I was watching an old episode of the Sopranos the other day (proving once again that the inspiration for a blog post can come from anywhere). Tony and Carmela were having trouble deciding whether or not to buy a beach house, when Carmela said to Tony “More is lost by indecision than wrong decision”. Naturally, this reminded me of real estate. (Do the Sopranos remind you of real estate, too, or is it just me?)

I can’t tell you how many times other agents have said to me “My clients love the house and it’s in their price range, but they don’t want to get into multiple offers. If it doesn’t sell on offer day, they’ll put an offer in the next day.” This has never made sense to me, maybe because when I was a teenager my best friend’s father told me his motto was “You see it, you like it, you buy it, because you may never see it again.” He didn’t include the words “within reason”, but they were implied. If you like a house and you can afford it, what’s holding you back? You shouldn’t be concerned about overpaying because you’re in complete control of your actions. It’s not as if someone will hold a gun to your head and force you to pay an extra $20,000. Remember, more is lost by indecision than wrong decision.

We need look no further than the sale of a home at Yonge & Lawrence just this week to illustrate Carmela’s wisdom. There were lots of buyers interested in the home. Several of them said they didn’t want to get into competition so they’d wait until after offer day to make their offer. So what happened? There were no offers on offer day, but two offers came in on the same day after offer day and the home sold for more than list price. Had one of these two buyers made their offer on offer day, they likely would have been able to buy the home for list price or less than list price. You snooze, you lose. (Is there a record for the number of colloquialisms in one blog post?)

It doesn’t matter whether you prefer the words of Carmela or my best friend’s father. You might even be more comfortable with “S/He who hesitates is lost”. The bottom line is that when you see a home that you like, and you’re sure you like it, act boldly.