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2 Words to Help Realtors Avoid a “Bad Romance”
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2 Ways to Overcome Nightmare Real Estate Transactions
I read this agent comment the other day…
I am in shock and my heart is broken. I was supposed to close on Friday with a client that I had been dealing with for 6 months now. We started by improving her credit, finally getting her approved, finding her a home that fit her lifestyle and budget perfectly. The loan officer stated that the process was so easy and clean. Appraisal perfect- buying a home with equity. Inspection- no serious repairs needed. She was even eligible for down payment assistance, bringing her to the table with no money. Seems all too good to be true. Well she quit…….. Quit her job and then stated that she didn’t think it would be a big deal. Everyone told her everything was good with her loan. She has another job, but we are one day from closing and this happened. I can’t believe it!!!! How does one recover?
My apologies if this sounds gory, but a bad experience in a real estate transaction can be like a baseball bat to the knees. In order to be successful, you’ve got to be able to withstand the pain and figure out ways to fortify your legs so that you don’t fall down every time the bat hits. (Brutal, I know. But, I did warn you.)
Instead of crying over spilt milk, the best thing to do is to use the time you would have spent crying to figure out how you will generate more leads and create a bigger pipeline. In this way, your next nightmare real estate transaction will only seem like a bad dream.
My apologies if this sounds gory, but a bad experience in a real estate transaction can be like a baseball bat to the knees. In order to be successful, you’ve got to be able to withstand the pain and figure out ways to fortify your legs so that you don’t fall down every time the bat hits. (Brutal, I know. But, I did warn you.)
There are two really simple ways to avoid nightmare real estate transactions, and those ways have a lot to do with how you structure your own business.
- Build a pipeline. If you have a pipeline of leads and a plan for working with them, then you won’t be so devastated when your next deal falls through. Deals often cancel, and it is extremely disappointing when it happens. But, if you have ten deals in escrow and one falls out, you’ve only lost 10% of your business. However, if you have only one deal in escrow and it cancels, then you have lost 100% of your business. As we come to the beginning of the final quarter of 2014, consider how you will build a big pipeline for 2015, so that your heart won’t be broken when one of your buyers quits a job at the eleventh hour.
- Set expectations accordingly. If I had to take a guess, I would say that at least 35% of deals become nightmare-ish because the agent or the lender has not set expectations accordingly. Namely, the agent may not have accurately described what to expect and how the buying process works. The lender may not have given the speech about not making any big purchases on credit, lending money to relatives, or co-signing on other loans during the home purchase process. If both the agent and the lender take the time to set buyer and/or seller expectations, then lots more deals would make it to the closing table.
Instead of crying over spilt milk, the best thing to do is to use the time you would have spent crying to figure out how you will generate more leads and create a bigger pipeline. In this way, your next nightmare real estate transaction will only seem like a bad dream.
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