Fliperati

My property was enjoying one or two realtor showings per day over the past week and a half while I was out of town visiting family.  I was very pleased to find a healthy stack of business cards on the counter when I went to check on the house and get the boiler fired up for the first time this season.  I started calling all the agents who brought clients to the property to get some feedback and find out if there was anything I could do to encourage a sale.  Disappointingly, the vast majority of the realtors said they could not specifically recall showing my house and, consequently, could not provide any details about how their clients reacted to it.  This was not encouraging because it indicated that the house was not making much of an impression on prospective buyers or their realtors.

One agent, however, was quite happy to hear from me and she quickly shared the news that my property was tied for first place with another home that her clients were interested in.  A married couple had apparently taken quite a shine to my house and were in the latter half of a two-day “thinking about it” period.  The wife was particularly enamored with the kitchen (yes!) and the husband liked the entire property except for the basement stairs, which he described as much too narrow for regular access to the finished basement.  This must have been a very serious concern on his part because the realtor said it could be the tipping point in their evaluation of the two properties they were choosing between.  I quickly offered the services of my contractor in evaluating options for widening the stairs (seemed like it would be a fairly simple job to open up the wall enclosing the basement stairs and putting a railing in) and I even said I could arrange to have the upgrade completed before closing if they put a strong offer on the table.

Well, they did come back with an offer, but it was definitely not a strong one in my opinion.  Their offer price was $25,000 below my (fair by any standard) asking price and made no mention of the basement stairs.  In presenting the details of the offer, their agent told me they were extremely well-qualified in terms of their income, credit scores and cash available for down payment (more than 20%) and they would close quickly without asking for any seller concessions.  That’s all well and good, but it did not impress me enough to warrant taking a loss on this flip (I didn’t agonize over the numbers, but a rough calculation showed the broker’s commission at this price level putting me into negative territory).  I hope I don’t come to regret this dismissal because I have a feeling these people won’t be coming back to renegotiate, especially if there really is another house that they are equally fond of.  I have a healthy number of showings scheduled for this week – many of which are with unrepresented buyers (read: no realtor commission to pay), but I may be struck with remorse for my lack of tact with this offer (I didn’t even bother presenting a counter-offer) if all my upcoming appointments turn out to be duds.