The Six Stages of Seller Grief

In today’s market, the experience of selling your home can resemble a major traumatic life event. With that in mind, I have organized the experience into the six stages many sellers experience:

1) OVERPRICING – This stage, occurring when the listing first goes on the market, indicates the seller’s optimism in the face of the comparable sales presented by the agent. Most sellers, like many proud parents, think what they have is unique. Unfortunately, it is often easy to find an agent who is willing to support an unrealistic price in order to secure the listing. This stage is always followed nowadays by

2) FRUSTRATION – Frustration sets in as the weeks go by and the property, due to overpricing, receives no offers (or very low offers which buyers make to compensate for the very high asking price.) Very often this stage leads to

3) BLAMING THE AGENT – Is the agent doing a good enough job of marketing? Why aren’t more buyers seeing the property? Does the agent really even understand the property and its attributes? The agent may well be recommending that the price be reduced, which, if he manages to retain the listing, will sooner or later be successful. This stage is

4) CAPITULATION – The seller acknowledges that the price is inappropriate for the market and reduces it, thus giving the agent an opportunity to re-market to the broader constituency the new price permits. This in turn leads to

5) OFFERS – Even today, a well priced property can generate multiple offers. One of them is likely to be good enough to lead to

6) SALE – Some properties, priced right from the beginning, avoid the first four stages and go straight to OFFERS. It is all a matter of price.