Six House Hunting Pitfalls, Part Two

From Trulia:

Sometimes, house hunting failures are at the fault of the agent or market; other times, its buyers who unknowingly sabotage their search.? Pay attention to these pitfalls in this three part series: part one of the series can be found here.? To find out the final pitfalls and how you can keep from falling victim to them, see part three of the series, which will be posted next Monday.

3. Fixating on price per square foot.

Buyers who search by price per square foot may be prime for some major disappointment.

What Agents Can Do:
King suggests reiterating to clients that if they are using this as one of their search criteria, they might want to think again. Measurements, as agents know, are not guaranteed to be accurate, and mis-measurements can place appropriately priced homes outside of a client?s search parameters.

4. Desperation.

When prices are on the rise, buyers get antsy and sellers get greedy. ?Many buyers have been outbid on numerous properties and have just become tired of looking,? says Sweeney. ?As a result, they are placing ridiculously high offers on properties that just aren?t worth it?just to get into a home this minute.?

What Agents Can Do:
Tell buyers to avoid the temptation and work with them to build up a backup plan. Suggest neighborhood or areas that may actually have the right home at the right price that the buyer potentially crossed-off the list due to superficial reasons. Make it a gentle conversation. ?Why don?t we just spend an afternoon looking at a few properties to see what?s out there? You don?t have to commit to changing your home search, and you?re not tied into anything. This is just a little bit of an exploration.? And, if all else fails, recommend short-term or corporate rentals options, so they?ll have a soft place to land while they wait for their dream home to appear on the market. When that happens, you?ll be the agent they come running back to.