Buyers Look For The Negatives In A Property

Did you ever notice how buyers look for the negatives in a property?

They look for a reason to rule out, to narrow their search. In the current market, there are so many homes available that I find that sellers aren't the only ones losing out.

Easily changed features of a home or even a very minor repair on a desirable listing that otherwise meets ALL of the buyers criteria can be the “Kiss of Death.”  I call it the "Mona Lisa's eyebrows effect." Check it out.  She doesn't have any.

Once distracted by a property's minor flaw or trivial issue, the prospective buyer "goes squirrelly" and loses the BIG picture like the kid in this YouTube video.



Thus distracted, it's walk out time, with the buyer thinking, "It may be a Mona Lisa, but why should I hang around a house with no eyebrows, when there are soooo many homes on the market and there must be something better out there than this."

Here are just a few minor items that have placed seeds of doubt in some of my clients minds.

• Cigarette smoke smell or animal smell at the front door.

• Any kind of minor damage around the entrance.(cracked or missing grout in tile, loose weather stripping, bad paint on door or trim)

• Dirty carpet (YUCK) This is the one that the new home sales people love to sell against! Who wants someone else’s nail clippings in their carpet?

• A toilet that runs or sticks when flushing. This opens a whole plethora of questions from the client. "OMG! What other plumbing issues are there? Do they have septic problems? "(Whether or not it's on septic)

• Dated wallpaper/paint. Client: "YUCK! What were they thinking?" Me: "Actually, this was a nice selection in 1989."

• Clutter (just too much of anything) Actually, this is my complaint, the clients don’t usually say anything, or sometimes they say, “Man, they have a lot of stuff,” which translates into, “This place is so cluttered and full of cha chas that I can’t see the house.”   This is when they get real squirrelly and start looking at your collections of vintage tongue depressors, and seriously, why didn’t you lock that valuable stuff up anyway instead of distracting the buyers?

Anyway, these are just a few, I have more and I am sure that you have plenty that you could share. Unfortunately, not all sellers have gotten the memo: The best priced house, in the best condition, in the best location THAT WINS THE BEAUTY contest will sell first. The point is that these relatively inexpensive fixes cause the buyers to lose focus, get distracted (my favorite term is to "go squirrelly") and move on to the next best thing.

In the current market, when a home fits all the major needs of a buyer, we should be able to help them see the BIG picture, how to address the concerns and negotiate those minor distractions into financial savings. . . . . unless there's something better down the street. Hey there's a squirrel!