Famous Last Words: 5 Things Home Buyers Say That They Often Regret

Real estate agents deal with so many different buyers. While every home buyer is different, and there isn’t a book or class that teaches them to say certain things, it’s uncanny how so many different individuals say such similar things during the course of buying a house.

What’s even more interesting is how many of the things they say end up being things they either regret, or take a 180 degree turn on over time and change their tune about…

Here are the top five “famous last words” agents often here from buyers:

1) “I know how much I can afford…”

Some buyers get annoyed when an agent asks if they’ve been pre-approved for a mortgage, and try to brush off the inquiry by saying they know they can afford the houses they want to see.

Well, unless you work in the mortgage business, the odds of you knowing exactly how much you can afford, and whether a bank will actually lend you that amount are pretty slim. Many would-be buyers have had their hopes and hearts crushed by looking at houses they couldn’t afford, because they presumed a lender would approve them for a certain amount of money, only to be wrong.

2) “I’ll never buy a (insert style of house here)…”

Buyers often tell agents they’d never consider buying a certain type of house, so don’t even bother showing them any. But even the most adamant condo critics or bungalow bashers can find themselves charmed by the very style they swore off. Keep an open mind — your dream home might be hiding behind a style you hadn’t considered.

3) “I need to sleep on it…”

Taking a night to think things over seems like a reasonable thing to do, but in a fast-paced real estate market, hesitation can mean heartbreak. If you need to “sleep on it,” perhaps make it a quick catnap, rather than a full night of slumber and sweet dreams. Otherwise, you could wake up to find the home of your dreams has already been scooped up by someone else.

4) “I don’t want to get involved in a bidding war…”

To be fair, no buyer wants to get involved in a bidding war…

However, there are some buyers who make it a point to swear to their agent that they’ll have nothing to do with a house if there are multiple offers on it. Unfortunately, if you love a house, the odds are there will be other buyers who love it too. So more often than not, a buyer who adamantly refused to join the fray of a fight when they started looking at houses, eventually finds themselves declaring war against their competitors in order to get the house they want.

5) “We can always increase our offer, but we can’t reduce it…”

Most buyers want to get a house for the best price possible, which often involves making an offer that is less than asking price. But some buyers think coming in with an unjustifiably low offer is the ticket to getting the deal of the century.

While it makes logical sense that you can always increase your offer, coming in with an absurdly low offer can work against you, and a seller may not even give you the chance to increase it if they’re insulted by your initial offer.