Emotional vendors

Emotional vendors often discriminate. For the lucky winner who has the successful offer, they may or may not realise the weight of the favourable treatment, but for the one who missed out, the loss can feel particularly frustrating.

Over two decades I’ve seen countless examples of this and I’ve aided buyers put their most favourable foot forward when I’ve sensed we’re dealing with an emotional vendor.

But I’ve had the occasional loss too, and it’s never a nice feeling.

A recent experience earlier this year was a significant blow for clients of ours. We had circled in on a beautiful period house in Melbourne’s leafy north-west and found ourselves in battle with three other buyers, all vying for the house. The campaign was an ‘expressions of interest’ and closed out on a certain day. After careful communication with the agent, we put our offer in. While our offer was the highest, the emotional vendor chose the third highest offer. They were based overseas, didn’t know the buyer, and had formulated their position on the basis of the purchaser’s street address number.

Had we known an unlucky number could sit between us and the contract, we’d have considered a different tactic.

Once in Geelong, a client of ours missed out on a property with an unconditional offer that sat five thousand dollars above a conditional offer. I was perplexed and quizzed the agent. After all, he’d previously told me they were sensitive to finance clauses and were seeking the highest price. He was awkward and said to me, “Cate, they know your guys are investors and they wanted to give it to the first home buyer couple.”

No amount of further incremental offers could tempt them. I asked him to go back to them and ask what price increase could tempt them to sell to us. Moments later, he called me to say, “Don’t bother. Even if you offered fifty thousand more, they’ve told me to tell you they’d still sell to the other party.”

These days, if I sense a vendor is emotional about the sale of their home, I won’t labour the point about rental conditions or access for showing prospective tenants through. I’ll submit an offer and leave out the part about the property becoming an investment.

For the heartache stories, we have countless positive stories too.

I recall a single father I was working with a decade ago. His budget was insufficient for a property he was keen to purchase, but the vendors were downsizing and I spoke to the agent about our buyer’s plight. His daughter had sat in the garden and told him she wanted him to buy this particular house. Even with our competition offering the asking price, our client secured the home.

I often ask buyers who feel passionately about a property that is financially beyond their reach to pen a note to the vendor if I sense the vendor is emotional too. Many times, we’ve had success with this approach.

I caught up with an industry friend who works as a vendor’s advocate for elderly sellers who are transitioning into aged care. He confirmed my theory that older vendors are more likely to apply a bias when fielding buyer offers, particularly those who have lived in a happy home for multiple decades.

And aside from preferentially treating with buyers based on the description from the agent, vendors will also apply a preference if they feel a buyer is applying unfair pressure, acting disrespectfully, or making insulting offers.

What is critical for buyers to factor in is how they are perceived by the vendor.

In most cases, vendors only know about a buyer’s ‘story’ from their selling agent. An agent who is acting in their vendor’s best interests will often give the vendors the best buyer background and detail that they can muster. From perceived character, to the agent’s confidence in the buyer’s ability to settle the purchase, the agent will often share what they know, both good and bad. If an agent’s dealings with a buyer have been unpleasant, this can be translated to the vendor and unsurprisingly, a negative bias will occur.

We can never overlook the fact that the agent is the conduit between the vendor and the buyer.