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sylviatexas1

About Those Consultants...

sylviatexas1
9 years ago

didn't want to hijack the other thread, but the comment about unlicensed experts being part of the reason that states require real estate practitioners to take classes & pass tests & be licensed reminded me of a couple of examples.

I once listed a house for a couple who had been getting advice from members of their church.

I listed the house, told them what I estimated the final sales price to be, said that we couldn't do a true net sheet until we saw what a buyer offered, did a couple of tentative net sheets, including some on which I had included a certain amount for concessions such as 'seller paid buyer closing'.

They got all upset at that, said that no one had paid *their* closing costs when they bought this house...direct from the owner (!).

Also, the people who had been giving them advice had warned them about sleazy Realtors selling out their clients to get that commission & greedy buyers trying to get something for nothing.

I went over possibilities, exhaustively, with these sellers.

What happens when X, Y, or Z?

doesn't matter.

When you're the seller, what matters is the bottom line.

If someone offers you $100,000 or if someone offers you $106,000 & asks you to pay $6,000 toward their closing, *it's the same thing*.

They understood.

but they didn't sign something that said that they understood.

We knew the house would sell, so we went *everywhere* looking at houses to buy.

I must have spent $100 on gasoline & who knows what in terms of time & aspirin.
We got a good offer, *went over the net sheet*, countered it a little bit, & got an executed contract, .

That was maybe Friday.

On Monday, they were enraged.

They were indignant, they were insulted;
they accused me of cheating them, lying to them, misrepresenting the contract...
because the people they'd talked to on Sunday were *shocked*, *shocked* I tell you, that these poor innocent naive sellers were having to pay an outrageous amount toward buyer closing.

I couldn't get a word in edgewise on the phone, suggested that I come to their house & we go back over the documents.

no dice.

I did see the husband in the front yard that evening, so I stopped.

My sign had been removed, & I asked him where he had put it so I could take it back to the office.

Seller looks over/past me, won't make eye contact, says...
"Oh? the sign? I don't know where it is. I came home & it was gone, so I figured you took it."

Needless to say, I didn't get to write their purchase contract.

These sellers believed their friends knew more than their professional representative.

Had they engaged their friends as 'consultants', no offer would have been acceptable;
they never would have sold that house.

(If this were to happen today, as soon as I knew that some personal friend/relative/mentor was giving them advice, I'd have them sign a statement that they understood & agreed that the net proceeds were what mattered; I'd have them sign every tentative net sheet.)

Another instance was much worse, not for me but for the seller.

She was a widow who still owned her first home, a small brick bungalow with foundation problems.

The tenants had moved out, & she'd had it cleaned, painted, etc & decided to sell it.

She was getting somewhat fragile & wanted to get out from under the stress of having a rental property.

She relied heavily on her daughter on a day-to-day basis & her "best friend" (a builder's wife who was famous in the area for sabotaging real estate transactions in which she & her husband were not making money) for real estate advice.

This builder's wife told the seller that the house should sell for something like $160,000.

Maybe it would have sold for that amount 20 years before, when the market was hot & the smoky mirrors were fashionable & the foundation hadn't cracked.

The market price was something around $120,000.

Seller & I agreed to start at $160,000;
if the house didn't sell, seller was to reduce it to $130,000 after 2 months.
didn't get that in writing either...

I worked with that dear woman for 6 months.

Every time I reminded her that we had discussed lowering the price, she would have to ask her friend & get back to me.

She finally said that she had decided to take it off the market & rent it out again.
Her best friend had agreed to manage it for her for a small fee.

I'd just almost bet that the friend ended up owning that house.

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