As a listing agent, you’ve heard that buyer feedback is important. But, unless you know how to find the gold in those comments, not even real estate showing software can help you. You need to know how to find the gold in the comments that you get.
Buyer Feedback Can Be Hard to Get
Buyers’ agents who have spent a day showing clients a range of homes have other things on their minds besides providing the listing agents of each of those homes notes about what they observed, or the comments made by their clients.
Therefore, the first thing you need to do is find a way to make providing feedback to you so easy, the buyer agents will provide it. That’s where you need to have an email survey with well thought out real estate showing questions that is easy for the buyer agents to fill in and send back to you.
But, even if you get the feedback, you will probably find that it’s in code. The buyer agents don’t do that on purpose to confuse you – they’re actually trying to be kind. Since feedback is so important, you shouldn’t ignore it – learn to interpret it. And, learn how to explain the feedback to your sellers to help get the house sold.
The Big Three
Any type of feedback from buyers is important, but feedback on these three things will do the most in helping you to get the listing sold: price, condition and location. The reason why feedback comes to a listing agent in code is because no one wants to tell you straight out that your listing is overpriced or falling apart. Therefore, they will provide you with clues that you need to interpret. Here are some examples.
What does it mean when they say things like:
- The furnace is very old.
- The carpet is very worn.
- There’s too much wallpaper.
- A lot of painting needs to be done.
These types of remarks can be taken two ways. The buyers are seeing a number of updates they would want to make immediately, and they think the price of the home is too high given all the work that would be required. It could also be that the buyers are objecting to the condition of the home because they don’t want to take on a home with built-in projects.
In this situation, as a listing agent, you have three choices. You can wait for a buyer that doesn’t fit into either of those two categories. You can work with your buyer to reduce the listing price, or you can get the buyer to update the house themselves to justify the price.
What does it mean when they say things like:
- The buyers are looking for an open floor plan.
- The buyers thought the rooms would be larger.
- The buyers thought the yard was bigger.
Comments like those should trigger you to take a second look at your listing photos. Was a wide-angle lens used, which is making the rooms look larger than they are? Do the photos include one that is from a specific angle that makes it look like the family room and the kitchen are all in one big space? Was the photo of the yard taken to highlight the open space behind the home without showing the fence on the actual property line?
If there’s anything in the photos or the listing description that could mislead a buyer, it’s best to correct that situation. There’s no benefit from having many showings to people who won’t like the house, and it can be disheartening to the seller.
What does it mean when they say things like:
- The house is too close to the interstate.
- The house is on a very busy street.
- The house is so close to the school playground.
These are easy to spot as location issues. Try to find a way to address the issues in the listing comments. It would be better to let buyers know about things you can’t change like the location, rather than being surprised when they visit the house.
Take Buyer Feedback Seriously
It’s important to look for trends in the comments you get. One comment about wallpaper shouldn’t set off alarms, but if you see trends in the comments, it’s a pretty sure bet that there’s an issue. Your sellers may not be excited to learn of the issues, but they should appreciate that addressing them will help them reach their goals.
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