Property Point

One of the most dangerous things you can do in life, and as a real estate agent, is to make assumptions.

To assume is to make an ass out of u and me. Assume nothing. You learn the lesson quickly in real estate.

You learn it, for example, when there is a husband and wife looking at a property and the bloke asks all the questions, makes all the comments.

You could be tempted to think you’ve got it all worked out by the way he presents himself. The alpha male who runs the show. Yep, he’s in charge.

There’s the little lady hiding in the shadows, barely making eye contact, offering no comments, asking no questions. Occasionally a slight smile but that’s about it.

The husband, boss-man, likes the property. His bar would go in the second living area, a great place to watch the footy.

Plenty of room in the yard for the shed he’s going to need for the new boat he’ll be buying pretty soon.
The big sporting club is just around the corner so it’ll be great catching up with mates for a beer there.

“Oh, and look at the kitchen, love. You’ll be happy with that. Heaps of cupboards and a gas stove.”

He says he’s going to “do the numbers” and “have a quick chat to the missus” and get back to me later that day. Late in the day and he hasn’t called, so you call him.

He answers but something has changed. It’s in his voice. He is no longer Master of the Universe but something meeker, less confident.

He says: “Yeah, sorry mate. We won’t be going ahead with this one. The missus didn’t like it. She said the neighbours look like they are messy hoarders and there were some things she didn’t like about the house.”

The decision-maker was the quiet, mild little person you hardly spoke to because Big Noter did all the talking, asked all the questions and dominated the inspection.

Imagine if you had stepped away from the Master of the Universe for a few minutes and had a chat to his wife about how she felt about the property.

You might have found out she didn’t like the neighbours and you could point out that they were tenants who had given notice to leave and will be gone in a month and then the owners will be putting the house on the market, so you’ll have new neighbours.

You might have been able to point out that you had a quote for $5000 to replace the worn carpet she didn’t like and the seller was happy to factor that into the price. You might have been able to address other concerns she had.

Imagine if you assumed nothing about buyers and acted accordingly. Lesson learned.

I was recently reminded of the “assume nothing” principle of selling real estate when a colleague of mine was conducting a busy open house.

Among the people who turned up were two men, one older, the other quite a bit  younger. Anyway, they spent a fair bit of time looking at the house and my colleague got talking to the younger man, who liked the property a lot.

Things were looking pretty good so my colleague asked: “What does your dad think?”

Young bloke: “He’s my partner.”

You can recover from some incorrect assumptions, such as assuming that someone would need finance when making an offer on a property, or assuming someone spelled Brian with an ‘i’ not Bryan with a ‘y’.”

But there is no recovering from some incorrect assumptions. All they do is teach a lesson and provide an excellent source of laughter for your colleagues and friends.

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