Disqualifying by Price

Thomas

I work with homeowners who want to sell their manufactured homes. I'm only interested in working with sellers who have homes I believe will sell. When disqualifying a home one piece of information that I "NEED" to know, preferably before meeting with sellers, is how much they will take for the home.

When I ask sellers about price a lot will say something like, "I don't know what it's worth" or "I wanted you to tell me what they're going for" or something like that. If a seller gave me one of these answers today my first response would be, "How much did you hope it would sell for"? If the seller still was noncommittal my next response would probably not be very kind.

This is a situation that I'd like to handle better. What is a better way of getting this information from unwilling sellers?

Derek

You might try asking them how much they paid and when they bought it. Have any homes in your area sold recently. If so, do you know how much they sold for? I would think you could get make your own rough estimate.

You might also set a minimum. For example, "I only sell homes that are worth at least $100,000. Is your home worth that much?"

I think those responses to those questions you are asking are completely fair. You are the specialist. If they knew a lot about selling a home they wouldn't need you. All they know is that they want to sell it for as much as possible as quickly as possible.

Mikey

Thomas, when I sold my house last year several of the agents I talked with asked me how much I wanted. In the back of my mind I had a pretty good idea of what I would take but I was hesitant to give out a price because I didn't wanted to ask too little if I could get more but I also didn't want to look like a complete idiot by giving out some crazy high price.

Thomas

I'm not trying to establish a street value for the home. I'm trying to find out what the seller will accept as a price for the home. If the street value is $20k and the seller won't accept anything lower than $30k then I would be wasting my time.

In most cases, when I ask the sellers how much they want for their home and they say they don't know they are in fact "lying". That is the part that bothers me the most.


I understand where you're coming from. However, as you mentioned, you did have a pretty good idea of what you would take and that is my point.

Mikey

Yes, I did have a ballpark figure in mind.

Maybe you should just ask what the lowest price is that they will take?

Liberty

Thomas, right now I'm thinking about putting my home up for sale before the market tanks. If you asked me for a bottom dollar price or price range or really anything about price I wouldn't be able to answer the question because I don't know enough about what's going on in the market. That's why I would have agents come over an give me the scoop.

Thomas

Really? If I offered you $100 for your house right now would you be able to make a "Yes" or "No" decision? I'll hazard a guess that you could which means you do have an idea of what you will or will not take.

That's exactly the type of scenario I'm trying to avoid.

Liberty

I get your point.

If you ask after the conversation gets rolling you might have a better chance of getting a less guarded answer. If you explain why you're asking you might get a better answer too. Just some ideas.