If you are an agent or broker and you have a buyer who wants to buy a newly constructed home, but can’t because he’s still stuck with his current residence that you have listed, ask the builder for help!
If the listed home is in need of paint or some landscaping, ask the builder to send a painter or landscaper. If the interior is somehow lacking or not showing well, ask the builder to send over some model home furniture; he has storage rooms full of it.
Builders want the same thing as selling agents in this scenario, i.e., for the buyer to be able to get out from under an old home and buy a new home in the builders’ subdivisions. Asking for help during economic downturns produces amazing responses.
Negotiating with the builder on a trade-in or getting the builder to set the buyer up with his construction lender are other steps you as the seller’s listing agent can take to turn your seller into a buyer and into that new home they want.
first tuesday take: Never pre-judge the answer or response you will get; no one is thinking within the box during this recession. Out-of-the-box thinking is exactly what will pull real estate out the recession earlier than would otherwise take place.
You will be hearing a lot about thinking outside the box, and here it has been given tepid treatment for what is a very open and vibrant world of exchanging equities in real estate, and not for tax purposes which is usually the wrong reason when the market is in a boom cycle. Sellers “have” property they no longer want, and if asked, they definitely have a “want.” Ask anyone who has ever negotiated to use the seller’s equity in a property as a down payment on a property the seller would take in exchange. Also, think two properties and two brokerage fees, and let the dialogue begin. [See first tuesday Form 171]
Re: “Think outside the box when selling” from The Chicago Tribune
