going to happen next. You may still be slightly terrified, but you’ve seen it all before.
I’m not saying my work is a horror show, but there are plenty of unsurprising variations on predictable themes in residential real estate deals. To name a few:
“We’re not in a hurry to {buy /sell}.” This is a favorite tired trope. The client wrongly assumes that professing a lack of motivation helps their cause. Yet playing hard to get isn’t a smart strategy for purchasing or selling real estate.
“If we write a counteroffer then they’ll (buyer or seller on “other” side) just come back with another counteroffer, so maybe our strategy should be XYZ.” There’s no one way that negotiations go and the old “split the difference” model is just that – an antiquated elementary-school idea (which some agents and some clients still adhere to – or not). No offer situation fits neatly into a one-size-fits-all model.
“If our listing price is too low, we’ll fail to attract buyers who’ll pay a higher price.” Since when is anyone not looking for a good deal? The goal is, first, to bring people to the property. Enticing them with a relatively low price is almost always the perfect bait-and-switch strategy. Once buyers are in love with your house, they’ll compete with rival buyers who are also in love with your house and the price will go up up up.
“{Decision / transition here} will upset our children and we just don’t want to do that to them.” Adults need to act like adults and trust that their kids will be okay so long as they have a loving parent or two. Simply put, don’t blame your indecision or resistance to change on your children.
“My {parent / friend /other relative / uninformed, retired or new agent} says this property is {too expensive / a bad investment / needs too much work / other}.” Back-seat advising from unqualified counselors is a constant thorn in my agent side.
“We need to get {unrealistic price} for our property because {that’s what the neighbors got / we’ve done the math / we deserve it}.” I’ve never met a seller who didn’t want to get top dollar for their property, and I’ve yet to meet a listing agent who didn’t want the very same thing for their client. However, the market – not the seller, not the agent – will determine the price. If you’re a seller, you SELL. And your agent – no matter how talented – can’t pull a particular price out of the air like a magician yanking a rabbit out of a hat
“We’d be willing to consider something that needs work.” There’s work and there’s work. Do you really want to spend your free time running a construction project? Or do you want to enjoy some weekend downtime so you can perform well at your job and be paid handsomely enough to fund a mortgage and vacations? Whatever you imagine the cost of home improvements to be, go ahead and triple that now. Then factor in all the time you’ll spend on planning and oversight. Then – for perspective – try to remember how much effort it took to obtain the correct replacement lightbulb for your bedside lamp. Seriously. That took at least two hours, didn’t it?
“We’re going to paint our house ourselves.” Paint – more than anything – makes a dramatic difference in how a home “feels.” Along with floors and lighting, it’s the pre-sale or post-purchase enhancement with the highest guaranteed return on investment or the biggest emotional impact. It’s relatively inexpensive to have a professional do the work. And it’s almost certain that you – the amateur – will screw it up (and spend an inordinate amount of time doing so). Do not pass go or stop by the nearest Benjamin Moore outlet. Instead, hire a painter and have them do it all. (And while you’re at it, hire a designer and have them help you with color.) Lastly, don’t assume that you or a professional can “just touch up here and there.” That never works.
“Instead of selling, maybe we’ll just rent out our house in case the kids (or we) want to move back some time in the future.” If your home is in San Francisco and it has increased in value during your occupancy, you’re wise not to turn it into an investment property. There are three reasons. First, you won’t be able to claim your $250,000 capital-gains-tax exemption. Second, you’ll lose control over your most valuable asset by making it subject to San Francisco landlord-tenant laws and restrictions. Third, the kids-or-you-moving-back-in thing is an emotional red herring and rarely comes to pass.
“Let’s find a foreclosure.” Great idea in theory, but there’s a whole cadre of skilled, resourced and professional opportunists scouring the city for distressed homes and, trust me, you aren’t qualified to play in that league. I know I’m certainly not!
“Couldn’t you find a buyer off-market, so we can just sell it quietly?” The bigger the net you cast, the bigger the fish you’ll get. Works every time. (I could write a whole treatise on this subject…)
“Our {insert friend / neighbor / nephew / boss / other} really wants to buy our house. They said they’d offer {insert unrealistically low price}, so we can save on commission and just have it done with.” See paragraph above about the wide net. Then ask yourself, “Do I want to make the most of my asset, or am I running a charity?”
“I’ll let the tenant know that they need to move out so we can get started on selling.” No no no! Hard stop. In San Francisco you must not may not shall not say a peep to your tenant until you’ve consulted with a landlord-tenant attorney for the latest update on how current laws and regulations apply to your specific situation.
I’m tired of the tired tropes for today, though I’m sure I’ll think of more tomorrow. Have YOU any you’d like to share?
Author and RealEstateTherapy curator Cynthia Cummins has been devoted to homeowners and homebuyers for three decades and counting. Visit KindredSFhomes.com for more information on San Francisco real estate.
Photo credit: Ján Jakub Naništa
