Your House Is Lovely!" and Other Lies: A Seller's Guide to Decoding Buyer Feedback
The Theater of Home Showings
You've spent weeks preparing your home for sale. You've decluttered, deep-cleaned, and perhaps even hired a professional stager who charged you the equivalent of a small car to rearrange the furniture you already owned. Now the parade of potential buyers begins, and with it comes the most confusing part of selling a home: feedback.
The Classic Lines We All Hear
"This is a very nice home!" (Translation: I will never set foot in this place again)
"You're definitely in our top three!" (Translation: We've only seen two houses)
"We love the kitchen renovation!" (Translation: But we're going to point out your lack of pot filler as justification for offering $50,000 less)
When Reality Doesn't Matter
Perhaps the most maddening feedback comes when buyers seem to have toured an entirely different property than the one you're selling:
Buyer: "We really need four bedrooms."
Your inner voice: "The listing clearly says three bedrooms. Did you think I was hiding an extra room somewhere?"
Buyer: "The backyard is too small for our needs."
Your inner voice: "There were six aerial photos showing the exact dimensions. Did you think the camera was using a shrink ray?"
Buyer: "There's a pet smell."
Your inner voice: "I've never owned pets. That's probably the $75 'Fresh Linen' candle my agent insisted I buy."
Why We Still Ask For Feedback (Even Though It's Mostly Useless)
Here's the funny part: Despite knowing that most feedback is just polite noise, we still crave it. We still ask our agents, "What did they think?" with the desperate hope that someone, somewhere, truly appreciates our tasteful choice of bathroom fixtures.
We do this because selling a home is deeply personal. Even as we intellectually understand it's a business transaction, emotionally we're still seeking validation that our home—our sanctuary, our biggest investment, the place where we've lived our lives—is worthy.
The Only Feedback That Actually Matters
After all the compliments, criticisms, and bizarre observations that make you question if some buyers have functioning sensory organs, there's only one piece of feedback that counts: an offer.
Not "We'll get back to you." Not "We need to think about it." Not "We're very interested."
An actual, written offer with a dollar amount attached.
A Note to Home Shoppers: Remember There's a Human on the Other Side
If you're currently shopping for a home, consider this gentle reminder: Behind every showing is a seller who has disrupted their life, shooed their children to grandma's house, hidden their personal belongings, and perhaps spent the afternoon driving around with a restless dog in the backseat—all so you could walk through their space.
A simple "Thank you for making the time for us to tour your home. I know it's inconvenient and disruptive to your life" goes a long way. Even if the house isn't right for you, acknowledging the human element costs nothing and means everything.
Remember how it felt (or will feel) when you're the one on the selling end. A moment of empathy creates good karma in the real estate universe.
How to Preserve Your Sanity
Expect the strange comments and mentally prepare for them
Remember that most feedback is just buyers processing their thoughts out loud
Focus on the things you can control (cleanliness, staging, price)
Trust your agent to filter the useful feedback from the noise
Keep your eye on the prize: selling your home, not winning a popularity contest
The Final Truth
At the end of this emotional rollercoaster, remember: You don't need everyone to love your house. You just need one buyer to love it enough to purchase it. Everyone else's opinion—whether they think your perfectly normal-sized bedrooms are "cozy" or they're shocked your three-bedroom isn't magically a four-bedroom—is just conversational confetti.
And years from now, when you're happily settled in your new home, you won't remember the bizarre feedback—only the offer that finally came through and made it all worthwhile.
