The axiom that patience is a virtue has been drilled into our heads for years.
Parents tell their children this, in one form or another. Who hasn’t heard their parents tell them that they will appreciate what they are getting more if they have to wait for it, rather than getting it now. “You can’t have it now you need to wait.” “You can have it later.” Good things come to those who wait is another familiar philosophy and variation on the theme. Not necessarily true, I suppose.
In today’s society we seem to focus much more on immediate, rather than delayed, gratification, and decry the virtue of patience. The Internet, and the availability of products, so often allows us to get what we want fairly quickly. “You CAN have it now” with your credit card. We expect it, in fact demand it, and feel we are entitled. Why wait?
Buying or selling a home has never been something that happens overnight, no matter how much we want it to. And in this housing market patience is more a virtue than ever before. The most obvious examples are short sales, foreclosures and REOs. Much has been written about the truth of these transactions, which we all know are far from short. Many a buyer has pulled out of a short sale transaction after weeks or even months because it is taking too long to get a response from the bank. Patience has its limits.
Read: Buying a Short Sale
But it is true that patience is needed in any transaction – for example we wait for:
- sellers to respond to an offer
- buyers to respond to a counter offer
- the seller’s response to our request for repairs
- the appraisal
- the loan commitment
- the loan documents to be produced
- the final figures on the closing statement
- the closing date itself
- the recording of documents
- word that we are on record
Buyers wait for agents to call for appointments to show property
Agents wait for agents to respond to appointment requests or answers to buyer questions
Sellers wait anxiously for showings, and for the right offer, or any offer.
In any transaction someone must wait for someone else to call, write, respond, make a decision, and to do their job. With lender requirements changing practically daily, final approval on the file before producing loan documents can take days as underwriters continue to request information, in the final hour in some cases. Files are being more closely scrutinized, and banks seem to test one’s patience on an on-going basis.
In some transactions there are too many pointing fingers.
Buyers and sellers should know that while closing is scheduled for a certain day they may need to be patient and wait…a day, 2 days, perhaps longer, if things happen at the last minute (that darn Murphy’s Law), which they seem to do with increasingly regularity. There are no guarantees these days.
Many are not so patient – tempers flare, rude comments are made, nasty emails may be sent, folks overreact and do or say things they later wish they hadn’t. How often do we find that some folks are simply not so virtuous.
Patience may be perhaps the most important quality a buyer, seller or any real estate professional may possess.
How patient are you?
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