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A sign of the times "Our new used car sale culture"

By
Real Estate Broker/Owner with Thompson's Realty

$1,500 printed on windshield of used carToday I had a fellow business owner stop in my office to see how things were going. He has an mid to upper range designer flooring business. We started chatting about how slow things were and he told me a story about a client that he had given a quote to for carpeting in their home. He had quoted this client a price based on 98 yards of carpet and had given the client a nice discount in the quote. The client called him and said "well I measured and I came up with 90 sq. yds". My friend said I will be happy to come over and show you how and why we came up with 98 sq. yds. The client then replied that this was not necessary but still only wanted to be charged for 90 sq. yds.

Now I am not a large real estate company and my fellow flooring company neighbor is not a large company either, between the two of us we have 2500 Sq. Ft. of space. We fall into the class of what we all know as the small business owner.  I spoke with another agent today about how difficult it is trying to put a deal together with the majority of the buyers that we are now encountering that want the deal on top of the deal. After getting a firm rejection from the seller, be it the lender or homeowner that received the unrealistic offer,  the bottom line response is, "well there is always the next one" having learned nothing from this offer or the previous one that have been submitted. Yes I know many agents would say "perhaps I am not the right agent for you" etc., etc. I could not agree more with you, but I have just spent countless hours with this client and in today's market its not like there is "another one coming around the corner". But what bothers me more than anything is this new buyer attitude and often they verbalize it with no apology "I want a steal". 

Now please don't get me wrong, a buyer has every reason to want a deal right now and I respect that and frankly if I were in this market to buy right now I would want the same thing. I know the tables have turned from the boom years, but lately I am seeing and hearing about this new "culture" of buyers wanting something for nothing beyond what I consider to be "reasonable". We all work hard to make a living especially in this market, driving buyers to see some 30 or more properties and putting in offers that are unrealistic is not only time consuming, but what I find most frustrating is they don't want to hear what you have to say, could care less about the statistics, and just does'nt seem to want your expert advice.

Well I don't know how long this deep recession is going to go on, or how many of us are going to still be around on the other side, but I miss the good old days when it was a "win win" for everyone.