“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

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The ‘Home Front’
Without being overly dramatic, it’s helpful to realize that as a homeseller, you are in a ‘war’ of sorts. Outright battle? Definitely not. And for anyone selling a home, it clearly helps to maintain a sense of politeness and grace when dealing with potential homebuyers. But we’re about to look at the process of homeselling using the metaphor of homeselling as ‘war.’

Why would the concept of ‘war’ be appropriate for homeselling? To start, homesellers and homebuyers do not have identical goals. In fact, similar to armed conflict, they frequently have goals at direct odds with one another. You can call such business interaction ‘give and take,’ or ‘financial combat,’ or real estate ‘tug-o-war.’ Rather than use swords or heavy artillery, the tools used can be more subtle. Here, metaphorical weapons might include home inspectors, attorneys and a ‘take no prisoners’ attitude. The point is that there is sometimes conflict in a home sale. But as with any good book or movie, sometimes it’s conflict that keeps things interesting and moves the plot forward, while underscoring the value of what is being contested.

So on many levels, the process of homeselling includes engagement with buyers who are naturally at odds with some of your desires as a homeseller. Acknowledging this fact will help you to maintain reasonable expectations throughout the transaction. If that becomes difficult, then simply remember that you were once a homebuyer, too.