Turning a Rejected Offer into an Accepted Purchase Offer

The thing with being unequivocally direct with people is they might think you have *Asperger Syndrome when you don’t. I suspect many successful Sacramento real estate agents display a bit of those symptoms, so it might not be as unusual as one may suspect. Symptoms such as extreme focus on the job at hand, set rituals and methods of doing things, on top of leaving people to sort out the fact that you just hit them between the eyes with the direct truth, can leave others somewhat puzzled. Not everybody appreciates candor.

Sometimes, I use candor in a playful manner, just to joke around with people, but fortunately I’ve got enough social skills to figure out it’s not always appreciated. Is it funny if you make a joke and the other person doesn’t get it? Does a tree fall in the forest? But I generally don’t blurt out NO, for example, to another real estate agent without offering a solution or alternative.

I’m of the mindset that NO doesn’t always mean NO, except in certain circumstances and we all know what those are: such as NO I will not listen to Neil Diamond sing Cherry, Cherry one more time! When a seller tells me NO, the seller does not want to accept an offer, what the seller is saying is YES, the seller would like to sell the home but the purchase offer that is set before her is unacceptable and needs to be altered. It needs to be presented in a different manner.

Yet, so often buyer’s agents will take that NO answer and wander off defeated. What some of them fail to appreciate is they are working with a buyer who wants to buy that home. And guess what? I am working with a seller who wants to sell that home. You would think, wouldn’t you, that between two real estate agents we could figure out how to bring together both parties and put that purchase offer into escrow? Isn’t that what a real estate agent is supposed to do?

Despite what some real estate books might say, we are not mere messengers here to carry out the wishes of our clients. Sellers who prefer to hire an agent who will work in that manner might want to enlist the services of a discount agent, an agent who will plop the listing into MLS and let the seller do the rest. When a seller lists a home with me, I presume the seller wants to close escrow on terms agreeable to the seller. It’s my job, as a full-service Sacramento real estate agent, to make it happen.

*Note: If you want to watch an interesting new crime show on FX about a police detective in El Paso who happens to perform at a high level with Asperger Syndrome, check out The Bridge.