Just last week, Johnine talked a Wedgwood client out of moving. A husband and wife wanted to partner with us to sell their house and buy a new one, and we convinced them not to.
Why? Why would we turn away good business?
Because although it would have helped us, it wouldn’t have helped them.
We looked at their situation carefully. They lived in Wedgwood and liked their house. It was a good home, but they were getting bored of it. They still wanted to stay Wedgwood, and they still wanted to stay in the same approximate price range—they just wanted a different house. We estimated the couple could sell their current home for $485,000, but they only had enough savings to afford a $550,000 new home.
Now, in some housing markets, that might have been fine. But in this fierce seller’s market, where you need to fight tooth and nail to buy a house anywhere in Seattle? No, ma’am. You want more reassurance than $65,000 between selling and buying. There are a lot of variables that can crop up when you move, and when you don’t need to move, you want a big enough margin between selling and buying to protect yourself against those nasty variables.
“Sometimes,” Johnine said, “you don’t want to move.”
We told it to them straight, because our clients’ interests are our #1 priority. It means we lost out on money this time, but it also means we stayed true to our values. First and foremost, we care about our clients.
