If you’re currently selling your Orlando home, you should be aware of the different types of buyers you can expect to be dealing with. An experienced Orlando listing agent can be extremely valuable to you in detecting what buyers are for real and worth negotiating with and which ones are just out to waste your time and stress you out. Buyers will typically fall into one of the following categories listed below.
Dream home buyers
These are buyers that are looking for their dream home with plans of living there for the rest of their lives. These buyers are more concerned with the quality of the schools in the area, the crime rate, and neighborhood amenities rather than the price. Dream home buyers have no problem paying full price but the home must be move-in ready and the neighborhood must meet their family’s needs.
Fair price buyers
This category of buyers isn’t concerned with finding a home to raise a family because they are either single or married with no kids and may even be retired. With no kids to worry about, they don’t care about good schools or youth sports programs. No… these buyers are just looking for a good deal on a great home. A few minor repairs aren’t usually a deal killer as long as the price makes sense. They won’t pay full price but they will pay a fair price.
Bargain hunters
Bargain hunters are usually investors looking for their next re-hab project to either flip or rent out. If your home is in decent shape and is priced accurately, you probably won’t even be approached by any investors. Bargain hunters typically target fixer-uppers because they know that’s usually where the best deals can be found.
Buyers with contingencies
Sometimes you will encounter a buyer that absolutely loves your house and wants to give you the full asking amount, there’s only one catch… They have to sell their house first before they can afford to buy your house. Your first reaction may be to immediately dismiss this buyer as being a waste of your time, but wait… this may be your buyer.
As an Orlando Realtor, I’ve been able to make several of these deals go through. It’s perfectly fine to accept an offer like this as long as there’s a “kick-out-clause” in the contract. This clause allows the seller to continue to keep the house on the market while the buyer sells theirs. If the seller receives another offer that they would like to accept, they just have to inform the original buyer. Then the original buyer would have a period of time [usually 3 days] to either close on the property or cancel the contract.
Bully Buyers
This type of buyer will find something wrong with your house before they even get out of their car. They will immediately start picking the house apart by claiming that everything is wrong and needs to be fixed even when it really doesn’t. Bully buyers use this technique with the intention of beating you up on the price and are an absolute nightmare to deal with. My suggestion is to stay clear of this type of buyer, you’ll be glad you did.
Phantom Buyers
Sometimes you may encounter a buyer who claims to live out of state, but they want to buy you house just from seeing the photos. Although this may be true sometimes, it can also mean that the buyer just wants to tie your house up so they can buy some time and look for an exit strategy. Don’t even consider an offer like this unless you’re able to collect a substantial and non-refundable deposit from them.
As you can see from this article, there are many things to be aware of when dealing with potential buyers for your house. Selling a home will be one of the most important decisions of your lifetime. If you need help or just some friendly advice about buying or selling a home in Orlando, feel free to call me at 407-902-7750. I’m happy to help!
