YOU'RE FIRED! I heard these words the other day and I couldn't have been happier. Here's the story...
"Matt" called me a few weeks ago. He said that he was tired of renting and was finally ready to buy. I sent him to a lender and we were on our way.
Matt was in his early 20s and needed his parent's approval. He asked if I minded if they came along for the showings.
I showed them four homes on the first day. Matt loved one of them, but wanted to wait a day to think about it. No problem!
The next day I showed up with comps and a purchase agreement. The comps showed that the home was priced very well, and since we were asking for closing costs and there were two other offers coming in, I recommended offering full price if Matt was serious about buying this home.
What happened next was my first red flag.
Matt's Dad EXPLODED on me. He started screaming things like "This is a buyer's market!!! How can you tell my son to write a full price offer?? You just want to get paid more!! I can't believe what you are telling him to do!!!"
I calmly explained the situation again... but he still wasn't having it. He recommended (very loudly) that we offer 80% of list price, and that offering full price was not happening. It got to the point where I actually barked back at him, and told him that offering 80% was a complete waste of time.
We ended up offering closer to list price, but (even after I explained that is was full price or bust) the seller accepted another offer. SURPRISE!!
At this point my gut told me to part ways with Matt, but I didn't listen to my gut. It might be because we have slowed down just a little bit and I wanted to get a good start to 2012 by adding another January closing...
The next day (boy, this blog is getting LONG) we went to see another home. Guess what? It was priced well, and there was another offer coming in on it. Guess what happened again?
Did you guess?
Yep. He wanted to make another low offer, and a second offer came in and they took it. At that point all I could do was laugh.
The next morning I received an email from Matt saying that he wanted to find another Realtor to help him find his new home. He explained that he didn't think he and I were on the same page. He was nice enough to say that he appreciated my time and efforts. I responded by saying thank you and good luck, even though a part of me was angry that he beat me to the punch.
I'm not upset with Matt. I'm a little upset with myself for not trusting my gut when I saw these red flags early on. Oh well. Time to move on. There are plenty more buyers where he came from. I just hope the next buyers are a little more realistic than Matt. :)
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