It took Thomas Edison 10,000 attempts before he had made a light bulb that finally worked the way he wanted it to. When asked about all of his failures he said "I have not failed. I just figured out 9,999 ways that do not work." Michael Jordan is considered by many to be the greatest basketball player of all time, yet he missed the hoop over 9,000 times including 26 that would have been game winners. Jordan also lost over 300 games, which is more games than many players get to play in the NBA. Instead of focusing on these failures he used them to motivate him to do better.
Persistence is something that does pay off in Real Estate like it does in many other fields. Real Estate is not easy or everyone would be doing it, one of the problems is that too many people "try" at it and never get better. I've learned a lot from having had deals fall apart, many times because of no fault of my own or my clients, sometimes stuff just happens. An appraisal may not get the number we were expecting, a home inspection may have found some problems that no one knew existed, there may be an emergency in the family of one of the sides in the transaction and because of that they need to postpone or cancel the closing, and the list goes on. I've found to take some of these punches in stride, because victory tends to go to the persistent.
I can think of at least one example of a home that was up for sale that I had listed that was more than trying everyone's patience. The home was a beautiful single family in a neighborhood that was good and improving. Sounds okay so far, right ?
The first time we went to sell it a young couple was interested and they were using their savings as a down payment. They loved the house and were pre-approved for a mortgage. Still looks good. The appraisal didn't come in where we thought it would. I looked at the comps the appraiser used and saw that they weren't really very good choices. The buyers wanted the property for 10,000 less because "that's what the appraiser said." I told my sellers to stick to their guns, the house was worth what they were asking.
We put the home back on the market and got another offer within 3 days ! I disclosed to the other realtor that we had a problem getting an appraisal to come in the first time, they looked at the comps in the market and were still comfortable with their offer. This time the appraisal came in $!5k higher than the previous appraisers estimate, but the home inspection had some comments about the crawl space that said that the insulation wasn't good enough and there were lots of electrical upgrades that needed to be done. My sellers were okay with the upgrades but the buyers got cold feet after they were done, because they would rather have had $5k off, instead of the $1100 everything had cost to remedy.
So we went on the market one more time. Had a showing or two, nothing. A few weeks go by and suddenly we had two buyers who were interested. They both put in offers and actually started a little bit of a bidding war. They both were very well qualified and the final offer we accepted was $12k above asking price.
This shows us how well persistence can pay off. This is an important trait for both buyers and sellers, but one that can be tough to have, as a seasoned realtor I try to keep my clients informed at every step so we can try to make smart decisions. We live in a world with instant gratification, where a microwave can give us a warm meal or a hot drink in a few minutes, because of that we've lost some of the skills of waiting for what's best for us. Real Estate isn't quite as simple as pushing a button. At times it can be more like chess and thinking a few moves ahead. Sure Michael Jordan missed 900 shots in his career, but I like to think about a quote from the illustrious Canadian philosopher Wayne Gretzky, "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."
Persistence is something that does pay off in Real Estate like it does in many other fields. Real Estate is not easy or everyone would be doing it, one of the problems is that too many people "try" at it and never get better. I've learned a lot from having had deals fall apart, many times because of no fault of my own or my clients, sometimes stuff just happens. An appraisal may not get the number we were expecting, a home inspection may have found some problems that no one knew existed, there may be an emergency in the family of one of the sides in the transaction and because of that they need to postpone or cancel the closing, and the list goes on. I've found to take some of these punches in stride, because victory tends to go to the persistent.
I can think of at least one example of a home that was up for sale that I had listed that was more than trying everyone's patience. The home was a beautiful single family in a neighborhood that was good and improving. Sounds okay so far, right ?
The first time we went to sell it a young couple was interested and they were using their savings as a down payment. They loved the house and were pre-approved for a mortgage. Still looks good. The appraisal didn't come in where we thought it would. I looked at the comps the appraiser used and saw that they weren't really very good choices. The buyers wanted the property for 10,000 less because "that's what the appraiser said." I told my sellers to stick to their guns, the house was worth what they were asking.
We put the home back on the market and got another offer within 3 days ! I disclosed to the other realtor that we had a problem getting an appraisal to come in the first time, they looked at the comps in the market and were still comfortable with their offer. This time the appraisal came in $!5k higher than the previous appraisers estimate, but the home inspection had some comments about the crawl space that said that the insulation wasn't good enough and there were lots of electrical upgrades that needed to be done. My sellers were okay with the upgrades but the buyers got cold feet after they were done, because they would rather have had $5k off, instead of the $1100 everything had cost to remedy.
So we went on the market one more time. Had a showing or two, nothing. A few weeks go by and suddenly we had two buyers who were interested. They both put in offers and actually started a little bit of a bidding war. They both were very well qualified and the final offer we accepted was $12k above asking price.
This shows us how well persistence can pay off. This is an important trait for both buyers and sellers, but one that can be tough to have, as a seasoned realtor I try to keep my clients informed at every step so we can try to make smart decisions. We live in a world with instant gratification, where a microwave can give us a warm meal or a hot drink in a few minutes, because of that we've lost some of the skills of waiting for what's best for us. Real Estate isn't quite as simple as pushing a button. At times it can be more like chess and thinking a few moves ahead. Sure Michael Jordan missed 900 shots in his career, but I like to think about a quote from the illustrious Canadian philosopher Wayne Gretzky, "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."
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