Scene 1. You’ve found the perfect home! You stand in the living room with your agent and chat about your love of the home and how you cannot live without it. You begin discussing offer strategy before heading immediately to the closest restaurant or Brokerage to write an offer.
Scene 2. You’ve found the perfect home! Except for the kitchen, which you have deemed a deal breaker. You talk with your agent about how much it is going to cost to renovate while expressing your opinion about how the previous update was done. Still, you want to prepare a LOW offer, as everything else is exactly what you need.
Scene 3. You’re viewing a “terrible” home. You question your agent’s reasoning for bringing you here. Your agent expresses your primary needs, budget, location and how much potential the home has. You are not interested and you leave. After several days of looking at other options, you decide the “terrible” home, actually might be the one.
Scene 4. You’ve found the perfect home! The location, features and price are exactly what you need. As you make one final walk through the home, one of you makes a simple comment about lifestyle, décor etc. You leave with your agent excited about writing an offer and potentially buying your dream home.
All of the above situations seem normal and harmless. Yet, each of them are a potential concern. A lot of homes have security systems. You notice the sign in the yard or sticker in the window and don’t give it much thought. The majority of homes have the less obvious and far more effective systems or devices (computers, laptops, Smart TV’s/refrigerators and nanny cams), all of which can be accessed via the internet. If it is video only, you may be ok, as the viewer can only observe body language. However, the bulk of these devices have mics… The viewer can not only see you, they can hear you.
Have you given away your perfect home by inadvertently damaging the deal? Did you give the Seller the upper hand in revealing too much about your finances, timeline or situation? Did you offend or insult the Seller with comments that may cause an emotional reaction? Are they now going to be less likely to negotiate or be overly aggressive in their negotiations? It’s possible. Can you risk it?
Buying and selling real estate is a business transaction, but there are real people with real feelings involved. Agents and Buyers should err on the side of caution. View the homes as if the Seller is standing right next to you. Be respectful of their home and belongings, while keeping reactions to a minimum. Then, you can discuss the good, the bad and the ugly in the privacy of the car, the Brokerage etc. Doing so, might make the difference between it being your dream home or someone else’s.
Sean Martin
208-283-8691
smartin@atova.com