Selling or buying a home can be a very emotionally challenging. As a real estate agent, one of the things I have noticed early on is how emotional a home sale can be on both ends, and the important role the Agent has to keep things moving along smoothly.
As the seller, there may be many reasons to sell a home, a divorce, the death of a partner, dealing with an Estate and the death of a parent, sibling, or spouse. Even more positive reasons to sell a home like a great job offer in a different location can still be bittersweet and emotional. You have attachments to your town, schools, neighbors, the home, a buried pet in the yard or even a piece of furniture that can’t be transported or doesn’t fit in the location you are moving to. There are also the good and bad emotions that were had in the home. Good memories to be missed and bad memories rearing their ugly head and resurfacing as you are packing and remembering things. I feel like to be a good agent you have to be very patient, understanding and have empathy. It’s very easy to see sellers sometimes get in their own way and they don’t even realize that it’s happening. When you see this happening, if you know the reason why they are selling, its usually easy to figure out why this is happening and it’s important to be patient and try to be helpful. I can usually tell what’s going on when I see the person getting stuck filling out paperwork, dragging out the process or unknowingly creating roadblocks. At this point, I will always go back and speak to them to make sure they are ready to sell. Sometimes they aren’t or sometimes when this is discussed the will realize what they are doing and this helps them to move forward. If they are not ready to sell, I really feel its best to stop right there for the sake of the seller and buyer and not try to force it. You don’t want to get a buyer and have issues and then have the seller back out and of course you don’t want to put pressure on the seller either. I have recently dealt with three situations with sellers. A divorcing couple, a buried pet in the yard and a person selling because of the recent death of a spouse, and I’m seeing the same thing in all 3 cases. They all sold, but it was very challenging to get through the emotions.
As far as the emotions of a buyer, they have the stress and emotions of relocating, making sure you are making the right decision investing your money, the emotions of making one the biggest investments and commitments in your life, organizing the move, decorating or updates to be made in your new home, your kids adjusting to a new school and many other challenges. Even though buying a home is exciting and a big accomplishment, there are stresses that come with it. How you deal with your seller or buyer client is going to make a world of difference in the outcome. If you are stressed and manic, you are going to make it a lot worse for them. It is the agent’s job in my opinion to be helpful and try to keep calm and try to make the process of selling or buying as pleasant as possible.