Story

As a new lead (someone I have never met), my first step is to contact the client to get to know them. This first phone call is so important for so many reasons:

Most people that schedule specific showings do so out of excitement and a lot of times those showings are just an exploration but have zero intention - both wasting their time and also the seller’s time. This can occupy the buyer’s time with something they don’t need while maybe missing out on something that is listed they never got to see.
The consultation call is intended for me as an advisor to know why this family is moving, when their ideal time of moving is, where they currently live and will they need to time a sale in order to buy, and a very long list of other questions that help me determine if this property they want to see fits what they are looking for or not.
If the property matches with everything I am hearing I go ahead and confirm that showing and prepare to meet with these clients. That call covers a whole lot more than just property - we talk about pre-approval, and documentation, and many other things.
Prior to this showing I am running a comparative market analysis to understand what else in that neighborhood is available and is competition - and would there be anything BETTER that we need to check out while together that day?
While running those numbers I need to know as an advisor how does that home compare to the market when it comes to price? Are we overpriced? Under priced? Priced right? Because the moment that tour is over I immediately want the buyer to be informed on how this property is currently positioned in the market and if there is any urgency OR not.

During showings like these my job is to allow that family to walk around and imagine themselves in that home - how do they feel?- and then eventually raise some questions to understand where they are about the possibility of moving forward.

On this case, this property had been sitting on the market for slightly over the average days on market for that neighborhood - meaning the sellers could start to feel pressure to sell. And that was reflecting on their recent PRICE DROP.

Price drops can mean many things - and my job is to find out why - was it initially over priced? Is there and underlying reason for the price reductions that isn’t being shown (such as financial distress, divorce, relocation for work, etc.)… these questions are important and are a part of an ADVISOR’s to do list to have the most information possible while discussing what OFFER price will be ultimately presented.

The interesting thing here was that this home was owned for less than 1 year by these sellers, and this was a DIVORCE listing. This was a key discovery.

Sellers are liking losing money because there is not enough time for significant appreciation but there are costs such as listing and buyer agent commissions, deed transfer fees, title fees, closing fees, and moving costs.
With experience transacting with divorce listings I knew that getting two parties that can very much be in opposite pages about this transaction to agree to lots of changes or demands from a buyer is nearly impossible - this is important to know.

After some more conversation with the listing agent it was clear that the reason the house hadn’t sold yet had nothing to do with the price - it was priced correctly, but everything to do with how challenging it was to get showings to be accepted. You can’t sell a house that you don’t show.

So we went in at asking price.

I was confident it would appraise (it did).

All other interested parties tried negotiating for a “deal” but there was no “deal” to be made. So my clients got to lock the house under contract knowing that this was in fact a solid purchase.

Inspections were clear, title was clear, insurance was clear, and we got: