Avoiding the "Heebie-Jeebies": How to keep your buyers looking at the bigger picture.......
Avoiding the "Heebie-Jeebies": How to keep your buyers looking at the bigger picture.......
Ideal buyers are those that are seasoned, educated, and understand the purchase process completely. Even better, they have bought and sold homes before.
But as we all know, not all buyers are like that. Confusion, dis-trust, ambiguity, combined with an uncertain market can be a recipe for disaster and can cause many deals to cancel.
My advice is to ALWAYS have your buyers eyes on the prize, and in the realm of the bigger picture.
For example, are they currently renting? If so, sit down and run all the numbers that compare renting vs. buying. ALL inclusive, meaning what are the costs and benefits of each. rent vs. mortgage, HOA vs. home maintenance, mortgage interest deduction and how that provides a huge tax benefit, control of the decor of your home vs. landlord permission or HOA restrictions, etc.
Delve into WHY they wanted to look for a home in the first place. Sometimes they need to be reminded of that because of the value of those reasons: closer to work/ less commuting stress? opportunity to reduce monthly overall expenses due to the current pricepoint in the market? tax benefits? needed to find some peace and serenity?
Some of these things are priceless and it is important for you to constantly, (in a friend-to-friend way - VERY important) remind them of their original goals.
It's very easy for buyers to get fixated on things like: the seller won't give credit for the garage door, the short sale is taking too long, they're going to have to come up with a few extra dollars to close, etc. - things that are not really critical or truly jeopardizing financially.
Do you want to attempt to "push" them in a direction that they are obviously not comfortable with? Absolutely not! We've had enough of those types of agents who give the rest of us a bad name.
But try and save your buyers from themselves if they are letting their inhibitions get the best of them. Let them talk to other home buyers that you have worked with so they can ask them questions. Route them in the direction of family and friends who are also homeowners so that they have people close to them who can give them the scoop.
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