The 4 H's That Kill Deals
- Elisa Cool Murphy
- 3 hours ago
- 3 min read
It's the headspace, Not the House.
One of the biggest misconceptions in real estate is that transactions usually fall apart because of the property.
Sometimes they do.
But after more than a decade helping people buy and sell homes, I've become convinced that the house usually isn't what derails a deal.
It's what happens between people's ears.
Every accepted offer begins with something incredibly important: two parties who want the same thing.
The buyer wants to buy the home.
The seller wants to sell it.
That's the shared goal.
Everything that follows is simply the process of getting there.
The challenge is that buyers and sellers experience that process very differently.
For a buyer, writing an offer is vulnerable. You've spent weeks—or months—imagining a future, talking yourself into taking a leap, and putting your heart on the line. You're wondering if you're making an expensive mistake. You're wondering if you're paying too much. You're wondering if someone's about to take advantage of you.
For a seller, receiving an offer often feels much more procedural. They've lived with the home for years. They may assume everyone counters. They may be thinking about timing, logistics, or maximizing value without realizing what message those decisions send to the other side.
Neither side is wrong.
They're just standing in different places.
Over the years, I've found myself sorting almost every difficult transaction into what I call the Four H's.
Sometimes it's the Home.
Sometimes it's the Humans.
Sometimes it's Homework.
But more often than people realize...
It's the Headspace.
That's where confidence starts to wobble.
Not because anyone is acting in bad faith, but because our brains are remarkably good at filling in missing information with stories.
"I'm sure they're trying to take advantage of us." "They're going to be impossible during inspections." "They must not really want the house." "They're hiding something."
Those stories feel real.
That doesn't make them true.
They're simply our brains trying to create certainty where certainty doesn't yet exist.
I've learned that one of the most valuable things an agent can do isn't negotiate harder.
It's protect confidence.
Because the moment confidence disappears, every email sounds harsher than it is.
Every counteroffer feels personal.
Every delay becomes suspicious.
And before long, people are reacting to stories instead of facts.
When that happens, I stop asking how we save the deal.
I ask a different question.
What actually changed?
Did we learn something new about the house?
Did someone's circumstances change?
Or are we simply filling in blanks with fear?
That distinction matters.
Because those are three very different problems with three very different solutions.
Sometimes the answer is another inspection.
Sometimes it's calling a contractor.
Sometimes it's reading the HOA documents one more time.
Sometimes it's simply asking one more question before assuming the worst.
Curiosity has a remarkable way of restoring confidence.
Recently I watched a transaction come within inches of falling apart.
The house didn't change.
The inspection didn't change.
The price barely changed.
What changed was the quality of the information moving between everyone involved.
The buyers believed the sellers were signaling they'd be difficult.
The sellers believed they were making a routine counteroffer.
Once everyone understood what had actually happened, the sellers responded with actions instead of assumptions. They accepted the buyers' original terms, committed in writing to the repairs, and the buyers regained enough confidence to move forward.
It was never really about the house.
It was about the headspace.
The longer I do this work, the less I believe I'm negotiating houses.
Most days, I'm helping people separate evidence from assumption.
Helping them slow down long enough to ask one more question.
Helping them remember that uncertainty isn't the enemy.
The stories we invent about uncertainty usually are.
This idea has become one of the cornerstones of a book I've been quietly writing over the past several months.
Prepped to Buy isn't another book about mortgages, inspections, or negotiating offers. Those things matter, and they'll be there. But beneath every transaction is something much bigger: learning how to make decisions you can own when certainty doesn't exist.
Because buying a home isn't just a real estate decision.
It's an adulthood decision.
It's an identity decision.
It's a confidence decision.
And I've come to believe that's the part nobody talks about enough.
Prepped to Buy is scheduled to hit shelves later this summer.
I can't wait to share it with you.
Celebrated for her next-level creative approach to real estate, Elisa Cool Murphy is the author of Prepped to Sell: What Works Even When the Market Doesn't. She is an award-winning, top-performing real estate broker in New Orleans and the founder and owner of Cool Murphy Real Estate.
Contact Her -
email: cool@coolmurphy.com
Facebook: @homeinneworleans
IG: @coolmurphynola
YouTube: @coolmurphynola
phone: 504-321-3194
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