Brandon Nelson

Is Your Need to Win Keeping You Homeless?

It’s all over the national news: It’s a Buyer’s Market! It’s a great time to buy a home, because there’s so much distressed inventory and sellers — whether banks, investors, owner-occupants, etc. — need to just “get out of it” in some cases, meaning just get the house sold so they can move on.

This is true in SOME cases, yes. But not always.

The reason I bring it up, is because we see every day in the industry the buyers who are just insistent on “winning” the negotiation for the price. These buyers are dead set on their decision that they’re not going to pay more than 90% of list price for their house, darn-it!!! They want a DEAL!!!

But let me ask you this, stubborn buyer: What if the house you want is priced right, right where it’s priced, right now? Do you still need that 10% discount. Or let me put it another way: Would you rather pay 90% of list price for a house that’s over-priced anyway… or 100% of list price for a properly priced house? Do you know how to tell the difference?

Sometimes I wonder. Because so often the “need to win” blows all logic and comparative market analysis and good old common sense right out of the water. It keeps good buyers from getting good houses more often than it should, honestly.

Personally, I like being the listing agent when these “need to win” buyers come around. I’ll have a house that I KNOW is priced right and priced to sell, and a buyer with a chronic case of “need to win” sends an offer that is just ridiculous, with their agent doing their best to convince the seller and I that we’re lucky “in this market” to get any offers at all… while at the same time, internally, rolling their eyes because they know the sheer folly of their pitch.

Then, when they’ve walked, sometimes the same or next day, a legitimate offer comes in and the seller and I get to kind of say to that low-ball agent: “Told you so!”

Seriously, though. If you think Bellingham real estate is a commodities market and “a house is a house is a house….” I got two words for you: Wake up. Every house has a story. Every seller has story. Every price has a story. There are over-priced houses out there by the ship-load, no doubt. And there are unbelievably good deals that get multiple offers on day 1. And in the middle are just properly priced houses that sell with legitimate offers in the first month or two… sometimes longer, even.

Understand where the houses that you’re interested in fit into that equation, and offer accordingly. Don’t let a Freudian “need to win” complex stand in the way of realizing ownership of a great home.

(Debbie Downer… I can’t even wait for you to tear this post apart!!! Have at it, my arch nemesis / favorite fan!)

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 2:13 am and is filed under Buyer Info. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1. d downer wrote on March 11th, 2010 at 9:58 am

   Hi Brandon, nice post today. I have been following your thoughts from all over the western hemisphere. I agree with you … really. The idea that something might already be a good deal, and should be taken as is, is not just in houses. It applies in all sorts of transactions and is the same if you are a buyer or a seller. The common denominator to passing up on a good\fair deal is “greed”. The seller may be too greedy and will pass on sure profits today for the hope of more tommorrow, and the buyer the same in a way. I have to keep this in mind all the time, to temper my own freudian need to win, and greed.

   Negotiations, when needed, are a game, and that’s why you like it probably. I believe you want to “win” as well. The ‘Told you so’ comment reveals some motivations. I don’t believe a house, is a house, is a house, but when in negotiation as a buyer, I try to remember there are other house deals down the road if the current one falls through. So far, this has been personally true.

   Houses are not commodities, and they do all have a story…. to a point. The beige suburban development cookie cutter stuff’s story I think is weak and boring. Give it 20 to 100 years to make it interesting.

   In the end, I look for houses whose story I want to be a part of. Ownership of a house could be looked at the opposite way. The house owns the “owner”, and will long outlast that person. We just enrich it, give it nourishment and eventually become its ghosts.

   Couple other things related to recent posts

   … the front door remodel is spot on. Especially if you go get something unique, old and cool. Like a restore classy door. Similarly, doing the front door, installing new cool house numbers, and a cool mail slot is the triumverate of cheap upgrades.

   … got my first Bellingham house in the summer of 1989, when the bidding wars were crazy and property prices jumped seemingly 40% in 3 months. There were 3 offers on a york street house the day after it went on the market. Mine was 1k over full price but I wasn’t the highest. Got the house though, because I’m a pollock, and the lady who owned had been married to a pollock for decades. Dumb luck … but that’s my story … and thank god elevator clauses hadn’t been invented yet.

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