Prodigy Real Estate - SI NY Real Estate Blog

Separating the emotion isn’t easy in home selling, but the consequences of not managing them can have huge consequences.

When talking to many homeowners one of the resounding conversations that repeats themselves is, “I put my house on the market last year and someone offered me ten thousand dollars below my asking price of $475,000. I was insulted, and I said no way."

Later on weeks and sometimes months, and even years later I’ve had many sellers confide in me, “If I would have known then what I know now, I would have jumped on it.” Unfortunately, it's a conversation that is playing across dinner tables for as long as real estate has existed.

Emotion runs high on personal property. It can have consequences.

Sometimes a seller hears an offer and is personally offended, so offended sometimes they even resist dealing with the buyer at all. Yes, I have dealt with this on several occasions. However, even in today’s hot real estate market, it pays to step back listen to the offer. Many homeowners can become so frazzled by a low offer, it's not possible to negotiate their way up to reasonable number. They lose by completely dismissing it out of hand.

Pay attention to the first few offers; it's still the best way of knowing where the market may be suggesting what your home is worth.

Now, by no means am I advocating a homeowner simply say, “Ok, you have it for what you asked.” However, in deal making the first several offers are usually the best offers. The question is, of course, why?

To sum it up- it’s because it's usually something the buyer was waiting to come on the market.  It may be the neighborhood, the home's location, the type and style of home, amenities, etc. Many buyers have been researching listed homes way before your home was ever listed. Consequently, your home pops up on the market and it's what they have been looking for. They are going to call right away. (Additionally, proper advertising during in the first weeks your home is listed is extremely crucial to make these potential buyers aware of your home availability.)

Sometimes home seekers hit the home seller with a low number and in hopes of coming out ahead. Many times it's done as a test, so be patient and work through the details with your real estate agent. Most agents have been down the road before and worked the numbers up to be acceptable to you, the seller.

Sometimes the emotion of moment supersedes reason. That's understandable because it, of course, is your home. The years of hard work and effort develops a value of your home sometimes unseen by anyone. However, sometimes it pays to put that emotion aside to accomplish your goal, which ultimately is to sell your home.

Getting an agent that has experience will and should act as a buffer to examine an offer, working with you to create reasonable objections to the offer. Without that, homeowners will learn the regret that I’ve been witness to on a good many occasions.