The Biggest Mistake an Agent Can Make When Showing a Home and How to Avoid It
One of the biggest mistakes an agent can make is spending too much time talking and not enough time letting the buyers get a feel for the home.
What if you had a potential client call, interested in hiring you to sell her current home, then help her buy her next one? You would want to make a great impression-right? So, how do you do that without coming across as desperate, or worse, ”salesy”, when you show her a home in a price bracket far above what you normally show?
The Mistake
Eager real estate agents can be, well, eager. If you are like many eager agents out there, you may start to chatter non-stop, perhaps believing that you need to fill the silence with every ounce of your knowledge to show your value and impress the client. Perhaps talking is a nervous habit. Perhaps you love this property and are excited to share all the neat perks about this house, so the client loves it as much as you do.
We get it. We’ve been there. However, this talking can be distracting for the homeowner. It may even become a detriment to their making an offer because they don’t get the chance to connect with the home emotionally.
Related reading: Real Estate Magazine – The 5 Biggest Mistakes New Agents Make
Set Yourself Up For a Successful Showing
Communicating with your homeowner to set expectations before you even go into the house can save on a lot of miscommunications, and it lets them prepare themselves for seeing the home.
“Now, Mr. and Mrs. Hunna Hunna, let me share how I work with my buyers. I don’t like to distract you from connecting with this home. See, when you buy a house, it has a feeling. When you walk into this house, you will know if it talks to your heart. You will be able to see yourself making memories with your family and friends. It will FEEL like home. What we are looking for today is that feeling, so I don’t want to distract you by pointing out where the kitchen is or the bathrooms or talk about the remodeled recreation room. I’m going to be silent in the background to give you the chance to experience the house without me in the way. However, when you have a question about the house, whether or not something is staying or going, or how something works, I’m right there for you. If this house doesn’t speak to your heart, it won’t matter if the drapes stay or if the hardwood flooring was recently installed. If you don’t like it, you don’t like it.”
Related Reading: The 3 Phases of Buyer Readiness and What It Means For You
Real Estate Is Like Artwork
I got a piece of artwork from my wife for my birthday, and it’s several strips of color put together line by line, and it’s actually based on a movie. Now, for those who don’t know, movies have a color palette that they use throughout the film, and each scene has its own color to determine lighting, set, costuming, etc. The art piece I got was for The Godfather because it’s my favorite movie, and I think this color palette art is incredible!
After my birthday, I was trying to explain to a friend how the strips of color put together were like the whole Godfather movie, scene by scene, using only the color palettes. Still, he wasn’t quite understanding, so he wasn’t crazy about this piece of art because he couldn’t fully appreciate what it represented. That’s the nature of art, though. Some pieces will resonate with you for whatever reason, and others won’t. It doesn’t make it bad art; it just didn’t speak to his heart the way it spoke to mine.
Related reading: The 2 Keys to Working With Buyers
What Home Buyers Really Need
Real estate is like that too. Some people will love a house, and some people won’t. Just like you can’t explain art, you can’t explain how a house speaks to you. When you go to a property, homeowners need time and space to let the house speak to them. When you give them that time and space, they will thank you for not being pushy, and then it will be much easier to gauge the level of interest in the property once they start asking questions.
Related reading: The Handmade Home – Tips for Viewing and Buying a Home: The Feel Test
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