"I Love You But...3 other Realtors Said...." Confessed the Desperate Seller

  We thought...that the realtors who had not "shifted" were gone...or nearly extinct...and gone on to pursue other professions. That they had learned, through more trial and error that "buying a listing" does not work. You cannot make money....sell homes, keep or attract clients and customers when you over price a home to get the listing...it just does not work....

   We looked at a house the other day....blocks from the home I grew up in...I know the neighborhood...and still know many of the neighbors. The man had gotten the house back in a divorce. His now ex-wife had been a hoarder and had also trashed the property and not maintained it...what a combination !  Sooooo he spent weeks, cleaning out dumpster loads, painting, re-this and thating and asked us to come over and tell him the list price. For all he had done...there was sooo much more to do...the kitchen was a complete do-over just to begin to bring it into this century,,,the brown sink a in the half bath and narrow dark woodwork...huge gold veined mirror strips on the wall screamed of days gone by...decorating gone bad. The garage and basement were spotless...his priorities, not necessarily a buyer priority.

       "I have to sell this quickly !"  he quipped...when he "got it back" the mortgage had not been paid for a couple months...the property taxes were in default and so his cleaning was going to pay this all off and he would walk with "start over money."   Whoops....

  We gave him a price...offered to help with some staging...remove the mirrors...replace light fixtures...and still...the price would barely cover the indebtedness with the penalty, interest clock adding expense.

  We knew he would have to get at least one...if not more, "second opinions." Sure enough....he said he just had to take that leap of faith...he had tooo much time....money and emotion invested and not that he did not respect our opinion but 3 other realtors gave him prices of 30-40% higher than our suggested list.

   Hmmmm...now why would we list a house for that much under the market....The foreclosure bus will be parked in front of the house sometime soon....hard to believe that many realtors could be wrong...he decided they were not. Stay tuned as the bus drives up  and the foreclosure fist tightens around the house...I will take my license on it.