Type of Buyers to be Aware of & How to Deal with Them?

After months of preparation and hard work, your house is on the market with the help of your local real estate agent. Depending on market conditions, the quality of your preparation and advertising, and just general luck, there are various ways the sale of your house can go down. Some houses may go quickly and some slower, both manners can be good or bad and this will rely on the circumstances and your personal requirements for the sale. Your local real estate agent will do everything they can to assist you with your sale, but it’s always useful to be aware of the kinds of people that may come knocking at your door to live in it.

It’s important to remember buyers are people with their own motives and tactics for buying their dream home or adding to their investment portfolio. They, just like you, want to get the best deal they can for themselves. Here are a few buyer types and their tactics you may encounter.

The ‘Big Cash Up Front’ – This person has the deposit and more ready to go. They will be confident and will feel they have a degree of persuasion when negotiating. They may offer you an extra couple of thousand on the deposit up front for extra conditions and contingencies (eg. You’ve got to get that roof fixed now) or they’ll walk.
It may be comforting to know they meet your requirements as well as being assured that financing issues are less likely to occur on their side during this process, but their deposit isn’t going into your pocket. You still receive the net proceeds of the sale eventually, regardless of how large or small the deposit is, but the deposit stays in trust until settlement Feel free to listen to their requests, but walk away if it’s not really going to benefit you.

The Cash Strapped – This person is the opposite of the ‘Big Cash Up Front’. They can be a headache due to their limited funds, but the advantage with this is that they probably already know this. Therefore they should be flexible to your requests just to make a deal happen.

The Warm and Fuzzy Feeling – These people may submit their offer accompanied with letters and photos of their children or pets. Although they may be a ‘rewarding’ buyer, they may be using this emotional aspect to get you to lower your price. Work with them, but prioritize your bottom line.

The Window Shopper – As the name suggests, this person dreams of buying a house one day. Look out for hard negotiators with lowball offers, and have your real estate agent ask questions like: what properties are you currently looking at and how soon are you looking to move. The more properties they are looking at and the more wish-washy the answer, the more likely they are to come under this category.

These are just a few examples, of buyer types to be wary of. Talk to your real estate agent as through their experience, they will have most likely encounter all kinds of buyers and know what to look out for.

If you have enquiries, the Hicks Real Estate team is available to call today on: 07 3355 6845.