How to flip scenarios that could derail a sale.
By Donna Shryer
Every REALTOR® has been face-to-face with a situation that threatens to take down a sale. Sometimes it’s a troublemaker, sometimes it’s competition and other times it’s plain fate, but the reaction is always the same. “Really? Are you kidding me?”
According to our experts, there’s almost always a workaround that can flip a difficult situation into a profitable transaction.
1. Work the Math with a Stubborn Buyer
Who hasn’t dealt with a stubborn buyer stuck on a lowball offer? There are infinite reasons for such obstinacy, but regardless of the cause, Mike Selvaggio, CRS, broker-owner, Delaware Homes Real Estate, has a tool that usually leads the buyer to reality.
“I break a fair market price down into per month value. For example, if the seller wants $5,000 more and the buyer says no way, here’s how I put it. Each additional $1,000 financed comes to $5.07 a month over 30 years at 4.5 percent interest. For $5,000, we’re talking about an extra $25.30 a month.”
2. Grant Clients Permission to Vent
“Every REALTOR® knows how emotional selling or buying a home can be, but a lot of us never officially give the client permission to express those emotions. That can trigger some seriously challenging situations,” says Rebecca Straley, CRS, principle broker, Go Straley Group of eXp Realty, serving Virginia and Washington, D.C. So, to help clients jump emotional hurdles and reach the finish line, she periodically asks every client two questions throughout the selling or buying process:
- How do you feel right now?
- What would you like me to do?
“It’s like opening a pressure cooker valve,” Straley says. “Once I give clients permission to release their emotions, things go a lot smoother.”
Straley recalls standing on a seller’s porch, sensing her client was rethinking the sale. “I said, ‘You must feel like you’re leaving a good friend.’ My client admitted that selling her home was painful—and as she released those emotions, she also released the home. We closed two days later.”
3. Follow the Client’s Lead
“I’ve been in this business for 39 years, closed more than 5,100 transactions and thought I’d seen it all. But people can still shock me! When that happens, no matter how hard it is, it’s the REALTOR®’s job to focus on the client’s goal.” That’s how Alexis Bolin describes her reaction when a recent transaction nearly went south after the home appraiser sexually harassed her client, the seller.
Bolin, a CRS Emeritus with Keller Williams Realty Gulf Coast, serving Pensacola, Florida, learned about the situation immediately after the appraiser left her client’s home. “First, I made sure she was physically okay, which she was. The appraiser had harassed her verbally, suggesting she ‘play ball’ if she wanted the house appraised fairly. But she was emotionally hurt.”
And since the seller rebuked advances, the appraisal did in fact come in far lower than expected.
Bolin recalls her first impulse: to nail the appraiser. However, she decided that her best strategy was to first get the house sold.
“I had an obligation to follow my client’s wishes, which meant working calmly toward closing,” she says. After finalizing the sale, Bolin would make sure no other REALTOR® ever worked with that appraiser again.
“Miraculously, the appraisal was changed and we closed on the house. Then we called the lender, reported what happened and the lender called the appraisal company. We sent comps to the lender to support the value, and they got the appraisal changed,” Bolin says. In addition, the client filed a report with the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation.
4. Empathy Wins Over Ornery Agents
“In my market, and I’m sure in every market, there are agents so combative that there’s hardly room in the transaction for the buyers and sellers. You have to find a way to work around that to successfully get to closing,” says Sandra Nickel, CRS, Broker/Owner of Sandra Nickel Hat Team, REALTORS® in Montgomery, Alabama.
Nickel’s solution is to address the quarrelsome agent with empathy rather than the frustration—or even anger—she feels. “When the agent on the other side of the transaction gets into a tug-of-war over every issue, I say, ‘Wow, you sound like you really have your hands full here. I know how you feel. I’ve felt that way myself. But what’s important here is that we have to help our clients come to an agreement. Don’t you agree?’”
That almost always does the trick, Nickel adds. “Show a little empathy, remain professional and respect others. Every REALTOR® knows this, but it doesn’t hurt to remind yourself once in a while. It’s so tempting—even natural—to get down in the gutter with a combative agent.”
5. Address the Nitpicking Inspector
Nickel admits that she has a big issue with inspectors who overstep their job description. “It’s not the home inspector’s job to conduct a structural inspection unless they’re a licensed structural engineer. Nor is it their job to pick a home to pieces, writing up every loose doorknob.”
To help the buyer interpret an overachieving home inspector’s long-winded report, Nickel goes to her client with a pre-emptive strike. “I tell the buyers up-front that they’ve selected a world-class inspector—but also a world-class nitpicker. I explain that there’s no such thing as a perfect house, so it’s their job to take that inspection and determine what’s substantive and what’s just stuff.”
Nickel finds this discussion a valuable part of up front buyer counseling to help prevent problems that might derail a transaction.
Whether looking at a small annoyance or a downright unlawful act, the workarounds share a common equation: step back, stay calm, assess the situation and then respectfully address it with the client’s goals uppermost on the list.
Want more tips like this? Register for the Sell-a-bration® 2018 pre-conference course “Transforming Difficult Situations into Profitable Deals” at CRS.com/sell-a-bration.
