When you get in front of a customer, do you try to place yourself in his/her shoes? Do you have sympathy (feeling their emotions) or show empathy (sharing their emotions) when they pour out their difficulties at you?
It is quite a delicate act to juggle and that is what I did today.
A woman, early fifties, walked in the office this afternoon, distraught and fidgeting. Her lightly wavy, thick, salt and pepper hair sported at shoulder lenght, separated, revealing that her fingers are obviously her comb of choice. Her casual wrinkled khaki pants and blouse showed more neglect than fashion. Her countenance, devoid of any artificial enhancements, exposed her confused and worried hazel eyes.
We walked to the conference room, sat down and timidly began telling her sobbing story; you know, husband left her, lost her job, behind in her bills, property taxes are killing her, etc… She concluded by telling me the purpose of her visit; she needs to sell her condo to get out of that furrow she is in. I truly sympathized with her. I was touched.
She has a huge 1 bedroom, 1.5 baths condo, 1,340 sq. ft. in a 30 year old building, clean but almost in original condition and no washer/dryer in the unit listed with a discount broker paying only 2.5% to co-brokers and priced at $80K above market value. She showed me the MLS listing brochure of her condo, with no photos on it, but she came in prepared with her own pictures she took with her insta-photo Polaroid. The $239K listing expires this Thursday.
I knew then that I was her last stop for hope after everyone else must have turned her down.
I paused before replying to allow myself to shift my psyche to empathy mode. I bluntly explained the receding real estate condition we are all experiencing. Because her condo is in my favorite farming area, I knew exactly how much that area fairs. I open the MLS and show her the comps, especially the “pending”, an exact comparable to her unit except it is in a ten years younger part of the development, which it has a built-in laundry room inside the unit and and it is listed at $110K less than hers, $130K.
She naturally vehemently defended her tired unit trying to convince me of all its merits. At that point I knew her shoes were literally too big even for my 10.5 man-size feet. I knew that I could not make her acknowledge reality but, I felt sorry for her. So, I tell her I would list her condo starting high at $169K but she has to be willing to readjust the price in decrements of $5K every two weeks until we reach the market value or sell it. I re-stated that one pending sale comp listed at $130K which will bring her down even more when it gets closed, perhaps at an even lower price than the asking price.
She retorts that she owes only $40K on it and she must net out, after all closing costs, $160K in order to do what she wants to do – moving to TX and pay cash for a house over there. (Anybody wants her, Tarvin, maybe?) I tried to keep my composure while I told her that it just won’t work. She leaned backward on the chair, looked at the ceiling in dismay, shook her hair back while running her fingers through it as if I haven’t heard a word she said all along. Meanwhile, at that moment I became tepid with an urge to humor her but I kept my sarcasm to myself “You should have said so earlier. In that case, I know this rich benefactor who would be elated to bail you out.” But I held firm and I stared at her silently.
Realizing that I wasn’t going to tell her what she wanted to hear, she stood up in defeat. She proceeds towards the conference room door and, at its threshold, she turns around in desperation. She tries one more attempt to convince me by pulling her last resort ultimate weapon - flattery. She knows we advertise heavily where as the competitors advertise sparingly. So, she compliments us on our great advertisements and on the wonderful reputation we have in the community. She confidently tells me “You (our office agents) can sell my condo simply by showing it because the other agency didn’t advertise it and it was shown only a few times. So, my place needs to be seen; the more people you show it to, someone is bound to love it.”
I regained instant sympathy.
I exhaled heavily and slowly nodded my head; I shook her hand warmly and I escorted her to the door. I remained strong and I softly said “$169K”. She gave me a copy of her MLS sheet and said “Won’t you at least show it? My name and phone number are here. You can call me anytime to show it.” I didn’t want to explain how the MLS protocol works and I replied “If I get a customer, I will”. She left.
We both were defeated today; she for not getting what she wanted and I for being powerless to help her.
Tomorrow will be a better day.