I recently encountered a seller who had a great house, in a great location. Sounds like an ideal situation right? Let me also add that the seller knew more than me...at least he thought he did. That's fine, but let me give you a few more details.
This particular seller had been involved in some aspect of real estate for over thirty years. Although he hadn't bought or sold in the past decade, he thought he knew everything there was to know about selling his house. While it was indeed a lovely house, it was very unique. This three bedroom beauty had the original 25 year old carpet...a lovely shade of mauve. He refused to change it because it was high quality and he had paid a lot of money for it. I'm thinking he had gotten his money's worth. The master bedroom was gigantic! This meant that the other two bedrooms were about the size of a large closet. The kitchen and bathrooms were all in good condition, but they were original. Did I mention the paint color? Think mauve carpet.
Throughout the listing presentation he kept telling me how I should market his house, how many open houses I should have, how I needed to follow up with him, how he didn't want a lockbox, how he wasn't going to change (read "stage") a thing because the house looked great and...drum roll please...he expected to get top dollar and would be willing to wait to get his price.
That was it for me! I can take a seller thinking they know more than me. I can understand wanting top dollar, but I don't want to work with a seller, regardless of price point, who is completely unreasonable. I would rather spend my energy and money working with a seller who is willing to work with me to get their house sold.
As I tell the agents in my office...all money, isn't good money. So I walked away. I didn't want to work with this seller. What would you have done?
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