The location is ideal, it has the right number of bedrooms and living spaces, the yard is great – it feels like the perfect home. Occasionally, a buyer matches a property to perfection.
This buyer is going to live in the property. It will become their home. There is an instant and strong emotional connection.
This is the ‘heart buyer’. Heart buyers are seen early in marketing campaigns and only want that specific property. There are generally two types of heart buyer:
1. They have been looking for a long time
2. They have not been looking at all
Some buyers are searching for a particular property. Constantly scouring the Internet, they know the area they want and drive around regularly looking for new signs. They get every new listing alert when that perfect property comes on the market, they move to purchase quickly.
This situation produces the following disconnect. The heart buyer makes a fair or even an above-market offer on a property, only to see it rejected.
Why?
Because the property is early in the selling process and hope is high for a great price.
The best offers repeatedly come early, and it is dangerous to reject them. When faced with an early offer, sellers tend to compare it to the asking price, or to the price suggested by the agent.
Offers should be checked against the following price indicators:
• Instruct your agent to confirm that this offer is in fact the final and highest price the buyer is willing to pay. Then, if you trust your agent, and the offer is within their advised selling range, consider it seriously.
• Look again at comparable properties that have recently sold. Compare the offered price to these. Ask your agent’s advice. If you don’t trust your agent, terminate their services immediately.
• If still in doubt, get the opinion of an independent valuer.
Keep in mind when selling that many of the best sales prices happen very early in the selling process. Never dismiss an offer without first carefully analysing and measuring it against the correct indicators mentioned above. Then give the offer careful consideration before acceptance or rejection.
By Andrew Trim
Author of Real Estate Dangers
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