Time, How It Can Be Wasted And Kill A Real Estate Listing Sale.

 

You sure can. Mickey’s little and big hands turn faster too. As soon as the silent real estate salesman is speared in the front lawn of a house in hopes of finding a new home owner. It becomes a race with time.

 

We all know all too well time is money.

 

Delays are costly. When life is put on hold because lots of people are waiting on an event to happen.

 

 

Because people are involved and frustration builds when important life steps are stalled, left hanging in the air.

 

 

When there is lots of money at stake in the largest purchase or sale most of us ever make. The fees for bank credit checks, applications, appraisals, pro-ration of taxes, for insurance coverage and legal fees add up. Who wants to throw money into the wind and pull out when financially invested in the house of their dreams. The buyer has told his family and friends that there is going to be a new address on the upper left hand corner of the Christmas card sent out this year. The seller has put money down in good faith with another home owner and is legally obligated. The plot thickens with the drama if all does not go as planned. Nothing better be left to chance.

 

 

Buyers and sellers have a role as partners in the buy and sell process. A real estate professional hands them the script, shows each player their role. Or better otherwise it becomes a free for all that only increases in volume and damage as individuals take matters into their own hands and deviate from the tried and tested script. And tempers flare, talk of lawyering up and suing for compensation threats are circulated in heated phone calls, testy emails, blunt real estate texts.

 Easy does it. Calm heads and clear communication to set the expectations so everyone involved in the real estate listing sales process is kept up to speed. Involved totally in the process as the listing chugs along the conveyor belt to hopefully hop off soon at the sit down real estate closing. The one around the long conference room table where hand cramps from signing too many documents happen until the slide the check one way as the keys are pushed the opposite direction.

 

 

Make sure the listing is priced realistically to compete in today’s market.

 

Because no matter how much razzle dazzle marketing, how well staged the property is to be squeaky clean and available on a moment’s notice to show, the price is your friend or enemy. Lots of time wasters jump out at the buyer and seller and need corraling by a real estate professional.

 

Over priced properties don’t sell and the longer they linger on the market, like a patient on the operating table, the chances of survival decrease as the hour glass sands shift from top to bottom. Until times up, the show’s over. And the listing runs out, another broker is summoned to work his or her magic.

 

 

The seller who tells all his friends and loved ones, his agent or broker too that he is very negotiable, motivated to move his property. If the price is never lowered during the listing process when activity is lacking, no he is not. If he is keeping the price locked in too high, and waiting for one brave soul at a time to step forward to make an offer.

 

Buyers are folks that are busy as heck too. They see the properties that show up online in the filtered search in the price range bracket they dial in to slice, dice, gawk and consider is this the one worth looking into for a property to buy? They are pre-approved for a certain amount, have a list of what features they seek and to save time hang out in the section of the listing inventory that they can swing.

 

A listing parked too high up in the real estate bleachers is not in the show and sell game. It does not get exposure to the segment of the audience where it should be displayed online. Over priced listings are parked in the MLS property display section where they don’t belong. They waste everyone’s time.

 

 

Be polite, but like a doctor or lawyer giving advice that goes on deaf ears or that causes anger, walk away.

 

You can not help them and work instead on listings that do have a chance of selling. No more hemming, hawing and make the beat feat if the seller starts to holler about he’s not going to give it away.

 

Time in a real estate sale can get lost lots of other ways too. Bleeding out and having a seller say I am tired of waiting no matter what the logical excuses to explain why happens.

 

 

Real estate like love can be fickle. And outside forces like other agents peddling their listings, and calling, emailing can distract. The tone of a seller or buyer if they share their frustration to each other when the finger is pointing, attacking the other for the delay rather than staying focused on the problem at hand. It happens.

 

The real estate professional is a Dr. Phil, a Johnny on the spot little red hen to keep all parties abreast of developments. And sharing what he or she is doing to facilitate the process. So the buyer and seller don’t feel like they have a “secret agent” out of the loop and missing in action. Misery likes company and if the agent is not in the picture, the listing, the real estate sale wobble and goes seriously sideways.

 

 

If the processing center for the mortgage loan is in another solar system, uh oh. This real estate sale may die on the table unattended. Deadlines come and go, contracts are written with set dates to meet. Extensions can only happen so many times and not at all in real estate sales where “time is of the essence”.

 

Bank processors handling the appraisal assignments, the compliance regulations in lending that is always getting more complex have many mortgage loans to juggle. I find local lenders can be cattle prodded and just knowing what is the delay helps when the buyer and seller ask what is holding this up? I want to know, need to know because if it is one piece of paperwork the buyer thinks he completed but that lost in a worm hole between the point of scan and email and the receiving end, let’s generate another one stat. Because everything runs like a train schedule or suddenly nothing happens and days, weeks can fly by.

 

 

Not all appraisers do the A-Z of mortgage loans that are out there to pick from and Maine is a big state. Waiting, hanging around for a hired gun appraiser to make the expensive trip north to inspect and determine the value, the condition of the property takes time. It all robs time from the ticking clock that eventually runs out.

 

The renter in a property or the seller himself that just is a dawdler in moving can threaten whether a closing will happen or not. Banks don’t want the owner, a tenant in possession of the property the day of the closing for fear of inheriting a renter that will need legal papers served and court houses steps involved to make them move. Evictions takes time, money and damage happens when a hostile tenant is less than loving in the make me move out process. The unhappy tenant takes it out on the property as they cling to stay in the house.

 

Repairs that the bank appraiser wants done to the home before signing off to allow the clear to close instructions to circulate take time. Who is going to fix the peeling paint on the eaves? Replace the broken railing caused from winter snow load coming off the steel roof a little too fast? If no one will, the deal dies unless the agent becomes Bob Vila and goes above and beyond.

 

 

Some not at all. Snail pace Perry Masons need more calls, office visits and cattle prodding emails. Out of town closing title companies can cause delay. All the set backs, the individuals that are a little slow here and there collectively impact the real estate sale big time. Title issues, old undischarged mortgage or tax liens need to removed from the title before the real estate closing. How fast everyone moves affects the closing date or if there is going to be one. Old right of way easements that were not known up front are damaging when they come out late in the game or even worse at the sit down formal real estate closing.

 

Listing paperwork or purchase and contracts that are slow to find there way back to the real estate agency cause a strain. They add to the time clock ticking and chopping at the bit to get out of the gate. The age of the real estate agent and their health can hurt the speed in the property listing and sales process. The health of the buyer and seller, getting a pink slip and loosing a job, getting served divorce paperwork or finding themselves in a civil law suit can add extra obstacles to work around. That could impact the real estate sale severely.

 

 

There are lots of legitimate delays built into the real estate listing access and property sale variables. Weather that is extreme interferes with the real estate process. If the appraiser is snowed in, the buyer cancels the trip north because of fear developed watching the weather channel. Or holidays slow the paperwork shuffle to a crawl.

 

 

What is a fixture in a real estate sale? The stripping of a property does not make a buyer happy. Neighbors claiming the property line is somewhere beyond where the lawn mowing pattern shows it has been done. Large ugly dogs at the property or next door don’t help the real estate sales process either. Fear of getting bit or listening to Rover bark none stop makes the buyer say “Next” and move on to other property listings without the dog kennel.

 

Unreasonable contingencies of the real estate listing could be refusal to move until next year, and wanting to retain possession for no rental fee charged after the closing. Waiting for another property sale to happen before moving forward to buy the next home is another deal killer and time sucker. If the other home does not sell, the dominoes don’t fall in a line.

 

It is like two or more hooked together series of real estate sales to herd like cats. It makes too many individual real estate clocks ticking differently to try and coordinate so every one move in harmony. It can work out fine but makes the real estate agent or broker have to juggle extra balls that can easily drop if too many to handle.