One of the hardest jobs an agent has is getting the buyer to make an appointment to look at houses. It can takes days even weeks of phone calls and emails to get a buyer to finally agree to free up time from their ongoing lives to actually come up and spend a morning or afternoon or sometimes an evening to look at houses. This is especially true early in the process when they are still discovering what they want. When you finally make that connection and set a date and time you can barely contain your excitement to show them houses that will get then engaged in the process and make them want to actually buy a house. You get the okay and spend the rest of the day looking for houses to show them that will wet their appetites. You make that phone call and…and…
…the seller asks if they can make the appointment for the next day instead, or maybe that afternoon instead of that morning or how about next week like it didn’t just take three weeks to get them to agree to come up Saturday morning because their kids soccer game was cancelled and they can finally make the trip up from the Bronx.
And often what is the seller’s excuse (other than medical)…the house is too messy, or they have company, or they’re going to be out anyway and they would prefer not to have to leave twice. Whatever the reason they have no idea how hard it was to get the buyer to come up at that time. Contrary to popular opinion we are at the mercy of the buyer and not the other way around.
And what is the seller’s main job…show your house. If we don’t get buyers in no matter how well priced or how pretty or wonderful the kitchen is you will not sell your house. It is an inconvenience to sell your house, embrace it. Your selling agent did their job by getting someone to want to make an appointment to see it. Your job is to show your house. It is not magic it is numbers – the more buyers who see come into your house the better chance you have of getting it SOLD.
