Patience is Your Best Tool in a Real Estate Transaction

By Joel Persinger
YourRealEstateDude.com

The one trait which causes more trouble in a real estate transaction than any other human trait is that of impatience. Over the years I have seen many clients, both buyers and sellers, shoot themselves in the feet simply because they could not be patient. Some unforeseen little thing causes escrow to be late in closing and the next thing you know the buyer or the seller gets his knickers in a knot and the entire transaction, on which everyone has worked tirelessly for weeks or even months, starts to fall apart.

Pitching a fit over little things is a common practice among real estate buyers and sellers. In fact, this type of childish behavior is one of the greatest contributors to the failure of real estate professionals to communicate properly with their clients. Most of us don’t like being yelled at. If we know that a client is prone to throwing fits, we naturally tend to avoid sharing bad or even potentially bad news with that client. Of course, this only postpones the inevitable. The news eventually must be shared and the resulting explosion of attitude on the part of the client often has the effect of killing an otherwise healthy transaction.

To make matters worse, some real estate agents are just as guilty of losing their patience. In the almost twenty years since I began my practice of real estate I have seen more real estate “professionals” throw the equivalent of kicking and screaming fits then my wife has seen among children in her almost twenty years as an elementary school teacher. Some agents have actually adopted, “I’m going to scream and yell and throw an obnoxious fit” as their main style of negotiating. This approach is both unprofessional and unproductive.

In today’s market, which is flooded with foreclosure and pre-foreclosure properties, impatience can be even more deadly to a real estate deal than ever before. Because a great many of the properties currently being sold require the approval of the lender involved, buyers are being forced to deal with large institutional bureaucracies rather than with individual sellers. Negotiating with the loss mitigation department of a national or international banking firm can be somewhat like trying to get a quick, favorable and accurate response from your least favorite branch of the government. Such negotiations require herculean efforts, flexibility, a multitude or repeated attempts and yes, plenty of patience.

When a client understands the ups and downs of the process and can exercise patience the transaction goes much more smoothly and the chances of successfully closing escrow are greatly increased. This is in no small part due to the fact that the Realtor is then able to focus on getting the job done rather than acting as arbiter, counselor, psychologist and whipping post while trying at the same time to negotiate a favorable outcome. So remember, patience is not only a virtue it is also the best tool you can employ to increase your chances of success in a real estate transaction. When challenges arise, as they most certainly will, take a deep breath, count to ten, think about what I’ve written here and be patient.