Todd: Hello. Welcome to Todd Miller TV. Joined here today with Oana and the subject of today’s conversation is, “Is it possible to have a real estate transaction be fun instead of just being a ton of stress the whole time?”

Oana: It is. Sometimes I think buyers feel – and sellers too, feel like a real estate transaction is a game of Twister. They have to contort themselves and do all these crazy things to make it happen. But in reality, it boils down to a couple of things.

One, who’s in your corner? Who’s on your team? How capable is your real estate agent? How capable is your lender? If they’re professionals, if they do a great job, then the transaction should be pretty smooth. Then the second part of course is how organized are you because when you’re a buyer, you have to provide all sorts of documentation to the lender in order for you to qualify for that loan. You have to provide it quickly; tax records, pay stubs, all kinds of wonderful things.

So how organized are you? So if you’re organized and you have good professionals helping you, it should be an easy process and it shouldn’t be stressful.

Todd: OK. So be organized. Have your stuff together. Work with the right people. That’s probably going to solve. Specifically since we’re on the side of actually doing all the work really, how do you think we as agents or you specifically as an agent help that other person so that they don’t get stressed?

Oana: The number one thing is setting realistic expectations.

Todd: OK.

Oana: Look, people get stressed when there’s a difference between what they expect and what actually happens.

Todd: OK.

Oana: So at the very beginning before you ever go out looking at a home, you get a checklist of what to expect and what’s required from you or if you’re selling a home. When the agent lists your property, they give you a list of what to expect throughout the transaction and really honestly, I think it’s harder on sellers because sellers actually see both their side and the buyer side.

So they have a lot of frustration because there’s a lot going on, on the buyer side, which they don’t have any control and they don’t understand.

So I think an agent who provides a lot of information, a lot of education upfront saves everybody a whole lot of heartache and makes the transaction go smoothly, close on time and everybody gets the results that they’re looking for.

Todd: Let’s talk about communication really quick. One of the things that I get a lot are people will call me and say, “There’s this agent. We’ve been talking and looking at houses and they haven’t called me back in three days. I’m tired of them,” and then they want to hire us.

Oana: OK.

Todd: OK. So how does that help, do you think, communicating on a pretty regular basis between the agent and the consumer?

Oana: Again, set up realistic expectations. Let everybody know. So if you’re the agent, let your client know, “Look, I will return your calls within so many hours,” or within a business day or whatever, so that the client understands what the expectation is.

If the client expects you to answer a voicemail or an email within 10 minutes and you’re not able to do that, then you need to make that very clear upfront. A lot of it has to do with agents asking their clients what their expectations are and then working from there rather than setting down the law.

Todd: OK. So I think the tone is that it will be fun as long as it’s not stressful.

Oana: Right.

Todd: OK.

Oana: Right. And you can avoid most of the stress if you have realistic expectations that everybody enters into willingly at the beginning of the process.

Todd: OK, good. Well, thanks.

Oana: You’re welcome.

Todd: So there you go. I knew she would have an answer. So it can be fun and certainly not stressful if you just follow simple rules and thought I would share that with you. That’s my update for today and hope to see you in another video. Thanks.