"Stingy" seller to frustrated buyers: Take a hike!
Check out this mock apology from one avowedly "stingy" seller.
While my post on Boston leading the country in stingy sellers drew lots of "amens" from frustrated buyers, greblok was having none of it.
"I hereby apologize to Scott and all the countless unnamed people I've deeply offended by being a shrewd, nay stingy, seller, which is the only way I afforded a down payment on my current home. I don't know how I sleep at night because a couple from California wanted to pay about $75,000 more for my 1790 colonial than anyone else did. Or because I rejected an offer on a condo during the great recession until one came in at $54,000 more. Oh the unbearable agony of having offended so many finely tuned sensibilities."
I further apologize for being a shrewd, stingy, low-balling buyer, which was also the only way I could afford my next home. I will try to be dumber next time."
Wow, that's a great retort.
Yet equally fascinating were some of the responses it drew from the fed-up buyer camp.
In their view, greblok has committed some sort of social crime by keeping his wits and holding out for the best possible price. Our tough minded seller is supposed to be now lying awake at night, worrying about the social consequences of his actions and whether the buyer who agreed to shell out big bucks to buy his home will later wind up in foreclosure.
I guess I find that kind of criticism a stretch. After all, if you follow that logic, the government should simply start capping home prices. Now that's a plan I am sure would work wonders for our already seriously messed up real estate market.
My beef, if it can be called that, is not with stingy sellers as much as delusional sellers who come out shooting way too high with their listing price and then lower it by dribs and drabs.
It doesn't work and ends up embittering buyers already struggling with one of the country's more inflated housing markets.
