Try Not To Take It Personally If Your House Doesn’t Sell Fast

A friend of mine is about to put his home on the market. I hope his self-esteem is intact. You don’t want to sell a house if yours isn’t.

I learned this a few years ago when I figured it was time to cash in and move up. That’s how many people were raised to think: Making money on your house is a given. This is America.

So I began with high hopes. I ended up feeling like the mother in Tennessee Williams’s “The Glass Menagerie.” I spent months not living, but waiting for gentlemen callers.

In the play, the mother tells her withdrawn daughter, Laura, that gentlemen callers are the answer to everything. Toward the end, the son has an old friend over. The mother insists the daughter get prettied up to receive him, then both women are devastated when it turns out the guy is engaged.

How neurotic, I thought when I saw the play. What kind of person lives or dies by the reaction of the first suitor to come by?

A person selling his house, that’s who.

Our first gentleman caller came days after we’d listed the house. Of course, there was no offer; everyone knows it’s rare to get one from the initial prospect.

Except sellers. I thought like the mother in “The Glass Menagerie.” How dare they? The house isn’t good enough for them? What did we do wrong?

In part, I thought this way because we’d gotten the house as prettied up as it had ever been, cleaning and repairing things we’d neglected for years. That’s another discussion: Why do some people postpone fixing their house the way they want it until they’re about to leave?

One reason my self-esteem got caught up in the process was that even though I did little to decorate the house, I’d grown to see it as a reflection of who I was. Reject my house, reject me.

With each gentleman caller, I became more and more like the mother in the play. I began to overdo it. Oh, hello, thanks for coming, great neighborhood isn’t it, playground at the corner, knew we loved this house the moment we saw it, perfect house, hate to leave it, did I mention the new wallpaper we just put up?

Soon, the real-estate agent told me it would be best if I weren’t there when prospects came by.

Rebuffs take a toll

After a few weeks and a dozen uninterested lookers, we brought down the price. I have a theory that price lowerings are a gauge of how the sellers are feeling about themselves. On the surface, it may be a business decision; deep down, the rebuffs are taking a toll. I thought: “I guess this is all I deserve.”

But that was subconscious. I dealt with it through anger - at the gentlemen callers.

Once, we were driving home and spotted some buyers standing outside with the real-estate agent. We eyeballed them as we continued by. They sure seem nice, I said. Lovely couple. Nice looking. Probably with great taste. I felt honored such classy looking types would show interest.

They didn’t make an offer. I told my wife I knew they were bums the moment I saw them.

The house was on the market for six months. One reason was that, having forgotten this was no longer the 1980s, I priced it too high.the time I adjusted it, we had slipped into that real-estate no-man’s land called “Stale on the market.”

That is what the mother in the play feared was happening to her daughter. The mother’s anxiety, of course, made the daughter see herself the same way - stale. Too bad, I thought when I saw the play. But what kind of person would let others define the way they see themselves?

A person selling his house.

Lessons learned

It’s true what I said a moment ago about loving the house the moment I saw it, but eventually I began to forget even that. Gee, I thought, maybe the place is a dump?

I wondered: Would my suitor ever come?

At last, one did.

I learned two things. Both have to do with feeling good about yourself no matter how the deal shakes down.

Don’t count on making money on your house.

Or on gentlemen callers for your morale.