You have the perfect home pictured in your mind. You have gone through the pre-approval process for a mortgage and been approved. You have looked and looked at properties for over a month. At last, you find that perfect home in your price range. Time to buy, right? Yes, unless you run into the uncommitted seller.
Most people sell their house for a reason. The reason can range from retirement to divorce to the need to move to take a new job to just about anything. The pivotal point of all these situations is that the person or persons selling the property are motivated to move it. They have listed it on the market because they have a specific goal to get rid of it and to get rid of it at a specific price. And then there are testers.
In the lexicon of buyers, nothing is worse than finding a property you want to buy only to find out the seller is not committed to moving it. This lack of commitment is either intentional or do to severe stubbornness. Let's go back to our example.
You have found the perfect home and contact the seller to see it. The viewing goes well and the home is just what you want. You run the initial numbers on the home and find the house is priced $50,000 above the comparables in the market. You inform the seller of this and they stubbornly refuse to lower the price. They may argue their home is unique or the may just say that is the only price they will accept. You are tempted, but know you should never buy the most expensive home on the block. How will you possible sell it for a profit in the future? You will not.
Despite endless haggling, the buyer refuses to lower the price. The only thing you can do is walk away from the property. The seller obviously is not motivated to sell and may not even want to. Instead, they may have just listed the property at the high price to see if some fool will overpay. Under know circumstances should you be that fool!
It takes discipline, but walk away from the property. There is always another fish in the ocean as they like to say.
