Greed is Good
When Michael Douglas as Gordon Gecko in the 1980s film, Wall Street, said, "Greed is good" it seemed a rather shocking statement. Well, greed is rather good in property. Greed – or to put it more gently, ambition - fires the market. It is people’s ambition, however humble or grand, that makes them seek new homes for themselves, their families, their jobs and their lifestyles.
Ambition also maintains the status quo. The ambition of a purchaser to buy a property for as little as possible keeps in check the ambition for a seller to achieve as much as possible. In this respect greed works because it forces realism into the market and provides a platform for deals that are acceptable to all sides - albeit sometimes grudgingly.
The trouble comes when one side is more ambitious than the other – a little too greedy than is good. Greed tempered by reason is one thing. Blind greed is quite another. An unrealistic offer is as useless as an exorbitant asking price. Both get nowhere.
If a purchaser makes a reasonable offer, and a reasonable seller accepts it, both will achieve their ambitions – even in this market and despite what else is going on in the world. That is the point.
On the face of it an estate agent’s job is to sell property. In reality it is to manage the expectations and ambitions of buyers and sellers - reasonable or otherwise - to achieve agreeable results for both sides. After all without that no one is going anywhere - however ambitious he or she is!