Most of the complaints I hear from real estate agents is the frustration of working with buyers who turn out to be dawdling, postponing, hesitating, wavering……you get the picture. Don’t they know this is a buyers’ market? Oddly enough during a sellers’ market buyers will go to any lengths to buy a house making it one of the most difficult times to buy value. Buyers were buying like crazy even though the advantage was all to the seller. Now when it’s a true buyers’ market, they want to wait for fear of paying too much. Gary Keller in his book Shift says, “When they should have been afraid of paying too much they weren’t and now that they shouldn’t be afraid of paying too much they are.” It seems they are intent on finding the greatest deal ever and it causes them to miss out on the great deals that are possible. Most believe that they can “time” the market thinking they have all the time in the world. It isn’t possible to know when the real estate market has “bottomed” since it is a relative position and you only know you were at the bottom when it starts up again. Guaranteeing a “killing” on both ends is impossible, as any investor will tell you real estate is a long-term investment. What goes up comes down and what is down will come up again.

After the typical advice that buyers need to be ready, willing and able, Keller offers some excellent direction on energizing buyer urgency…

photo credit: visitmyluxuryhome.com

Three Ways to Energize Buyer Urgency

1.  Become the local economist of choice: Consumers seek expert advice on everything from health care to car problems but take their real estate advice from newspapers, neighbors and relatives. Those sources can’t possibly give you the whole story on local real estate. Keller suggests that you start by influencing their rational thinking with solid numbers and facts. People have been lead to believe that they can buy or sell every three to five years and make a killing on both ends. As the local expert you can help buyers to understand realistic economic expectations in their local market. Since market expectations can be a powerful source of motivation, you should be the one setting those expectations. You need to know as much as possible about the local market.

2.  Tap into their “WHY”: You’ve heard it before, “when they say what they want, you ask why?” Don’t let this powerful determining and motivating factor go unnoticed. Leading reluctant buyers back to their “why” is not manipulation, it is part of your fiduciary duty to remind them of what they want to buy and why. Of course, in the end your buyers make their own decisions but it is you who helped them overcome their fears and make a good decision.

3.  Overcome Buyers Reluctance: Once the market starts showing signs of improvement the really great buys slip away and the pent up demand for housing drives prices up through mounting competition. Buyers’ markets are skill-based markets and now is the time to practice your talking points (scripts), find a business coach, engage in interactive role playing all in order to help buyers make good decisions. You can do all that with the strategies that Keller describes in his book; hazards of timing the market, trade up (the opportunity of a down market), narrowing a buyer’s choices and finding a “Best Buy”.

Keller says you can cope with this market shift by: building buyer urgency through “expert knowledge of the market, careful consultation on their personal wants and needs, skill at communicating the opportunities of the market, and assertiveness in challenging their thinking. As the dedicated professional that you are you have earned the right to help people with their real estate decisions as well as the “courage to act on what you know to be true.”

DF

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