Robyn Seymour - Managing Different Seller Personalities during Real Estate Investment

The most common question is that how do you treat some of the different personality types? For example, an arrogant seller. They will say things like “I don’t need to give you that information” or “You don’t need to know that”. The best thing to do with this type of seller is stop them in their tracks. Do this by telling them you are trying to create the best deal for them and in order to do that you need to get some information. If they do not want to provide it and you have to make an offer without it, then the offer probably isn’t going to be one that they like. At this point offer them the chance to give you more information. If they continue that arrogance even after that, then you just want to walk away because you know that this person isn’t motivated enough or hasn’t been beaten up enough by the marketplace to realize how motivated they need to be. Sometimes you just have to walk away from them and then they’ll call back in the future.

Another type of seller you will encounter is the one who is always fearful. No matter what you say, they have a “what if?” What if you don’t close? What if you aren’t for real? The best thing to do here is to really address whatever their concerns are. If they say “what if you don’t close?” my response is “I always close. I am not going to get myself into a situation where I am saying I am going to buy a house if I am not going to buy it. And in fact if you look at the paperwork I am about to give you, you will notice that there are no contingencies in there. I don’t even ask you about contingencies on financing. You know how most of the time when you work with a realtor your buyer will come and say if I can’t get the financing I can get out of the deal. I don’t say that because I am going to purchase the property.” When you are dealing with a person that is coming from a place of fear, you want to be super confident. You want to avoid ifs and maybes from your conversation. Everything has to be a definitive answer.

Sometimes you will find sellers who are completely indecisive. They are either so fearful or so lost that they have no idea what to do. No matter what you offer them they will say they don’t know what to do. The worst thing you can do with a person like that is to offer them too many different solutions. You have to come up with the one solution that you think is going to be best for them. Don’t give them a whole lot of choices because they can’t decide. Then you have to tell them what to do. You could give them a choice between solution A or B, but then be sure to tell them what you think is better and why. They are looking for somebody to take on the responsibility and to make the decision for them. You have to do is guide them and that is why it is so important to be seen as a consultant or advocate, because that is what gives you that right to make that kind of a suggestion to them. Explain them why you are making this suggestion and don’t be frightened to give the seller a bump in the correct direction.