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The NEW 3 Most Important Words in Real Estate
Zero points for you if you already thought, “Location, location, location!” If “Location” is everything, why do we even publish prices, since the price wouldn’t even matter if the home was in THE spot! Why have a home inspection and worry about rotten framing and faulty wiring when the home’s address is just IT!?
Because it isn’t ALLLLL about location. That’s just a variable. One of many. And all the variables add up and are processed by a finely-tuned buyer’s “internal algorithm” that determines just the right equation. Location, yes, but also style, condition, orientation, quality, neighbors, setbacks, staging, occupants, price, and more.
So let’s retire “Location, location, location.” And let’s introduce the NEW 3 most important words in real estate:
“Be Here Now!”
I don’t mean, “Move to Bellingham right now!” although you should. I mean BE in the moment of this situation you’re currently facing, not some other situation you read about or remember from way back. Let me give you an example.
I had a listing in Sudden Valley a few months back. It was a gorgeous home, priced right and getting a steady flow of traffic. The sellers and I were feeling confident that we’d get a sale in the following 1 to 3 weeks.
So my phone rings one afternoon and it’s a buyer’s agent, asking me all about the house, the seller’s motivation, any other offers on the table, etc. I asked if her clients were approved for the list price, and she said they were. So I gave her the straight scoop, filling her in on comps, traffic, seller confidence… everything she’d need to pass on to her buyer clients to inspire them to write a good offer.
Later that day, I received the offer: $30,000 less than list price! More than 12% below list. What the….?
I called the agent, but before I could even speak she started in, apologetically: “The buyers aren’t from here. They just moved out from ________ where buyers never, ever offer more than 80% of list price on a home. So it was a stretch,” she said, “to even get them to go this high.”
“Well, Ms. Agent,” I said, “you’re going to have to get your buyers to realize they’re not in ________ anymore.”
And along with the seller’s counter-offer at just 1% below full price, we included a stack of comps, 6 months of data showing that NO houses had sold for the $-per-square-foot price the buyers had offered, and a cover letter thanking them for the offer, but asking them politely to “Be here now.”
They got it, and we closed the sale.
I’m not suggesting that NO houses in Whatcom County sell for 80% of list. They can, and do. But houses are not a commodity in that they all have a unique story. And good agents can dig down on that story and help you create a unique buying strategy to match that house and its sellers. If you get the story, act on it. Be here now. Leave the way it was back in ________ truly back in ________ and Be…Here…Now.
Actually, that offer sounds perfectly fair to me …. I believe low balling is a fact of the “Be Here Now” life, nothing really personal about it. In a buyers market. I always have thought that if your not embarrassed by the offer you are making, you are offerring too much. The seller should just ignore it, which they did by going down only a grand…. glad it all worked out ….
Thanks for the comment, Glenn. The “Be Here Now” concept is going so spawn a range of future blog posts, including:
“How to get here now, if you’re still over there now!” Ultimately, we oftentimes only find the “here” by trying first to go “there.” Somewhere between the seller’s “here” and the buyer’s “here” is the real “here now.” We hope to find that point eventually, but it doesn’t always happen as efficiently – in only two moves – like the story above.