The Feedback Rebuttal

Feedback on home showings has gotten automated, which is a good thing. Centralized Showings sends out 2 feedback requests to agents who show my listings, and if they don’t reply I presume that they don’t have anything Earth-shattering to report. Seller clients get upset when they don’t get feedback sometimes, but they need to understand that if an agent shows 6 people 5 houses each in a week then they are forced to write the Magna Charta. I can’t be debriefed on every showing I make either. If your home is beneath high tension wires or has a train speeding past 30 feet away you don’t need me to tell you.  

All too often lately, I have gotten phone calls from listing agents who would rather joust with me over my feedback than tell their clients what they need to hear. And very often, what they need to hear is that they are overpriced for the circumstances. Nobody in the history of the world has ever rejected a property because it backed up to an interstate and then decided to buy it because they were then told that they just needed to plant a hedge of arborvitae. It just doesn’t happen. Look at the home you live in. Did you buy it because the listing agent shot a pithy retort to your agent about what to do about something that disqualified the property for you? Any hands?

So if you are a listing agent or home seller and you are told why the buyer didn’t decide on your home, save your breath and review the comps again. It is a waste of your and my valuable time to regurgitate and re-chew a buyer’s objections. Real estate isn’t a set of encyclopedias or long term care insurance. Nobody buys a home because of the salesperson’s enthusiasm. Pretending that it happens that way is a fallacy, and a time-consuming one at that. Real Estate is rather like romance; people buy The One. If you aren’t The One, take the feedback graciously and apply it for the next people.

People only buy one home, and it is the one they love. Rebutting and debating feedback is a big waste of time. You can’t convince someone that their reasons for not buying are wrong. It doesn’t work in romance, and it doesn’t work in real estate. If they like your home but don’t love it, move on.

Search the MLS like an agent here. Read my short sale bog here. See the New York Photo blog here. J. Philip Serves Briarcliff Manor, Ossining, the River Towns, Westchester County, and the bedroom counties of New York City.