Questions to ask that determines a motivated seller?

Question

What questions can you ask a seller that makes you know they're a motivated seller?  All I can think to ask is why they're selling their property and what their financial situation is, but what else is there?  Are there any other common similarities that most motivated sellers have besides wanting to sell?

Larry Turowski · Answer

Account Closed Just start doing it and you'll refine your process.  The two most important questions are:

1) Do you have a house you are looking to sell today?  You sort of touched on this when asking why they are selling.  If they say well, you sent me this postcard, what would you offer?  They are likely not motivated.  You want to know that they really want to sell--TODAY.  Not just maybe sorta, etc.

2) What are you looking to get for the house?  Or some variation on this.  If they say something that sounds like full market value, they are likely not motivated.  Ask them follow ups to this in-between other question.  So you said, you were looking for $X, is are you negotiable on that?  More questions.  Is $Y (second answer to how much) your bottom line?  You'll get after doing these whether it is worth you time going to look at the property.  If you are just beginning, you may want to make an appointment no matter what, just for practice if nothing else.

Kyle J. · Answer

A few that come to mind are:

1)  Why do you want to sell the property?  The answer to this kind of open-ended question may provide you the information you need if you just let the seller talk.

2)  How soon do you need to sell it?  If they say something like "I don't need to sell it" or "I'm in no hurry" (or anything else that doesn't convey urgency), then they're likely not very motivated.  However, if they say something like "Yesterday!" or "As soon as possible", then you're likely dealing with a motivated seller.

3)  How much do you think your house is worth?  Followed-up by asking them how much they were hoping to sell it to you today for.  I once asked these questions to a potential seller and she told me that she thought her house was worth $400,000 (which might have been close to the ARV but the home was in need of a fair amount of repairs/upgrades).  I explained to her that I was a cash buyer and would buy the home "as is" directly from her (saving her the Realtor fee) and could close quick (she hadn't paid her property taxes in 5 years and was looking at possibly having her home auctioned off by the county).  Her response to the second question about how much she was hoping to sell it to me for (even given all of the above points I made) was $400,000.  That kind of answer showed me that she wasn't very motivated.  Now had she said something like "I'd sell it to you for $200,000 if you could buy it today", then I'd know I was likely dealing with a motivated seller.

Anyway, these are just a few ideas.  If you talk to someone long enough (and really listen to what they say to you), you can usually figure out if they're motivated or not.