Who ever thought that there are questions that can be asked of you when selling your home that can mean the kiss of death. More specifically, when you answer a question or a series of questions they result in a price reduction. The last thing you want when you list your home for sale is to immediately put money on the table with a price reduction. Who would want to do that? You’d be surprised in just how easy it is to get to that point and it’s normally done when you’ve been tripped up. Here I’m going to discuss how to avoid a series of these kiss of death questions and when they’re likely to come up.

During home showings is breeding season for kiss of death questions! Sometimes you’ll find home Sellers that like to be present during home showings for a number of reasons. First of all, they want to tell the prospective Buyers all about how wonderful their home is so nothing gets overlooked; they want the Buyer to know everything! Often they want to keep an eye on the strangers coming through their home or perhaps they just don’t feel like leaving.

Believe me when I say it’s imperative that Sellers not be present for home showings. During home showings is when Sellers are ripe for the picking. Yes, Buyers and their Real Estate Agents see Sellers as low lying fruit ready to snatch from you all the pertinent details about your home, hoping those details provide some clue for the Buyers to be able to pay less for your home.

They’ll want to ask you why you’re moving. You could be desperate to sell your home because you just bought another home and you don’t want to have to pay two mortgages or you could be moving due to a sick family member who isn’t getting any better and you can’t get by their side quick enough or how about that new job that you just accepted and they want you to start at the end of month. These are just a few of the reasons that could let a Buyer know you’re in a hurry and they could conclude that because you’re in a hurry, you’ll be more flexible with your home’s selling price and will readily take a price reduction. You very well may be in a hurry, but why does the Buyer need to know? They don’t. Keep it between you and your Realtor. Get out of the house when a showing is scheduled. Simple to do, just go. Ciao. Goodbye. Adios. Au revoir.

Want to sell you house in Alpharetta?

I sometimes think that Buyers secretly want to come back to your home to ask you those kiss of death questions. As a home Seller, you might also experience, right after the Real Estate purchase contract has been signed, that the new, excited Buyers want to bring their other family members by your home to show them and they may also want to get started in completing some measurements of areas within your home for them to be able to plan how their furniture is going to fit or for any changes that they plan on making to your home.

If you weren’t present when they initially viewed your home and they weren’t able to ask you about the neighbors, this will be the perfect time for them to ask you about the neighbors. Your idea of a good neighbor may be entirely different than their idea of a good neighbor. That one neighbor of yours that’s a Gladys Kravitz type never really bothered you too much, as you welcomed the company when she seemed to show up a lot on your doorstep. However, the new Buyers are very private people and they tend to keep to themselves and therefore, will likely not be too fond of someone always bouncing over to visit.

This is also a time they’d like to find out more about why you’re moving, as I discussed above, in case they didn’t run into you during the initial showing. They could use the knowledge they just gained from you to help in instituting a price reduction by blaming an inspection (discussed below) result as the reason. It really wasn’t the inspection that concerned them, but because they knew your particulars they assume you’ll do almost anything to get your home sold so why not ask for the Seller to chip in towards making a particular repair. We all know there are likely a hundred little things that come up on an inspection, so there’s got to be something that they can get you to pay for.

You can certainly allow the additional showings after your home has gone under contract, but as discussed above regarding home showings, the same holds true here – get out of your home! Let your Realtor and the Buyer’s Agent resolve any additional home showings.