HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?
Bridging the Communication Gap with Custom Buyers
By: Carol Smith 
For a long time I had suspected that sales people spent all their time fluffing brochures while light bulbs burned out, prospects hid pop cans and candy wrappers in cabinets, and spiders died in the bath tubs of model homes.
Then I found myself in the position of selling custom homes. When you've spent three months working with a client and one bright crisp winter morning a real estate agent calls to introduce himself as their agent and to claim a percentage out of an already compressed profit margin, the dead spiders, pop cans, and candy wrappers cease to be a big priority. Without consciously deciding that such debris was acceptable, I begin to understand the commitment it takes to keep light bulbs replaced and Snickers wrappers out of the show homes when deals are threatened and all your energy goes into resolving objections and conflicts.
In the end, the friendly real estate agent won.
STANDING FIRM
There were certainly times when we bent our policy a bit, but this was not going to be one of them. We stood firm on our published company policy that if a real estate agent did not bring the client to us on the first visit, he didn't exist as far as the contract was concerned.
The real estate agent had - as he so delightedly warned me - a good relationship with these buyers and would lead them elsewhere if I didn't cooperate. The word blackmail flashed through my suspicious brain.
"Why," I asked, "didn't you bring these folks in to see us?"
"I thought they wanted an existing home, not a new one," was his response. "I've been showing them houses for nearly five months."
"Obviously you haven't shown them anything that they liked," I said. "These clients called me in November. We've met regularly ever since. Neither of them ever mentioned that an agent was involved. You are in no way the procuring cause. Their budget won't take another fee the size of yours and believe me there's no room to take it out of ou r profit - we're practically building the house for drill now as it is."
They bought an existing house. One that included far less than they kept telling us they JUST HAD TO HAVE. All of our effort - and some of their money - was wasted developing plans for a house that would never be built.
As a graduate of the University of Hard Knocks, I try to learn something from every class. What had gone wrong with this deal? Why did we fail to close and go to contract?
20/20 HINDSIGHT
Looking back through my notes and memories of the various meetings with the client, the one striking frustration I realized we had not resolved for our almost-buyers was arriving at a "final price."
"How much is this going to be?" they kept asking.
"Right now we're at $248,500. But until you've made the rest of the choices that's subject to change."
"How much change?"
"That depends on your choices."
"Well, could it go down?"
"It could (but don't hold your breath); the allowances included are very reasonable. It will depend on your exact selection."
"Will it go over $250,000? If it is going to be more than that, we can't afford it."
(They qualified for a mortgage of $253,000).
"Let's look at some specifies. Have you made a decision on the three-car garage?"
"Well, we were thinking of adding a fireplace to the master bedroom and going with a two-car garage."
"That'll help the price a whole bunch. I thought. Then the Mrs. asked about a gas line to this newly added fireplace just as Mr. was saying they really did need a three-car garage, what with all the kids bikes and so forth ....
"Light bulbs were popping, spiders were dropping like flies, cupboards were overflowing with pop cans and wrappers. Even the brochures weren't fluffed. I couldn't have cared less. I had many hours invested in these buyers. They had invested an equal amount of time and an architectural fee of a couple thousand dollars as well. On top of that, I liked them. I wanted them to get the home they longed for. We couldn't get to a definite price. They refused to sign a contract until every detail was in place. In the end they didn't buy a house; they bought certainty; they bought someone else's decisions, decisions that were already made. |
