Sellers out of town - can't review offer at this time

[CGab]

Any word from your agent OP??

[Blue Skies]

I represent many elderly sellers in my community. I would say that 50% of my clients over the age of 75 do not have cell phones, computers, or email. When they are leaving town to visit children or grandchildren I always ask that they leave me their contact information . (Murphy's Law of Real Estate - when the seller leaves town and does not tell the agent where they are, there will be 4 offers in 48 hours, and one will be over asking price)

[oldtrader]

Consider that there is a lot of the nation, where Cell Phones are out of service, especially in the west, and in many vacation areas. People go there to camp, or take their RV, own or rent a cabin, and are out of contact for a few days. In the cities, they have cell phones, fax services and Internet. In some areas of the country these services are simply not available. Out where towns are 50 or 100 miles apart, without enough residents to supply those services.

Some people go sailing on vacations, and they are out of service for cell phones, and other services and simply are not reachable. One reason they go sailing, is to get away from the modern world and the pressure of instant communication.

From 1972 I was an investment real estate broker, handling clients more or less as a stock broker does, buying, selling, and exchanging for their account. I had numerous clients, that regular communication did not work. Example back under the Shaw Libya had a number of Americans that ran the oil business there. They could not talk business of any kind over the phones system. One of my clients was the engineer that oversaw the electrical system for oil fields for an American Company. He made money most of us never dream of making. He and his wife lived there, and their children had gone to school in Switzerland, and lived in the U.S. as they were grown. To get him a message, he called his kids on Sundays. They would tell him to call me. He would take the company shuttle plane to London to call me on Monday. He would make a decision for me to carry out. Example one was a multi-million dollar exchange. To close, I drove them to his permanent home where his daughter lived and she drove them 50 miles to an airport in a snow storm to meet a sister who with her husband was going to Turkey to meet her parents for Thanksgiving. They were signed with the American Ambassador witnessing the papers, and came back to me the same route. He never saw the property for almost a year that he had acquired and was very pleased.

When I turned the papers in to the closer at the Title Company, she refused them as they were not witnessed by a notary. I called over the branch manager, and she quickly told the closer that the witness being an American Ambassador to a major country was better than a notary, which I already knew, as I had done similar things with both this investor, and others in Libya, Malaysia, etc.

Some families turn off their cell phones while on vacation. Otherwise their employers will call them, etc., and they do not want their vacation destroyed by having to work long distance if something comes up. Time away from home, and jobs is too precious.

A lot of elderly people do not have cell phones as they cannot fit them into their limited budget. My wife and I are 85 and 87. We not only have cell phones, but ones with the emergency button so if we run into problems of an kind including life threatening problems, we push one button on our phone and we are in instant communication to get us the help needed. You have probably heard that these services are there and every elderly person should have this type of service. Phones have GPS so the person helping us can spot exactly where we are so they can get us help. Have never pushed these buttons, but if the time happens where we need them we have the button to call for help.

When people are away on vacation etc., they often cannot be reached either because of where they are or by design. I know from years of experience, this problem can be worked around and few real estate deals will be lost due to contact with the owners being impossible to accomplish. An oil engineer in the middle of Malaysian jungles doing exploratory tests for a couple of weeks cannot be reached, but when they came out I would do business with them.

I know a lot of you do not understand not being able to instantly reach a seller, and to use modern methods of getting them a contract, but there are many people every day around the country that cannot be reached. There are times you have to be patient, and wait for them to surface, and have the ability to receive and send contracts. I have had this problem many times over the years, and every time we were able to hold things together and bring the contracts to close.

[Ultrarunner]

^^^Another Great Post to show a variety of scenarios...

[Hal Roach]

My own observations show that the average IPhone user has a negative net worth, while most millionaires don't own a smartphone, and many with ten million+ have no mobile phone at all. But, yes, give the offer a short expiration and it will work for you and very rarely against you.