Quote by Winston Churchill October 29, 1941 Several days ago a buyer customer of mine and the seller of a lake home came to an agreement on terms for a purchase contract. It took 41 days and 7 counter-offers following the initial offer to purchase for the buyer and seller to reach a meeting of minds. The last few days became quite frenetic (especially for the listing agent) as two other offers for the same property materialized. But all is well that ends well -- and it did end well, as it was my customer that had his counter-offer accepted. Buyer happy, seller happy, agents happy -- it was a good day. I learned something during that 6 week process. I probably shouldn't admit this, but as the initial positions of my buyer and the seller were far apart, I wasn't at all confident that we could put this deal together. I would love to be able to illustrate this better with terms and numbers, but as these matters are confidential I can't do so -- let's just say that I felt that I had good reasons to not be a believer. Don't misunderstand me -- I was certainly trying to do everything I could think of to bring buyer and seller to agreement; I just didn't have any expectation that it would work out. But I was wrong! Thanks to some astute moves by my buyer, a willingness by the sellers to be wonderfully flexible, and a great effort by the listing agent, it all came together. At some point during the last few days I realized that I was starting to believe myself -- I was starting to think that maybe, just maybe, this might work after all! And ultimately, it did. |