As a real estate professional, you need to know the real estate market place and any current trends inside out. In a way, apart from your experience and qualifications, you have to take an intuitive approach when dealing with customers as everyone has their own agenda and criteria to fill.
With the house market being so unstable, buyers are able to take advantage of the market slump by seeking out genuine bargains and you need to be in prime position to help them make sense of the available properties in order to establish whether it fits their needs.
There may be times when you have wondered if you have to be a mind reader to be able to close that deal. A buyer may start out by saying that they are looking for an investment property but after showing them many available houses that fit the bill, you suddenly realise that they are really looking for a house for themselves and may consider renting out their current property in time.
For the seller, the inevitable rise and fall of the housing market invariably seems to happen to others as for many sellers, securing the right price for their needs is vital and they don’t want to let it go lower than expected. If you are representing the seller, it’s a fine line to help them understand their position within the market and that just because they could have received thousands more a few years ago, that just won’t happen now.
A buyer is looking for a good deal but that might not just be about the financial aspects. Employment is closely linked to property prices and growth in employment in the area will help the house prices increase too, similarly, in times of recessions when employment is greatly reduced in an area, house prices will slump too. A buyer needs to know that they can rent the property out if they are buying simply for investme
nt purposes and your in-depth knowledge of the local area will make a big difference to any offer that they might make. Buyers are in a good place financially currently as there are few multiple offers being made to sellers the moment that ‘for sale’ sign goes up. A smart buyer will have made sure that they have done their homework, but many buyers are not equipped to read the signs and you have to be available to guide them through the process.
If you’re involved with the seller, then you need to find out about their situation and ultimately, their motivation for selling up. In later years, financial hardship can often be the cause but it could be due to a divorce, retirement, a job in a new area of course. Having this type of information will help you to help them as although it’s their decision whether to accept any offers, you will know what advice to give them.
Some sellers will have spent a long time doing up their house in readiness for a move expecting their home improvements to have made a big difference to the value of their property and whilst this is not always the case, it’s down to you-the real estate agent to help them understand the market place that they are in and what they realistically could expect from any buyers. It can be a hard call if you are representing both parties and so stating the facts and being honest are the best policies from the word go.
Keeping your eye on the real estate game and projected market changes is one of the most important things you can do. Buyers may be nervous at parting with a large amount of cash whether for an investment or not and sellers might be reluctant to sell and to lose so much of their equity. Whilst you are never going to try and get them to hold off buying or selling at that time, at least with a bit of market knowledge you can advise them of the situation accordingly. Don’t forget that your clients only have the information that they can glean from the media and this can be very misleading, your experience is invaluable to them so help your clients to buy simply by being the trusted expert in the field.