Prop-tech companies overlook crucial nuances; here’s just one example.
Here’s a point that will likely make me unpopular with the general public but is nonetheless an important one to understand: The vast majority of buyers and sellers are completely unreasonable with their expectations.
Buyers want a fire sale, and sellers want the moon. There are just some things that can only be performed by veteran agents who have successfully negotiated hundreds of transactions. Agents perform a special function, much like our body’s cartilage, which prevents painful bone-on-bone injuries. Truthfully, Realtors are often the necessary buffer between two very unreasonable parties. Remove the buffer, and you can end up with major carnage.
When a buyer wants to make a totally insulting offer, it’s the agent that tempers their expectations and gets them thinking straight again. On the flip side, when a seller receives a lowball offer, their knee-jerk reaction is to tell that buyer to go fly a kite (that is, of course, putting it very nicely); they’re hoppin’ mad, and egos are on full display.
Enter the agent, who once again tempers expectations and brings their seller back to a rational standpoint so that the deal can proceed. These situations don’t just come up during price negotiations, as any agent will tell you that most deals that actually closed died a few times along the way.
Something is bound to come up in a deal, be it during the inspection, appraisal, price negotiations, or otherwise. When it does, you’ll want to have an agent who’s seen it all and is mutually incentivized to prevent the deal from going off the rails. This vital cartilage piece is something that I think all prop-tech companies fail to understand because they themselves are not agents; they’re only thinking transactionally, but they completely forget about the psychology of real estate.
If you have questions or comments about what it means to be the “cartilage” of a transaction, just give me a call or send an email my way. I’d love to chat with you.
