Sellers Not As Desperate As You Think
I typed the heading so I could feature a very well-written post by California agent Janet Guilbaul, but we’ll come back to her words shortly. When I read the headline a thought struck me - because of the sheer number from the last two years in America, is a former homeowner still stigmatized for having a foreclosure in their history?
The answer depends on who’s looking at a person’s financial history. Of course a lender would naturally steer clear of a borrower who has proven in the past that he or she will not pay on a house note - at least until a certain amount of time has passed and they’ve had years to recover enough financially to qualify.
People who lose their homes are still embarrassed and mortified, but honestly I don’t believe their friends, family, and neighbors look down on them like they might have 10 or 20 years ago. It’s because we all recognize that this economy is a raging maniac - when unemployment is up to 7 percent nationwide and is expected to increase in 2009 - well then it’s no wonder people lose their homes. If you don’t have the money, you can’t make the payment.
Meanwhile (and we’re getting back to Janet’s thoughts), not everyone is desperate to sell. Even with my own listings, I’ve had to tell numerous agents, “This is not a distress sale.” We’ve had so many homes hit the short-sale mode that we find people crawling out of the woodwork trying to get a bargain. As a result, prices have come down all over the place. Realtors and their sellers already account for this when they analyze the current market value and agree on the price. Janet says,
Buyers should ask themselves this: Am I willing to risk losing the house I love because I am addicted to scoring an extreme bargain?Isn’t getting the BEST HOUSE in your LOCATION OF CHOICE at a hugely deflated price enough of a high? Or has extreme bargain shopping become like a drug addiction? You will sacrifice your long term well-being and logical thinking for that 10 minute high of feeling ever so smart because you “stole” the house?
Frankly, I don’t like working with a buyer who has among his/her goals to “stick it to the seller” as Janet says. However like one commenter said, there’s been so much media coverage of how cheaply people can buy homes, there are the foreclosure buses, there are foreclosure shows on TV… it’s no wonder buyers will *always* make a drastically low offer. The upside is that sometimes the fish bites. The downside is that sometimes that dream home gets away. The commenter named Ellen works around it,
As Listing Agents we need to tell our Sellers point blank that no matter what price we list at, we will get much lower offers and we have to master the art of negotiation. Someone who really WANTS the house will buy it at a fair price. It just means MORE WORK.
As Buyers Agents, we need to explain everything and then let them lowball. Hey, a low offer is an OFFER. In some of our markets with NOBODY even trying to make offers, these crazy low offers would be welcome!
The comments on Janet’s post vary wildly, but the bottom line seems to be work harder, be grateful for any offer and work hard to find the price both seller and buyer agree on, and work harder.
