Analysis Paralysis - Buying and Selling Real Estate

Full Video Transcript Below

[00:00:00] Well, good morning. Real estate fans, Alice Lema here, broker John L. Scott in lovely, but chilly Southern Oregon and a welcome to our weekly podcast. Our episode this week is called when analysis paralysis stops you from buying or selling. I've got six ways to stop over thinking your purchase or sale and just get on with your move.

[00:00:24] But before go into that, I want to give you a chance to subscribe to the channel. Give us a thumbs up, give us some comments or some questions. Pass it onto your friends and family. We're here for you. This is all information to help educate you to be a good, good consumer. And also we're starting to get feedback during the week. Phone calls and emails.

[00:00:42] Starting to use these ideas and having some success with it. So that's super exciting. Thank you for that. All right well, let's get on with six ways to stop over thinking your purchase or sale process and just get on with your move. So it's called when analysis paralysis stops you from buying.

[00:01:00] Okay. So the first reason people get stuck and that's really what we're talking about is when your life cannot move forward because your mentally or emotionally stuck in the middle of the process. So the first thing to do is to make a realistic list of what you need, not what you want, but what you need.

[00:01:20] So I know people walk around with these big, long lists because you see that on the TV shows. And I love the TV shows too, but that's not practical. And it's, it's not, it doesn't help you move forward with acquiring an address or selling an asset. So you really need to have a succinct list and I recommend really just three must haves the things you absolutely have to have, or it's not worth buying or selling three.

[00:01:49] Let that sink in. I know it's shocking, but three now those are your, those are your needs. Those are your must haves. You can have some wants, that's like frosting on the cake who doesn't like frosting, but, you know, keep the core needs that are being addressed by the purchase or the sale of real estate, keep the core list to three. Okay. Just saying, try it. It'll it'll work better.

[00:02:12] Number two, all the main decision makers have to be on the same page. They have to have the same list or an amalgam of the same list. I can tell you, it's shocking how many times they get groups of people and they all have their own list.

[00:02:25] And we can do that, but you're going to spend like way, way more money, way, way, way more money. We can accommodate multiple lists in one address, but it's going to be incredibly more expensive. And as long as you're doing that eyes open and you understand why you're doing it, no problem. We just don't want people out there Willy nilly spending buckets of money if they don't have to, especially me. I like a good deal. I really like to see if we can get somebody whose needs met for a little bit less. That's always fun. Right? So main decision makers can be the, if you're doing a multi-generation family, then you've got to sit down and kind of iron out the three items that each person has, the three must haves.

[00:03:08] And I guess, with couples to, you know, get them to isolate or get yourself to isolate what the three must haves are. Whether it's you're a couple or a group of people or even investors then look for the overlap. Okay and that's where you start, but you don't want to go out shopping for a property with too many unconnected, disconnected lists of criteria. Unless you just have an open checkbook.

[00:03:35] Okay. But also people, you know, their feelings get hurt. They feel like they're being compromised in the field. And the same goes for selling, you know the list of things that people want during their selling process can sometimes get a little, a little long and unnecessary unnecessarily long.

[00:03:52] Okay. So get all the main decision makers together, have them figure out on their own, not in the field with the agent. That's not the time to have these really private, financial and personal. You know, needs and wants conversations. You don't want to do that in front of your agent, get all that done in the privacy of your own home network, whatever, you know you've got going on. And then present a unified list. Okay. So that's number two, have all the decision makers be in agreement.

[00:04:21] And then number three is if you need to sell, or you want to sell a property first before you buy something, have that property be ready. Again, I'm really surprised how many people want to go and pick out a house and write an offer before they put their house on the market or before they've even had pictures taken or an inspection done or anything like that. And that's because they're scared. They're scared to go out and put their house on the market and not have any place to live. So, you know, we have those contingencies. If you're selling your house, we put it right in there that you're not moving until you found the suitable replacement dwelling.

[00:05:02] Those are the words you put in the contract suitable, replacement dwelling, you put that in the listing. You put that in the counteroffers and then you're protected. And I don't know how it is in other states, but in Oregon we actually have a document. Seller contingency document. So that can be included too.

[00:05:18] So it protects you it's really better to be on the market and have a buyer waiting than it is to be like a secret seller to be a secret. So I was like, oh, I'm going to go home and get it ready. Well, really it's going to be two weeks. And then that house you wanted is gone. Okay. So this is all for your own protection. All right. So number three is if you have to sell first, please be ready and have it on the market.

[00:05:40] Number four, if you're buying and you don't like the choices and you happen to be in the fall, winter season. So I have different advice for the spring summer, and we'll get to that next. But if you're buying and you don't feel like you have enough choices of properties during the fall and winter, that's a great time to use the strategy of touring, a little higher price point and writing reasonably lower offers.

[00:06:09] You know, I had a millennial a couple of weeks ago who really, really wanted a $400,000 house. That's really what they wanted, but they didn't want to spend $400,000. They wanted to spend 325. Well in our market, that's the difference between move in ready and complete fixer-upper. And it was really causing a lot of conflict. See, now this again, was a couple issue. These are two people that were not in agreement with the process. So but the point is that they also didn't have a lot of choices.

[00:06:41] So if they can go up in price and write a little bit lower, not the difference between four hundred and three twenty five, I mean, you can write it, but it's not likely to fly at all. But you could go maybe on a $400,000 house, which is a nice medium priced house in our market. And maybe write it for 380 or something like that, or write it for 393 or 395 and ask the seller to kick in the closing cost.

[00:07:09] Cause closing costs are high they're like seven to $10,000. So you're just trying to give yourself a little higher price point at a time of year when the sellers are maybe thinking about lowering the price anyway. And if you can catch them like in that magic moment before they lower the price online so that everybody in the world doesn't come rushing in, you can get the deal of a lifetime.

[00:07:33] If you're buying, don't like the choices. This is number four. Consider if you're in the fall and winter doing a higher price point tour and writing reasonably lower offers.

[00:07:43] Now, number five is if you're buying in the spring and summer completely different attitude with the sellers. But if you're in a situation where you feel like you need more choices, I have the opposite recommendation and that is consider getting something at a lower price point that gives you room for improvements. So you can actually budget to make the house more custom to what you want or need. Okay. So that's number five.

[00:08:09] Number six is just a reminder. That no house and no location and no state and no neighborhood is perfect. And our goal here is if you can get 85% of what you wanted out of your purchase or your sale process, then that's actually really good. I just don't think people realize that 85%, 90%. Is is actually pretty comfortable if you've done the process, right. If you've really identified what you truly need, and then you have identified what the wants, the fluff, the frosting are. And you get some combination of that, but your, your actual needs are met.

[00:08:52] Then you're actually going to be pretty happy and not have that buyer's remorse. And I think a lot of the analysis paralysis for us is when we're scared. When we feel like we don't have enough choices, we don't know what to do sometimes is because we're not getting enough conversation with our real estate team, that's helping us to get more ideas to help bounce ideas off of.

[00:09:17] So number six is just a reminder that 85% of your goal is, is actually a pretty good achievement. And this is just my opinion, but I find that in my own life of buying and selling and also my client, that eighty-five percent is actually pretty comfortable if you've done the rest of the process. Okay 85% of what you don't want. It doesn't matter. Right. But if you do the process, you have realistic goals. All the decision-makers are on the same page. You've got yourself ready to go and, and you're using creative strategies to do the sale and the purchase. Then you'll actually be pretty happy.

[00:09:56] Okay. So that is our podcast for today. Again, you can reach out to me directly privately if you would like, my number is (541) 301-7980 you can text, you can call. We could also leave some comments or send me a message through this platform. Okay. Have a beautiful weekend. Stay warm. I'm Alice Lema, broker John L. Scott. And we'll talk to you next week. Bye now.