Home buyers and how to use bad weather to your advantage

As we are climbing out of weather whoa’s that winter leaves us…finally it again teaches us lessons of how to turn obstacles into opportunities.  Snow is falling as I write this post and I thought about times when selling homes during ice storms or hurricanes put numbers on the board that others missed because they saw the same issues in different ways. It was during an ice storm in the 90’s that the government shut its doors for days and the mid Atlantic (where I live) was practically brought into the ice age for over a week. I knew that by hitting the phones hard I could benefit from two things that most of my contemporaries wouldn’t:

1. My computer still worked
2. Everyone was at home

By taking the time to catch up on all of my old leads that I had not had either the time or opportunity to try to bring back into the loop I was able to pick up several additional buyers. One buyer was so interested and had been working on her credit. I remember her so well because she had a big four-wheel drive truck and was interested in a particular home that had just come on the foreclosure market. Because I still had computer connection I was able to find the house.

I offered to show her the house but informed her that she would have to pick me up as my car couldn’t handle the road conditions. As you would have guessed, she bought the house which was covered in snow and ice. We were going to do a home inspection anyway so she was not concerned and I didn’t make a big deal out of it. Instead I acted like buying a home covered in the white powder of  dead deals was common. In fact the snow allowed our offer to be the solo offer and therefore…we won!!!

I don’t tell that story to boast about my sales skills but instead to communicate the opportunity that was provided to me. Getting out of the house and away from the kids was no small part of the equation. Other buyers were just happy to be talking to someone who was outside of their home (like me) and they were very willing to discuss their situations and what they wanted to and if I could meet their needs. Now a days I love bad weather; In fact the worse the better and the more readily I am received.

I am going to go out and shovel my drive way to get my Jeep out now.