Multiple Offers After Months of Listing

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Over the years of being in the real estate business, there are 2 things that drive me crazy.  The first is the fact that every time you try to schedule a vacation, activity goes up 10 fold.  Literally you could have almost nothing going on for days, weeks, or even months, and suddenly you schedule a vacation and clients are coming out of the woodwork.  The second is the phenomena where a house will sit on the market for weeks or months with no offers then suddenly there are multiple offers inside of 24-48 hours.

I still haven't been able to explain why either of these things happen, but I have a hypothesis on the second one.  Most of the time when I call to schedule an appointment to get a client into a house my first question is, 'Is the home still available?'  That's fairly logical right?   Under most circumstances the other agent says yes and invites me to show the home to my clients.  However if the other agent makes me aware that the home is available, but there is another offer coming in or already in, then I will keep the home on the list and make my clients aware of the situation.  At this point I think 1 of 2 things happens.  First, I believe it might be the spirit of competition that gets people going.  They don't want to lose out on this home to someone else.  Also, the thought that 'if someone else is willing to make an offer on this home, it must be worth while' seems to plant itself in people's heads. 

Secondly, there is a general thought out there that homes are sitting so you can take a long as you want to make a decision.  Once a client misses out on a house, or starts seeing that homes really are moving, the urgency steps up a notch.  Suddenly, they don't want to miss out on this opportunity.  Either way, it still never ceases to amaze me how it works out.  Maybe one of these days I'll have the magic answer, but until then, I'll just continue to speculate and be driven crazy.