Sound Off: What’s something about the buying or selling process that clients tend to overlook?

Q: “What’s something about the buying or selling process that clients tend to overlook?”

A: Ironically, my husband and I are in the middle of purchasing a small cabin, so I’m intimately familiar with the process. While my first instinct is to say that buyers and sellers tend to overlook the closing costs associated with buying or selling—transfer and prorated property taxes, escrow and loan-origination fees, moving costs, etc.—what I know to be true, is that they underestimate the emotional toll that such a highly-charged undertaking exacts.

Selling or buying one’s most valuable asset is challenging at best, especially in a marketplace where multiple offers often lead to greed, loss, and increased anxiety. If you can stay cool, flexible, and fair throughout the process, you are likely to have a much easier journey, not to mention a more positive outcome.

Julie Gardner, Compass, 510-326-0840, julie@juliegardner.com.

A: How long it can take? I have found that--particularly in the pandemic when we’re ordering food to go, ordering clothes online, scheduling Zoom calls back-to-back—that actually the sales process is something that still has to happen in-person and can take a surprising amount of time.

Since a lot of sellers and buyers right now are also making more snap decisions about whether it’s time to move (they’re fed up with the space they have, or the fire danger, or whatever it may be), they can be frustrated that it can take awhile to make the actual move to a new home.

It takes longer to get to know the market now, longer to schedule property preparation for listings and longer to get pre-approved. Add to that heightened competition and the buying process can take a lot more time than...