Slowly going crazy

Mondays are so jarring after a relaxing weekend! Today was unexpectedly busy. I am spending a lot of time right now with some clients who I really, really like as people but who are difficult buyers to work with. We've probably looked at 75 to 85 houses in the past month, 10 percent of which have spent at least some time in their "This is THE house for us!" spot, and two of which they've made an offer on. So far.

When you first start out in real estate, you think it's great when you have buyers that like most of the houses you show them. They start measuring rooms and you start seeing dollar signs. But when they do that for 10 houses in a row you begin to realize they're going to be harder to work for than the straightforward super-picky buyers. The latter eventually find the perfect house (or get tired of looking and just pick one), whereas the former cannot pull the trigger to save their lives.

One of my main roles as a buyer's agent, in the house-hunting stage, is to help buyers eliminate homes that won't work for them. I've had a really hard time doing that with these particular clients because they have a good price range, are willing to live in any town in the southern part of our county, don't care about school districts because they're probably going to home school their children, and aren't very picky. (They'd prefer granite counters but Formica will do; would like an office but could use the dining room as an office instead; know a large garage would be a perk for resale but don't plan to park their cars in it anyway.)

So far neither of their offers has been accepted because they have unrealistic expectations of how negotiable prices are around here. (The gloom and doom of the national housing market just hasn't hit in our county, knock on wood.) The wife is starting to really stress out, but the husband is willing to keep making offers and being rejected until someone accepts a low-ball bid -- even if it's Halloween before that happens.

It's truly amazing how otherwise normal, reasonable people tend to approach real estate transactions with very little logic. These clients are good examples of a few quirks most buyers exhibit to some degree:

-- When it comes time to make an offer, most buyers don't want to study comparable sales or get their agent's opinion about what a house is worth. All they care about is how much they can get the seller to come down from the asking price.

If a house is listed at $340,000 and the buyers start out offering $310,000 and the parties eventually come to contract at $320,000, the thrilled buyers will tell all their friends what a great deal they got.

If the same house is listed at $320,000, the same buyers will start out at $305,000 and refuse to go higher than $312,000. The parties will not come to contract, and the indignant buyers will tell their agent, "Don't they realize it's a buyer's market? They're going to regret not accepting our offer. What nerve!"

I realize it's human nature to want to feel like you came out on top in negotiations, but come on. From a seller's standpoint it's especially frustrating because you want to list your house at fair market value, but it's smarter to list it 5 percent or so over -- the crucial wiggle room.

-- Too many options can have a crippling effect. Around here, if a buyer can spend no more than $150,000, and has to have a two-car garage and a dining room, and has to be within 10 minutes of work, he might have a dozen possibilities and maybe two that he really likes. In contrast, if a buyer's choices seem almost unlimited, they tend to get overwhelmed and the decision-making process will be a lot harder.

(I've experienced this phenomenon myself when shopping for clothes. If I like a shirt and only one is available in my size, I'll probably buy it. If it's available in 10 colors I like in my size, I'm likely to leave the store empty-handed. Matt doesn't get this, and I can't really explain it; maybe it says something about my personality.)

-- People always talk about how women sometimes get tied to a particular house and then are willing to do anything to make it theirs. But no one ever talks about how the men let pride get in the way of the purchase negotiations. Men can be incredibly stubborn if you don't let them feel like they're "winning" some of the negotiations -- to the point that they're willing to walk away from the house they really want. The expression "cutting off your nose to spite your face" comes to mind. Typically, they huff and puff and then come back around (but claim they're only doing it for the wife).

I could go on and on, but Matt and I are doing wine and exotic cheese and crackers for dinner tonight (thanks, Lauren, for the idea) and that's a pretty compelling reason to stop here.