Powerful Question You Can Ask a Homeowner Selling His Home - Contributed by Dave Dinkel

Getting a homeowner to sell his home to a real estate investor can be a formidable task or it can be very simple if you learn some prospect qualifying techniques. The investor has to fulfill a specific need or provide a solution to a problem that a realtor can't supply by simply listing the home on the MLS and waiting for the property to be sold. One of the biggest needs that investors fulfill is a speedy purchase and a cash closing. However, most investors get frustrated by homeowners who can't seem to make their mind up quickly about selling, but there is a simple solution.

The ability of a homeowner to make a decision quickly is determined by whether he is motivated and needs to sell his home and, ideally, has some type of time limit imposed by an outside force. These outside forces include probate, pending death, foreclosure, divorce and a legal action to mention just a few. When investors are prospecting for homeowners selling their properties they should ask a series of questions about the sales features of the property and to determine if the homeowner is truly motivated to sell or is just price shopping.

Often the homeowner will say they want to sell "yesterday" but in the next breath, they are asking for an unreasonable price. Unreasonable for investors is any price where the investor cannot wholesale the property quickly with no market risk. The fact is that if the homeowner wants to sell at his price but doesn't need to sell, he isn't truly motivated.

What investors need are homeowners who have to sell their properties and better yet, by a specific date in the future. These homeowners are motivated; the others are mostly shopping and are not truly ready to accept a solution that is solely dependent on a sky-high price. One of the best ways to determine a seller's motivation is to simply ask the most powerful qualifying question, "Why are you selling?"

This single question is so important because the seller will usually tell you the truth to gain your empathy for his having to sell. You can then establish a timeline for him to move out and you now know you are working with someone who needs to sell their home, not just a shopper. Shoppers will eventually become motivated sellers but it can take time, sometimes even years. Persistence in following-up will often get the deals that seemed impossible when you first approached the seller.

Just because a seller says no once, twice or even three times or more doesn't mean he won't sell at a price where you can make a profit, it simply means he isn't ready just yet. Some of the largest deals we have had, with profits exceeding $100,000 on single family homes in the price range of less than $125,000 have come months and months after we originally made a proposal to the seller.

Besides screening the seller for his motivation level, persistence is going back to the seller time and time again and not taking a "no" for an answer. Pre-screening the sellers with the powerful qualifying question of, "Why are you selling?", is the key to saving you time and money and to making larger profits in real estate investing.