Life is filled with obstacles. Obstacles are best to be viewed as challenges, as opportunities to make things right. It’s a mentality, a mindset, a preparedness that can get you through it. You just have to anticipate it, plan for it and be ready to take the bull by the horns when obstacles are thrown your way. You will find that in Real Estate, you aren’t immune to obstacles either. How you handle the obstacles that are thrown at you in Real Estate, will spell out what value you can bring to any Real Estate transaction, what value you can provide the home Seller or home Buyer as their Realtor.

Today, I thought it would be great to hear how other Real Estate Agents handle the obstacles thrown at them along the way instead of simply getting my take on them. With this in mind, I reached out to veteran, top selling Real Estate Agent, Bill Gassett, a top Franklin MA Real Estate Agent who has been selling homes for 27+ years to find out his thoughts on the subject for our interview. I interviewed Bill and found out about how Bill grabs the bull by the horn, as you can imagine, with his experience he’s likely seen it all.

To me there are two types of obstacles to overcome in real estate sales. The first kind is before the sale takes place and the second is during the process. Issues prior to a home sale generally involve the marketing process. Problems encountered during the process are almost always condition related. I will tackle each of these separately.

I am sure it will come as no surprise to you that the #1 problem I see as a Realtor is getting a homeowner to understand just how important pricing a home can be right out of the gate. Like most real estate agents, I am sure you have encountered that stubborn seller who thinks they know more than you do.

We all have heard the standard homeowner way of thinking with things like “we can always come down later”, “we have all the time in the world”, “we are not desperate to sell”, “we need to have negotiating room”. Once you have been in the business for a number of years these statements become commonplace. The key of course is getting a seller to understand that pricing their home higher does not mean it will sell for more. In many circumstances the exact opposite occurs. An agent who knows exactly what to say when a seller wants to overprice their home is one of the keys to being successful in this business.

This kind of situation is compounded even further when a seller is interviewing multiple agents and they happen meet a Realtor who will give them an unrealistic market value. Sometimes in these circumstances there is nothing you can do but walk away. Sometimes the seller and this kind of agent deserve each other. While it is always hard to turn down business the best of the best understand that walking away is the best move. It is always best to be honest and in many circumstances you will end up being the second or third agent in who actually ends up with a sale.

The other marketing problems I see every so often I would group into the top home seller mistakes. They include making it difficult to see the home or even requiring accompanied showings, not presenting their home well and having ungodly odors present. Lastly, as already mentioned they choose the agent for all the wrong reasons.

The second set of obstacles has more to do with the property itself than it does with the seller making things more difficult than it has to be. There are a number of things that can cause a home sale to fall apart most notably common home inspection issues. Sometimes these issues are fairly apparent before the home is listed for sale. It becomes crucial for the seller to understand that many buyers don’t react favorably to finding major issues with a home they don’t own. In fact it can be the difference between the buyer wanting to move forward with the transaction or not.

By now, if you’ve haven’t had the misfortune of being drilled for answers from the kiss of death questions, be sure that this will be a Buyer’s last attempt to dig deep for answers!

Home inspections can take a few hours to complete so a great deal of conversations can be had. A lot of initial polite conversation can go on back and forth as the inspector goes on his/her merry way throughout your home. This is when you can be asked about the repairs you’ve made to you home. As you know, before you list your home for sale you must complete a Seller’s Property Disclosure that details anything that you have knowledge about your home such as, repairs made or repairs needed. You will never want to hide anything as you can be liable if you try to cover up any issues with your home that can affect its value.

When you sell your home the Buyer will complete a home inspection typically anywhere from 3 to 15 days from the day you have an executed Real Estate purchase contract. Your Real Estate Agent will advise you of the date and time of the home inspection. Mark your calendar, set your phone alert and/or whatever any other method you use to alert yourself of the appointment and plan to be gone from your home. I’ve had Sellers who wanted to stay around for the home inspection, yet I explained to them that it’s best that they not be at home.

What?! You thought you wanted to be there when they completed the inspection as you don’t want them going through and picking at your things without you knowing. This is exactly why you don’t want to be there; your emotional attachment to your home and the things in your home. It’s normal to be a bit uneasy when people are rummaging through your things (they’re really not rummaging through your things, but it sure does feel like it, doesn’t it?); checking under your Kitchen and Bathroom sinks, going in your attic, running your appliances, checking your windows that they have to get to by reaching over your bed, looking in your closets and just getting way too close to everything. Viewing this activity going on can get you on edge and when you’re on edge you’re likely not in your normal happy go lucky mood and you can say things that you might regret. We’ve all done it; said things in haste when our feathers were ruffled. Sell my house in Grand Prairie Tx

It’s also a time when the skilled Buyer’s Agent and Buyer too, for that matter, can ask you specific questions about your home that may seem harmless when you respond to say how you can’t stand those spiders that you’ve seen when they ask you about your pest control service. Due to your fear of spiders, announcement of those spiders may make the Buyer think you have a pest control problem when in fact, it’s just one or two little spiders that you’ve seen that are very common in homes. Yet to you, one or two little spiders might as well be a very large and hairy Tarantula and you’re going to display your fear as such. Now the Buyer is envisioning having to pay money to rid your home of spiders; hence, price reduction request to follow.

Or they’ll ask you about the roof leak you noted on your Seller’s property disclosure. You reply to say that you had that repaired and go on to tell the story about what happened to you before the roof leak was repaired. You explained how it was Thanksgiving Day and you were cooking Turkey for your husband’s family of 12 and everybody was over while it was raining cats and dogs. The leak over your Kitchen sink started to leak and between trying to finish up your first Thanksgiving family meal and stop the leak, you were just so stressed out and wondered how you ever survived the day. The leak was minor but because of the day the leak occurred while you were trying to cook and entertain your husband’s family for the first time, every thing about that day was a big deal that included that minor leak that you made sound like a really big deal. You made it sound like it was gushing because you were overwhelmed that day, in fact, you seem to get overwhelmed a lot; just go back to that spider story earlier.

Stories like this make Buyer’s blood flow a bit faster and get concerned much more than they ever needed to due to the excited manner in which you told your stories. Buyer’s concerns result in requesting price reductions from the results of the inspection when had you not been there, all would have been fine with their standard, typical inspection results and would have proceeded to closing without asking for those extra dollars off the home sales price. If only you had just listened to your Realtor.

You know that your neighbors home a few doors down has a contract on their home and you know what they sold it for which is scheduled to close next month. The Buyers see the pending for sale sign hanging or found out it’s pending and they’re dying to know how much it sold for as it’s similar to your home which they had visited too. You don’t want to let them know that you know that it sold for less money than your home did. It wouldn’t matter to them that the reason it sold for less is because the homeowners are on the edge of financial troubles and had to sell quickly by reducing the price in order to avoid disaster. The reasons wouldn’t matter to the Buyers as they just see dollar signs. If they find this out, this again could be used as part of the negotiations within the inspection results if they thought they were paying top dollar for your home. So get out when it’s inspection time!