Real Estate Round-Up: Lots of little things lead to success

Success is noun that means the accomplishment of an aim or purpose as in “the president had some success in restoring confidence.” It’s synonyms include favorable outcome, successfulness, favorable result, successful outcome, positive result, victory and triumph. The antonym of success is failure.

Everyone defines what “success” looks like individually. For some people, it’s the number of zeros in their bank account. For some people, it’s the title they achieve in their career. For some people, it’s a life that has been fulfilling. For some people, it’s a life that’s been able to be generous so that others can have success.

Everyone is motivated by something and have attitudes that sway how they respond. People have integrity to various degrees, but probably in their mind’s eye, everyone has it. Much like integrity, they take responsibility to a greater or lesser degree for their actions and the results that come from those actions. But in the end, all those characteristics will impact their success.

In real estate, just like life, success can be measured in many ways. For some clients, success is negotiating the best price for themselves. Price is a funny thing. It is a moving target. It is not mutually exclusive to outside forces. If the market tanks because of economic collapse like people saw in 2006, prices drop. If institutional instruments are created to spur the monetary market on, like in 2002, prices run a steep uphill climb.

Defining success solely by the price achieved can be disappointing or exhilarating, depending on the outside influences at that moment.

Success might also be measured by finding the perfect home. If finding the perfect home defines success, the journey to find the home becomes part of the success. Moving from a small home in a track neighborhood to a spacious home on more land is success. Downsizing to fit a new lifestyle is also success.

Looking at many homes leading up to finding that perfect new home is part of the success. It’s kind of like what my mother used to say, “You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince.” It’s the same with houses. Sometimes, you must look at a few homes before you find the one that has your name on it.

Success in its purest form, to me, is having a transaction where the parties on both sides do what they agreed they would do, at the time they agreed they would do them and in the way that they agreed they would do it.

For example, if the seller agrees to have all disclosures to the buyer by Day Seven, have them to the buyer no later than Day Seven. Day Four would be better, but definitely not Day Eight. If the buyer agrees to have all their inspections done by Day 17, then don’t wait until Day 16 to do your inspection, which will delay your being able to request repairs, get that negotiated and still be in by Day 17.

Do your inspections as soon as possible. Give yourself some breathing room, so if you need to have a subsequent inspection you are still within the 17 days.

Success in a transaction can be absolutely perfect up until the end, when it’s the lenders turn to get final approval on a loan and submit the “Closing Disclosure” to the buyer. That disclosure requires that the buyer cannot sign loan docs for three days after the day the CD was received.

So, if the close of escrow is a Friday, the CD must be out no later than the previous Monday, so the buyer can sign loan docs Thursday, with the loan funding Friday. Even that timeline sounds a little crazy, with my success barometer going down, but it can work. The preceding Friday would be better, allowing for some cushion and some positive success vibes coming everyone’s way.

A successful transaction can quickly flip to an unsuccessful one if there is stress at the time of closing.

My least favorite success killer is occupancy date. We always negotiate some rent back for the sellers. We believe that sellers should not have to move out of their home until they know the escrow is closed, and 99% of the time, the seller and buyer honor the timeline agreed to.

My office, however, had one last year, where the seller, despite being 100% out of her home, was having an emotionally difficult time leaving her home. She had until 6 p.m. to be out, and by golly, she was going to stay there until 6 p.m.

The only problem was the buyers didn’t want to honor their side of that agreement. Because they were trying to handle all their moving by themselves, thereby having to make multiple trips from their current home to their new home, they wanted to begin arriving earlier than 6 p.m. They, too, had a 6 p.m. deadline to be out of their current home. You can see the problem here, right?

You can’t both be out of your home at 6 p.m. and arrive at your new home at 6 p.m. if you’re doing it all yourself. A moving company could accomplish that mission. They would have the family packed up before 6 p.m. and drive to the new home, so you would arrive no earlier than 6 p.m. But there were no movers in this scenario.

This transaction was heavy on the success meter up until this snafu. The seller achieved their success when they received the price they wanted. The buyer received their success when they purchased their dream home. When the buyer showed up two hours early, however, and told the seller that we told them they could move in when in fact we had told them they could not, both of those successes were overshadowed by this one last bad decision.

Needless to say, the motivation, attitude, integrity and responsibility had gone array and success, the kind of success I believe really counts, went down the drain.

A lot of little things add up to success. For some it’s money; for some it’s finding the perfect home and for me it’s the beauty of the process. Here’s to your success and may the process always allow you to enjoy the journey and the end result.

Kim Murphy can be reached at [email protected] or 760-415-9292 or at 130 N. Main Ave., in Fallbrook. Her broker license is #01229921, and she is on the board of directors for the California Association of Realtors.