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This house was going to be on the list of Jim’s best buys around town. This 1,300sf house in Oceanside has a 10,000sf lot on a cul-de-sac, and is listed on the range $439,000-$475,000.

It would make for a great buy around $375,000. 

The owners paid $51,500 for it in 1981, and have no loan.  They are going off to the retirement home on Nov. 1st, and MUST SELL, or so they say. 

I called the listing agent to feel him out about a low offer in exchange for closing in two weeks.  He informs me that the sellers just cancelled the listing!

They had a $450,000 offer on the table that included a $10,000 credit for closing costs, which was acceptable.  But when the buyers loaded up a list of repairs, the sellers blew a gasket and cancelled everything.

They are going to get a new agent and RAISE their price!

Apparently the sellers aren’t ready to leave just yet.

It happens a lot like this – sellers get irrational about their sale. 

Their pre-conceived notions about price, and how this business works, are getting in the way.  It prevents them from seeing things logically, and taking advice from their agent.

It makes me think of the Five Stages of Seller Grief.

1.  Denial – Sellers calculate how much six percent is of the sales price, and wonder how to get around paying it. The do-it-yourselfers decide to FSBO, only to find out that in this market all you get is a lot of agents calling.

2.  Anger – Sellers get ticked off that selling isn’t going to be as easy as they thought.  They try the MLS-entry only package for $100, but are still mad that they have to pay a buyer’s agent commission of 2.5% or more.

3.  Bargaining - If that doesn’t work (still around 1% chance of success this year), the sellers succumb to full-service representation.  But they hire the agent based on their lower commission, instead of how good they are.

4.  Depression – Few, if any, showings, and no offers lead to seller depression.  Nothing is working, but "I’m not going to give it away!"

5.  Acceptance – Some (not all) sellers finally get to the point of acceptance – their price is wrong.  That’s the last thing they want to admit, and want to believe along the way that it’s all about getting a lower commission, a fancier marketing plan, a big-name company – whatever their pre-conceived ideas are about the business of selling real estate, rather than price.

My heart-felt advice to sellers:  Try your best to turn the process into a business transaction.  Agents have different levels of expertise.  Logically evaluate whether the skills of the agent you are interviewing are worth the fee.   (Watch my video on interviewing listing agents – under ‘Short videos for sellers’ in the right column)

The only education available to agents is at the School of Hard Knocks.  Hire an agent who has hundreds of closings under their belt – those are the agents that have learned what works and what doesn’t, and can get the price right.

Your agent can spend a million dollars on advertising, but if the price isn’t right, the house still won’t sell.