"We Care". It's a phrase we hear all the time. "You're not just another transaction, we care about you as a person". You get the idea. My question is, can we care too much?
My wife Tammie White and I recently started working with a young couple who are getting married at the end of May. They're excited about the wedding, their future life together, and the prospect of purchasing their first home.
We met with them and talked about the process, the need to get pre-approved, and the sort of home they were hoping to purchase. After that, they talked with our preferred lender and got the good news about the price point that would work well for them given their current financial situation. With that in hand and with high hopes, we started looking at homes.
Within their modest price point, we saw homes with large electrical poles on the front yard, wildly sloped driveways and miniscule bedrooms. Since both of them work long hours, we often saw property in the evening when it was difficult to even see the backyard.
After looking for a few weeks, we came across a home that was a little smaller than they initially wanted, but it ticked all their other boxes. We were showing the home on the second day it was on the market and we indicated to our clients that this home would probably sell quickly. They loved this little house. We asked for and received an extension on our showing time so his parents could race over and see the home.
We wrote an offer that night, finishing up around midnight and sent it over to the listing agent. I'm sure she was surprised to see the time stamp on the e-mail the next morning.
I won't go into all the details about the negotiations but they weren't pretty.
As we were negotiating, both Tammie and I got quite upset with the tactics of the listing agent which may have bordered on the unethical. It got personal. I came to the realization that I was heavily invested in whether or not our clients got this particular house. I don't feel it affected our ability to negotiate in the best interests of our client, but we cared...a lot.
This story has a happy ending, at least to this point in time. We got the house under contract and we're moving forward. We're not naive, we expect there will be some additional rocky moments ahead given some of the negotiations.
I know that "business is business", but are there times as an agent that we care too much?
Photo Courtesy of Stockimages -- Freedigitalphotos.net
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