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Deerwood Realty and Friends Podcast
I was at a showing the other day and I wanted to go over some annoyances with the whole process and sort of rank them.
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Thoughts/questions:
- As a seller, don’t stay for a showing….unless you are homebound. I know, I know, you want to be able to show potential buyers all the great things about the house you’ve had for 50 years. Unfortunately, they don’t care. They just want to walk through the house, picture what it would look like with them inside it, and move on to the next one. As a seller, your house is so important to you, and I totally understand that. But you have to give buyers space.
- Don’t sit in your car watching buyers either. I was showing a house this weekend. My buyer texted me that there was some strange dude staring at her from his car. She thought it might be an agent, but it was unsettling anyway. There was also another car pointed at us from across the lot. While we went inside and looked around, I noticed the pictures matched the people watching us outside! Creepy. There’s no advantage for the seller to do this. I’m not going to talk to you when you are working with a listing agent, I’m going to talk to them. And, it just creeps people out.
- Stop with the multiple showings at the same time I know that houses are flying off the market at a record pace. I know some agents who think that it helps their buyer if they can get two or three buyers to go through the house at the same time because it makes the house popular. I dunno, in the age of corona, I don’t particularly like walking through a house with other groups. It’s the same reason I avoid open houses for the most part.
On my listings, I set it up so that an agent CAN overlap a showing, but they will get a notification that someone else is showing the house and they can choose to pick a different time.
I totally understand that sometimes it’s impossible to show houses in an orderly fashion…I’m just pointing out that it might end up hurting your seller. Here are a few reasons why
- I was looking at a house this past weekend and there were 4 other people showing the house. It was like 1200 square feet. One of the buyers had 4 young children and they were running around all over the place…now, I get it…kids are wild and no judging on my part. However, my buyer just wanted to get out of the house by that point.
- Agents think that if you see other people at a showing it indicates strong interest for the house and your buyer will have to bring a great offer to the table to get the house. In reality, in this market, when you are likely to have multiple offers anyway, how much stronger of an offer do you think you can get after 30 have already been submitted?
- If there are a stupid amount of people at showings, I might be tempted to not even bother writing an offer. Why should I waste my time when there are other houses on the market that may not have the perception of a lot of offers, even if they might?
- Be upfront when there are issues with the house The other day, I went to a showing where the flooring was destroyed in the entire house. It had come apart, the slots were broken off, so the floor was in need of complete replacement. Plus the flooring was cheap anyway. Give us a heads up! You can say something like “a flooring credit may be provided”, or “the house needs a little tlc” You can put it in the agent remarks, you don’t have to run afoul of your sellers. Just a heads up is all I’m asking.
- Confirm showings in a timely matter Sometimes, I’ll have 5 houses in a row to show…I’m sitting at my desk, scheduling the most efficient path, and there is always this one house that doesn’t confirm the showing for like 24 hours. That’s too long! If I have to adjust the schedule, at least give me a little time to do so.
- If you are going to accept any offer that comes in, let me know that too. I had a house that buyers were interested in this weekend that had an open house scheduled for the afternoon. No big deal, the listing said that offers were being accepted up until Monday. By the time we went by the open house, offer was not only accepted, the inspector was at the house! I didn’t check if the open house was cancelled specifically because you said that you were accepting offers until Monday. I can understand if you are taking offers at all times, as time is of the essence. It’s only when you say you are taking offers until Monday and then cut it short that makes an issue.
- I don’t want to see a seller letter at the house. Maybe I am in the majority, maybe I’m not. I don’t want to see a seller letter at the showing. I know you want to tell buyers how great your house is. But they usually devolve into some story about raising your kids or something about a pet or a vacation or how you saved up money to get the house….none of that is helpful for me when I am trying to get my buyers to write an offer on your house. They really don’t care about you. Harsh..I know.
- I like animals, but I’m not a professional cat wrangler, and I don’t particularly want to play with your dog…even if it is friendly. Look, I love animals…I really do. When you write that the cat will hide under the bed during the showing, my luck tells me that the cat is making a run for the door the moment I get the door open. Now what? Now I get to stop my showing and chase a cat? This isn’t what I signed up for. I don’t think pet owners realize that animals react totally different to strangers. If you can take the dog for a walk, do so. If you want to put the cat in a room and tell me not to open the door, I’m cool with that too.
- I can probably unlock the door to your house, if I have the right key, and if the lock isn’t odd. I joke all the time that the only thing they taught me during my real estate license courses was how to open a door. They didn’t. School of hard knocks on that one. Do you know how many showings are cancelled each year from doors that won’t open? I don’t even understand how it happens. If there is a key in the lockbox,
- I don’t know how your alarm works…there’s only about a million different kinds Some alarms are easy…just press a code. Others, are press a code, turn around in circles, offer praise to the gods and then, maybe then you can disarm the alarm. Tech has come a long way in alarms…if you are still rocking the non digital alarm from the 80’s that is cool and all but I don’t remember how they work.
- I don’t think chocolate covered coffee beans are good. And I usually think they are raisins, or peanuts.
I kind of like it when people leave food or candy out for a showing. To me, it’s quite non threatening…like you are happy people took the time to see your house. But, I don’t like chocolate covered coffee beans. They look like chocolate covered raisins, or peanuts, which I like. Imagine my “bitter” disappointment when I bite into a chocolate covered coffee bean. Makes me sick. Maybe you like them, and that’s totally cool. - It’s totally cool if you put out a sign like “watch your head” or improvements you’ve made to the home. It’s not ok to make signs as if you were a 3rd grader
What do I mean here? Well, sometimes there will be low clearance in the basement, so someone writes, “Watch your head”…totally appreciate that one. But writing a sign in crayon, “lock door” taped to the front door is one of those things I’m probably not going to forget and you probably shouldn’t bother with. There’s other signs too. Like the sign on the closet, “this door locked”. I can usually figure that out. You aren’t helping me sell the house to my buyers.
- You have a big dog and a small back yard and you leave bombs everywhere. I don’t know about you. Have you ever been to a backyard in St. Louis in August when someone doesn’t clean up after their dog? It’s pretty bad. Like, seriously, how is it that you are trying to put your best foot forward to sell your house only to leave dog bombs everywhere? Not cool.
Source: ME
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