Mama Said There’d Be Days Like This

Some days it’s hard not to be depressed, given my line of work. Some days the bad news in the media is overwhelming.

Some days it seems that I spend half my time working with buyers who want a big home in a “nice” neighborhood, in pristine move-in condition, and they want it for 50% of market value. The other half the time I seem to spend counseling sellers who are facing foreclosure, or contemplating taking a lowball offer from an investor who thinks “I’m paying cash” means an automatic price reduction of  30% off list. Trust me Mr. and Mrs. Cash Investor, even mortgages are green on closing day.

Some days I just want to scream at these types of buyers and sellers – “This whole awful mess is not my fault! Sellers, I did not create your problems, and Buyers I am not going to help you take advantage of a bad situation!”

But I hold my tongue and say nothing.  I resort to charts and graphs with 5-year trend lines and historical averages. I whip out my now well-practiced speech, “An offer price of $25,000 under asking sounds reasonable to you Mr. Buyer, but to the Seller it sounds like 15% below the last comparable sale which closed one week ago. The market is falling but it’s not falling at 15% per week.”

All this tongue holding and cheek biting is resulting in heartburn. If I could just help a few more people be happy about their closing days, I’d feel better. Until then, I leave my readers with this vent. Tomorrow I’ll put away the soapbox and try to post something uplifting. Or at least not discouraging.