After 37 years in the real estate business, I have decided to form a band, perhaps rock ’n’ roll, maybe hip-hop.

My band will be called Mint2B for that phrase I’ve heard a couple of times a week for all these years, a phrase that allows humanity to explain away anything, especially as it pertains to real estate.

So what if the house is listed for $795,000 and there were 80 people at the open house? At $195 per square foot this property is priced under the market. So what if we have been looking for this house for two years and it is priced even lower than our ceiling? It has everything. Let’s offer $599,999. On a $795,000 house? Seriously?

Of course, if they would go $600,000, it would look better psychologically. But they have psychological pricing backward. When pushed to go higher, citing the market conditions of low inventory and gazillions of buyers, the answer is “If we don’t get it, it wasn’t meant to be.”

For their children’s sake, it is a good thing they do not carry the philosophy in all walks of life. Can you imagine how the grocery store managers would feel if someone came through the checkout line with food priced at $799 and said they would only pay $599.99?

If the cashier or management balked, the buyers give a little shrug and say “It wasn’t meant to be”.

My band Mint2B will have songs like “What did they Pay for It,” “They Will Take Less,” “I’m Gonna Sleep On It,” “Your Feet Seem Off,” and “No Way You’re worth That Much.”

Bonus tracks will feature an all-star Realtor band singing “We Tried to Tell You” and “You’ll Like Our Hotels.”

Mint2B’s big hit will be a remake of Abba’s “Take a Chance On Me” sung from the perspective of the home.

Sale of the Week

The Greater Nashville Association of Realtors honored its own Saturday evening with its annual Awards of Excellence gala. A crowd of over 750 Realtors, bankers, title company workers and guests packed the Omni hotel.

Among those honored was LuAnn Reid who received her 10th consecutive Award of Excellence, and it is worth remembering that some of those 10 years included the Great Recession.

Before she became an award-winning Realtor, LuAnn enjoyed success as a songwriter and had a big Kenny Chesney hit with “On the Coast of Somewhere Beautiful,” a song that was a bonus track on his greatest hits album and that he sang on the late night television shows.

With the closing of her primary residence located at 216 54th Avenue North, Reid has topped the charts once again as she commanded $347 per square foot and is most likely headed to that coast she and her co-writers created.

In 2002, she bought the home for $153,000, which, coincidentally, was the year that Chesney released his “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem” album that included her tune.

In her description of the home, she left her imagination behind, stuck with the facts and planted a few seeds for potential buyers: “Golf Course/Greenway View” and “I babied this house since 2002.”

And baby she has, adding a new HVAC in 2012, a new roof in 2011, new water heater in 2009 and windows in 2009.

Along with the house is a detached structure Luann described as a ‘Creative Cottage,” and she rented the house for years, long before the airbnb craze.

As is so often the case these days, a story accompanies the transaction.

So many times during the passion-packed, emotional process, Realtors adopt the personalities of their clients. That’s bad. Clients hire Realtors based on the Realtors’ expertise and experience, not to become a bobble-head parrot with a card that unlocks houses.

With the price set at $429,000, admittedly the highest price per square foot out there, Luann’s home was swarmed with buyers coming and going and Realtors asking if it was sold yet, requesting disclosures and threatening offers.

One agent submitted an offer of $410,000 in the middle of the fray and then decided to “represent” her client by debating LuAnn on the price.

She scolded LuAnn, saying her client was a “serious businessman,” and added that neither the serious businessman nor his serious agent could make sense of the price.

This happens with great regularity as I suppose some agents are intimidated by serious businessmen. Meanwhile, the serious businessmen are looking to them for advice. In this market, throw comps out the window and make the contract contingent on the appraisal. Appraisers are serious.

The best advice for the serious businessman comes from another great songwriter, my pal Ray Stevens, who wrote, “You better, take of business Mr. Businessman.”

Richard Courtney is a real estate broker with Christianson, Patterson, Courtney, and Associates and can be reached at [email protected].