Detroit Real Estate

Lately I was tested on how to deal with an obstinate seller.  The seller was well into his 70's if not the 80's.  His Novi home had been on the market about 18 months.  He kept on following the market down.  He started with his home priced very high and kept slowly dropping it down.  (Thank goodness he wasn't my client)

His Novi home was in major need of updating.  The kitchen, the bathrooms needed updating.  Then there is wall paper all over.  Add in a small kitchen and a cut up layout there is a smaller amount of buyers that are willing to buy a Novi home like that.  So even we gave him a market priced offer he was not real happy.

He became less happy when we had our inspection that turned up three relative major items that needed to be addressed.  The one item was the furnace.  The inspector found an issue.  The seller had his relative who put it in on the side come over and verify that there was no issue.  Unfortunately the guy was retired too, so the relative wasn't up to date on the latest industry standards.

Well we requested to have an independent furnace company check the furnace out for the problem.  Well the crotchety seller wasn't happy at all.  He was up in arms that "we ought to just buy it as is" and that he was "going to cancel the deal if the buyer didn't make up his mind".

What he forgot is that every buyer wants to be assured that they are not buying a money pit.  They didn't want to buy a Novi home that they were going to have to buy a new furnace right away.  The seller almost didn't want to let us into the house to re-inspect the furnace.  But we got the furnace tested and it passed.  So we salvaged the deal.

So the bottom line was:

• we kept a line of communication going
• we never responded to the seller's crotchety comments
• we stuck to business and didn't let it become personal
• we worked with professional contractors to back up our position
• we worked to come to a conclusion that was acceptable to my clients

That is how we kept it together and able to close on the Novi home.

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