“Something very strange just happened and I’d like your comments. My wife and I listed our home and after a couple of weeks we got two decent offers the same day. Since we had two buyers on the hook, so to speak, we took our time and countered back at our full list price. To our surprise, both buyers walked. We had our agent call their agents and tell them we were open to a counter-offer, but neither buyer would come back to the bargaining table. What do you think happened?”
***ANSWER:
Buying and selling can be an emotional roller coaster.
There’s a very curious human psychological event that often happens when people are trying to buy a home. I’ll call it “Rejected Buyer’s Remorse”.
You may have heard of “Buyer’s Remorse.” Someone buys a home (or anything), then gets cold feet and talks himself out of it.
With REJECTED Buyer’s Remorse, a couple doesn’t get (or doesn’t THINK they’re getting) a home they want. This causes them to experience “cognitive dissonance,” the stress of holding two conflicting thoughts: specifically ‘I want it’ and ‘I can’t have it’.
To end that stress, they rationalize reasons that they’re better off without the home. They think “We were paying too much,” or “We didn’t like the neighborhood anyway.”
Your slow response or high counter-offer likely made your two buyers think they weren’t going to get the home. So their Rejected Buyer’s Remorse kicked in and they convinced themselves they didn’t want it.
My advice is that you usually should respond quickly and not come back too strong unless you’re OK with losing that potential buyer.
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