I’ve been watching a friend of mine trying to sell his house for the last 2 months or so. I’ve learned something through his experiences that I’m glad I didn’t have to learn myself. It doesn’t matter how many people see your house, or how many people come back for 2nd showings. Nor does it matter how many compliments they leave regarding your house. The only real goal of a home-seller is just that, selling the house. Without approved financing and a signed contract it’s all empty compliments. Like I said, I’m glad I learned this through watching him, as I’d hate to get my hopes up every time something happened. Like last night for instance.

I was in the garage cleaning up a bit and an SUV drove past pretty slowly. As the driver was passing I watched him turn his head to look at the sign. Then he slowed, turned towards the curb, and parked. He got out of the car asking, “Are you the homeowner?”

After a brief exchange of pleasantries he told me he lived in the neighborhood with his wife and they were looking for a smaller house (luckily 1233 ft² qualifies as “smaller”). After learning his name was Eugene, I invited him in and gave him the grand tour. He said he liked it a lot and was very interested. He was going to go home and talk to his wife, then bring her over this morning. “If I know my wife, and I do, she’s going to like it,” he confidently said.

We agreed that he would call me at 9:00 a.m. and bring his wife shortly after. I told him I had a house showing at 11:30 (it was actually noon) and he assured me they would be by before then. “As long as my wife likes it and we agree on a price you can consider this house sold,” he said to me. “You can consider this house sold.” Imagine that. The house was on it’s 2nd full day on the market and I sold the house to a gentleman who happened to be driving by.

It’s half past one in the afternoon and I have yet to hear back from Eugene. “…consider this house sold.” It’s good I didn’t get too excited, huh?

So I decided to stay calm when I found out I would have my first showing today between noon and 1:00. Similarly, when I got a call from the showing service right at 12:00 and found out that I’d have another showing between 1:00 and 2:00 I also kept my cool.

So remember this should you ever find yourself selling your house. Until they show you the money, their words are all free and worth just as much.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 6th, 2009 at 1:32 pm and is filed under Life 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.