So our house has been on the market for 11 days and so far we’ve had 6 no-shows – realtors who call, make an appointment to see the house and then evaporate.
Look, I completely understand if your client sees our hairpin suicide driveway and chickens out, but you’ve got a cell phone, just call and cancel. Really, you won’t hurt my fellings. I work all day. I want to mess up the kitchen, read the mail and uncork the cats.
Anyone else selling or buying a house? Are you enjoying the experience?
Tell whomever is making the appt that if they are going to be a no-show they must call within 1 hour to cancel or you won’t make any more appts with them. If they are working for a real estate corporation, call and complain to a manager.
When I was selling my first house, it was a long distance deal. I was in Florida and the house was in Baltimore. I was in the Navy - it couldn’t be helped - I had to transfer and leave the “pro” to deal with things.
Invariably, every single solitary time I called her to find out what was going on, she’d say “I was just about to call you!!” And as if that wasn’t bad enough, when she got me a buyer, on the day before closing, I got a call that the buyer was a little short - $12K short - and would I hold a second mortgage?? Since the first buyer (throught a different realtor) had backed out by not showing at closing, I wanted to be done with the house, so I agreed. Fortunately, the buyer was good about making payments, but after a year or so, I got tired of it and sold the mortgage, taking the cash and taking a loss.
Then there was the time my husband and I sold the first house we’d bought together - we knew we weren’t going to make any money on the deal, but he assured us we wouldn’t have to bring more than $50 to closing in the worst case. Until the day before closing, when we learned we’d need something like $2200. It’s pretty embarrassing to have to run to Daddy National Bank when you’re in your 30s, but we had no choice.
Fortunately, our other realtors were pretty good, or, at worst, merely benign.
My last house was sold long distance, I loved that. I was in Michigan, house in Colorado.
My current house has been on the market since November, in one of the crappiest, slowest markets in the country. My realtor is fine, I guess. But all I’ve had are a few very low-ball offers, and I’m not desperate.
I paid cash for the house, fixed it up and will continue to do random improvements and repairs. It’s worth twice what I paid for it (in theory at least), I’m living mortgage-free, so I’m not in a huge hurry. It’ll sell eventually.
Even in some of the better areas around here, it’s not unusual for much nicer houses in better neighborhoods to be on the market for over a year.