Home Seller's Guide Handling Buyers

A buyer's early impressions are crucial, so it's extremely important to make sure that you are prepared to properly handle showings. This entails a number of things - from being available on short notice to deflecting insensitive remarks about your home.

It's best to handle buyers in a calm, unemotional manner. Try to be as responsive as possible to requests for information or last-minute showings. Most of all, it's important to be patient. If you appear too eager to a buyer you are only undermining your negotiating position.

• Dealing with Showings
  Showings are where your home really gets sold. First impressions are of vital improtance - if the buyer isn't intrigued at the outset there is very little likelihood that an offer will be forthcoming. Make sure your home is available on short notice and is always looking its best. Let your agent take the lead during showings. You may not even want to attend - many buyers feel more comfortable viewing a home without the owners present.
• Controlling Your Emotions
  Selling a home is an emotional undertaking for many people. Listening to buyers making candid - and often insensitive - remarks about your home can be upsetting. It's best to ignore this kind of thing, however, and not let it get to you. If you find these comments difficult to take, or are simply uncomfortable with the notion of strangers prowling around your home, arrange to be out during showings - your agent is capable of handling the situation.
• Handling Information Requests
  Buyers may ask a variety of questions about your home and the neighborhood. Make sure you only provide information that you know is correct. Misleading a buyer - even accidentally - could cause problems down the road. If you don't know the answer to a question, say so. You can always offer to check it out and get back to the buyer.
• Identifying Real Buyers
  There is really no reliable way to discern whether buyers are serious or not until an offer is made. Some buyers will visit a home 3 or 4 times and never go any further, while others will make an offer the day they see a property for the first time. Our tips for identifying real buyers offer a few pointers on spotting the serious ones.