No Need To Get Those Buyer Blues
It’s never easy being the buyer. Between the fear that they will lose the place which they have chosen to buy and the fear that they will pay too much for it, the fear that it will turn out to have problems they haven’t imagined (and their engineer hasn’t spotted) and the fear that maybe they just won’t like it, buyers have a lot to consider in making the decision to purchase a home. A smart and knowledgeable agent can be one of the most significant sources of support during this process. Nowadays, many buyers feel that, since they can use the Internet to search for properties, selecting a buyer’s agent has become irrelevant. Believe me, it hasn’t. Statistics show that most buyers who start on their own end by selecting an agent to represent them, and there’s a good reason. The Internet provides information. In time, buyers come to appreciate the difference between information (available on the Internet) and knowledge and expertise (NOT available on the Internet.) Most want the latter, and that level of competence and insight generally need to come from a professional.
I take objection to a number of phrases which I have heard tossed around the industry over the decades. Here are a couple I find particularly off base:
• Buyers are liars. While I guess this phrase encapsulates the frustration agents can feel with buyers who change their parameters, I see it a whole different way. Buyers enter into a complex process in deciding to shop for a new home. During the process, the buyers and their agent evolve and sharpen their concept of the right residential fit. It may look quite different at the end than it did at the beginning, as the buyers’ hierarchy of needs, and their agent’s understanding of those needs, becomes more realistic and more clear. That doesn’t mean that the buyer failed to tell the truth up front. It means that the truth changed.
• Determine the decision maker in the family. I’m still trying to do this in my own family, never mind someone else’s. (Actually I’m not; it’s my wife!) Couples are hard to read. It’s easy to get the decision maker question wrong, for several reasons. First of all, successful couples decide together. The louder or apparently more dominant one may be very different behind the bedroom door. You just never know. Both participants need to like and want a property for the deal to work. How many times have I shown a property to the spouse who says, ”He/she completely trusts my judgement. I want to make an offer on this,” only to have the other spouse return and instantly nix the deal? This is so common that most experienced exclusive agents won’t even take an offer until both members of a couple have seen the unit. No one wants their home selected by another person, no matter how much they may love them.
My long-time advice to buyers: don’t make a long term decision with a short term strategy. Pay the appropriate price, but don’t obsessively fine tune. Your agent can help you determine the range into which that appropriate price falls. Believe me when I tell you (as someone who has bought at the top of the market), ten years from now what you paid won’t matter much. The memories you have created, the joy or peace you have felt when you walk in the door – that’s the currency which counts.
