Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
A poster with any intellectual integrity would just post a better poll, rather than flick boogers from the cheap seats and the comfort of anonymity.
Yes, that would have been an option but I didn't think it would serve the community well to have two surveys running on the same topic. And it's your survey so it would have been very disrespectful to you to cut across you and put out a competing survey. I thought perhaps you would welcome feedback and clearly I was wrong.
In hindsight, I was probably too direct and I should work on being more diplomatic.
Once we went to see a house and not only the owners were present but lady of the house decided to use the master bathroom right before we arrived and she did not lock the door! We were not told she was there. Needless to say it made for a very embarassing moment for both parties when we accidentally walked in on her.
Another time, the owners walked in right as we were leaving, so we had to say hello etc. Judging by their faces, they were very eager to sell but we did not really like the house and it was very uncomfortable. Like haha, we'll keep in touch (not).
The only occasion when the owner was helpful was when we simply were walking around the listed property checking out the location and the seller himself happened to be there, so he offered us a tour. He explained why he made some changes in the house, about neighbors, etc. We did not buy a house (for an unrelated reason) but I thought it was nice of him. He did not share any personal stories, so it wasn't very different than walking with an agent.
But overall on the first showing it's a very bad idea for the seller to be there IMHO.
When you're selling FSBO, you have no choice but to be there. And most buyers weren't shy about making comments or asking questions. I didn't take any of the comments personally at all. It's just business. And I disclosed EVERYTHING that I knew about the property.
However, if the potential buyer is coming with a realtor, I believe in staying out of the way. Fortunately, in the one case, the realtor came by before showing the buyer and got her own tour and disclosures from me. It worked out very well.
After 5 or 6 showings of my condo in TX, for which I would always go down to the lobby, a buyer walked in without my realtor (no buyer's realtor) who was late. So I took the buyer up to my condo, let them in, said I'd be down in the lobby and after 20 minutes they came down. Thanked me profusely, asked a few questions, I showed them the common areas and they ended up buying it.
I think my own honesty and attitude was reassuring to them and added that bit of impetus for them to select my condo over the others available. They told me this in their own words, in an email.
Maybe it was risky, but I had nothing worthwhile to steal! That much privacy, without even an agent, might have sealed the deal. Who knows....
P.S. Mike Jaquish is nothing but helpful on this forum. Thanks, Mike.
I mean, if the sellers want to be there, that's their prerogative, but it certainly doesn't help them any. I hope they are at least coached to be able to read people and let them look at their leisure. Only when and IF I have questions will I then approach. They may not like some of my questions.
Also, there's a fine line in knowing what we're up against in terms of bidding. Of course everything has 2-3 bids...always....even after sitting on the market for 2 months....but a little push and pull helps get an actual deal done.
Besides, when I go to sell my house, I'm going to see something that's pristine, elegant and beautiful in everywhere. That kitchen remodel from 1999 is just as good as the day I did it, and with fine commercial grade appliances have certainly no depreciated in any way. You'll love my fruit trees. My color pallet is impeccable.
A buyer, because they are a cheap and horrible person that has no tasted may see flaws in my 90's marbled color scheme, they may see the beautiful built in Jacuzzi as...something used and hard to replace, they may not like my colors and they may not want to pick fruit or any other incessant flaws in their boorish upbringing.
And somewhere in between the two, aligning with something banks can also sign off on, is the real estate agent.
I'll keep my bubble. My agent can break the news to me softly.
Y'all can opine about not allowing the owners to be home until the cows come home. I'm the owner and I'm not vacating my own premises just because you think home owners are boogeymen.
That said, I'm also not going to be following them around snooping. I'm just not that interested. If I'm home I have something else entirely to occupy me and you as a potential buyer are a speed bump in the road that must be tolerated until passed by. LOL!
So what does this have to do with sellers being present at showings? Well maybe not much directly, however, the old attitudes of wanting to orchestrate and polish information flow to the buyer is solely out of touch and not aligned with the expectation of today's consumer. These attitudes will clash with buyers who every day are getting higher expectations for information access and 'gatekeepers' are increasingly viewed with distrust.
Where the problems come in, is that the buyers have a lot of questions and information they want from their agent, and too many sellers will not let them work on the questions they want answered, but keep trying to sell the home in ways that disrupt the buyer getting the information they want. The sellers getting involved cannot just let the normal progression of viewing a home, and are often pitching things that turn off the buyers instead of helping things.
The seller being there, will lose more sales, than it helps make happen.
Example of a common problem. The agent knows what the negative factors about a home that the buyer will be uncomfortable with. The agent knows how to show that these negative factors can be corrected, if the things that the buyer really wants are put into perspective. The buyer may be in love with what the buyer thinks is negative factor and keeps pushing it in the buyers face thinking it is a positive factor and will turn the buyer clear off of the home that they would buy if the owner would just keep out of it.
Where the problems come in, is that the buyers have a lot of questions and information they want from their agent, and too many sellers will not let them work on the questions they want answered, but keep trying to sell the home in ways that disrupt the buyer getting the information they want. The sellers getting involved cannot just let the normal progression of viewing a home, and are often pitching things that turn off the buyers instead of helping things.
The seller being there, will lose more sales, than it helps make happen.
Example of a common problem. The agent knows what the negative factors about a home that the buyer will be uncomfortable with. The agent knows how to show that these negative factors can be corrected, if the things that the buyer really wants are put into perspective. The buyer may be in love with what the buyer thinks is negative factor and keeps pushing it in the buyers face thinking it is a positive factor and will turn the buyer clear off of the home that they would buy if the owner would just keep out of it.
I still think you are looking at this from the seller's agent and sellers perspective.
From a buyer's perspective, this is part of the selection process. And a better selection process is better for the buyer. As a buyer, I'm not concerned if more sales are lost. You might argue that I don't know anything and that if I have 'too much info' i am walking away from good houses that really do meet my needs. Or that part of that 'too much info' will be confusing to me and I'm unable to make a distinction when a seller raves about something that I hate.
We've all read reviews from people that we cannot relate to and most people are smart enough to see that. That's why reviewers (both professional and just regular consumers) get followers. You listen to the people you trust. If the internet has done anything, it has taught people to weed out noise and draw their own conclusions and opinions from a large amount of info and different perspectives.
For example, I don't like the type of vacation where you stay in the resort all or most of the time and eat all of your meals there, etc. Typically you'll see loads of reviews from people where this is a positive - e.g. "you don't even have to leave the resort. everything is right there". Yes, I do get a concerned twinge when I read that but I can move on and look at other perspectives from people like me. Most people are smart enough to be able to do that. We filter out the noise.
So when the seller tells me how much they love their swimming pool and for me a swimming pool is a negative, I can deal with that just fine.
Or if the seller tells me how the neighborhood is so close nit with block parties 4 times a year and everyone is best friends, if I'm more of a private person, yes, this might (rightfully) cause me alarm. The agent knows that I'm a more private person and might be there saying "shut up, just shut up" in her head but I don't want the seller to shut up. I'm smart enough to know that the seller is a different kind of person than me but I want to hear her perspective. And later when the agent starts to explain to me "there are all kinds of people in this neighborhood and you can get as friendly or be as private as you wish" , that is of absolutely no help to me. I might want to walk around and meet a neighbor who I see outside and get their perspective. They might be more private like me and say that they love the neighborhood with no inkling of problem being more private in that setting. So that's reassuring. Or I might continue to be concerned as I learn more and want to walk away because the neighborhood is a bad fit for me. Either way, i'm better of as a buyer to have explored that issue.
You know their names from the closing documents. Send a letter addressed to them at your address with the words "please forward" on the front of the envelope. Include your phone number.
Thanks. It's a small town, so it's actually easy to find them in a lot of different ways. I see them on Facebook all the time. (Although after the closing they went off on an extended trip to Italy, so haven't heard from them lately). I guess I just want to give them a nice long period without hearing from me. During closing a seller can get so sick of hearing from buyers.
Maybe I'll send them a friendly note in a month or two if we still haven't figured it out. Thanks for the suggestion, though.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
