bostonbubble.com

[paperboy]

I read plenty of real estate ads and the line that I find the most annoying is the "Motivated Seller". If you did not want to sell the house then why put it on the market? If you are truly motivated to sell the house, then why did you price it $75K above the assessed value? In all fairness some folks actually price below assessed when they use this phrase.

Or does motivated seller mean "I bit off more than I can chew?", "I can't make my payment?", " My mortgage is higher than the value of my house and would like to stop the blood letting?"

If realtors have to pay by the word (in print at least) why add a line to the advertisement which shows weakness for the seller?

If I am buying a house I do not care how motivated the seller is, I will offer what I can offer, if they are motivated then they will take the offer, if not they will refuse the offer and wait some more.

[john p]

Some people who are selling their place to trade to another or people that have a "make me move" price are often those that say to themselves, if I can get x for my house, I know I can find a better deal in a trade.

In a mixed market some sell hope to sell their house at their asking and want to trade into something that they can get a steal on. These people hold firm on their house prices because if they can't get what they want they don't really need to move. They're just on a fishing expedition.

A seller that isn't serious, doesn't have to move, and won't give you a decent deal isn't a "motivated seller".

A motivated seller might be someone that is being transferred, someone that has moved out of the place being sold, someone that is upside down or a foreclose property.

These motivated sellers might advertise that they are motivated because you'd find out real quick on your own that they are, i.e. you go to see the house and it is empty... So why not advertise it to get traffic and attention. The sellers that are dreaming might be hard to deal with so why would a buyer want to deal with that right?