Where's Wellington?

If you are looking to BUY, SELL or RENT a condo in Sheffield Woods Wellington FL contact me today!

We made an offer on your home that you have been trying to sell for over 6 months.  We know our offer wasn't full price and we did ask for some seller concessions but your rejection shows you might not be fully attuned to the local market conditions.

You asked us how we picked our offer price?  Well let's see.  We looked at the comps that our buyer's agent provided.  In this case another house in your neighborhood just sold for your asking price minus seller concessions.  We looked at the property and saw that it had granite counters, stainless steel appliances, updated bathrooms, a walk-out basement and an extra full bath among other things.

Your house doesn't have any of those.  Now don't get us wrong your house has good bones and from our visits we believe you've kept it up with the basic maintenance. We noticed some items which are going to need replacing soon but we can budget for those.  However you haven't done the upgrades your neighbor did to make us fall in love with your home.   We liked your home and our offer wasn't an insult.  In fact we wanted to make a lower offer but our agent talked us out of it as she wanted us to be reasonable.

Your rejection of our offer is just a hiccup in the home buying process.  There are dozens of homes on the market similiar to yours and in our price range.  Yours had a few things that put it on the top of our list but we don't have stars in our eyes.  We are realists and know the current inventory allows us flexibility.  We're sorry you don't see your house in the same light as we do but we understand you have different ties to it than we have.

We don't have any hard feelings but we aren't heartbroken by your decision.  There is another house that will meet our needs and a seller who might have a better understanding of the current market in our area.  Good luck and best wishes.

I'm going to indulge in one of my real estate pet peeves. Thanks in advance for your patience. 

Imagine you are buying a car. You sit in the driver's seat, smell that indelible new car smell, and the sales associate dangles the keys in front of you as you prepare for a test drive. Then, just before you put the key in the ignition, the salesperson begins a 5 minute soliloquy on the glove compartment. After enduring that little, strange episode, you start the car and roll 5 feet, just as you begin to pull out of the spot, the salesperson asks you to stop. Popping open the trunk, he then begins a tutorial of the rear storage as the car idles and you tap your feet awkwardly. You just want to get this thing on the road and see if it's for you. 

Finally, getting back in the car, you roll toward the parking lot exit and he stops you again, this time to explain, with granular specificity, the storage compartment between the two front seats. How does this guy make a living selling cars? Short answer: he doesn't make a living, because if he only talks about what is important to him, he's not going to last. He doesn't grasp that if you like how it drives, short of a dead guy in a bowling bag back there, you don't care about the trunk.  

The same goes for homeowners who show their house to their prospective listing agent. I recently had this sort of person walk me through his modestly sized house, and it took nearly 20 minutes to walk through a home I could have walked through in less than 5 minutes. The cause of the delay was the guy's insistence on giving me the historical abstract of every room, what he had or hadn't done with it, why that was so, and what he'd do if he were to keep the house instead of selling. For an ADD guy like me, it was like watching paint dry while I listened to the wa wa wa of the grown-ups on a Peanuts cartoon. 

I'm a professional; I know what a closet is, and I know the pros and cons of a half-finished bathroom. How the bathroom came to be half finished or why you chose to take the hanging rod out of the bedroom closet and put up shelves instead is not terribly important, at least not for every..single...room...in..the..house. 

It all boils down to the stark fact that most homeowners are lousy salespeople and need to slowly step back from the person looking at the house. If it feels like home, they ask questions. If it doesn't, they won't buy if you showed them where you stored the dead sea scrolls in the attic. 

Leave out the closet story. Stop expecting the showing agent to put on a horse and pony show. Homes are bought, not sold. I never spoke to anyone and had them say "the agent" or "the owner" as the reason they chose their home. A good agent will assist you in presenting the home, staging it, marketing it to the right prospects, and dealing with the people carefully who walk through. We know when to question; we know when to shut up; we know when to let them soak in it; we know how to sell. You don't, and if you did, you aren't objective. People know what they are looking for. We help them find it. 

• We Are Westchester County, NY Real Estate. Reach Phil at (914) 723-8900.
• J. Philip Faranda, Broker-owner, J. Philip Real Estate, LLC. 2010 Vice President, Westchester-Putnam Multiple Listing Service. 
• I am one of New York's premier short sale REALTORS. 
• J. Philip Serves Briarcliff Manor, Ossining, Croton, the River Towns, Westchester County, and the bedroom counties of New York City.
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