I am posting this here since I think it is too mild for the Pit.
My house has been listed since June and we have only shown it a few times. It is with a reputable realtor that is certainly marketing the heck out of it to no avail. It has been in every free home guide in full color and we priced it 10% lower than what the comparables in the neighborhood are going for. I even buried a St. Joseph’s statute in the yard and still nothing. Last night I was unhappy to read that my area is in the top ten of the worst markets in the country.
That is not what my rant is about.
My rant is about the darn realtors that make appointments and do not show up or cancel after they were supposed to arrive. I have two kids and two dogs. I try to keep the house as presentable as possible but given that I have two kids and two dogs, a going over is necessary before it is shown. I have a system in place of keeping four large suitcases in the garage. I bring them in…sweep everything off the counters, dressers, floor etc and wheel them back into the corner of the garage. We leave the house taking the dogs with us for an hour or so and then return to find that no one showed up most of the time! My realtor follows up and the other realtor says their clients either changed their mind about seeing it or they found something else. So I wheel these suitcases back into the house, put away the clutter only to have new clutter to gather up the next time someone calls and doesn’t show.
I can’t imagine that this problem is unique to me. Anyone figure out a way to avoid these no shows? How about advice on selling a house in this market? Heck, whatever you’ve got that could help would be appreciated.
I feel your pain regarding no shows. I think the least they should do is call you and tell you they’re not coming so you can get back to going about your life. I have no idea how to make them do that.
I sold my house on Craigslist this month. It took twice as long as we thought it would, we had to lower our asking price considerably, and I think I aged ten years in the process.
If you can change your plans I believe that things will be much improved in about six months. There won’t be a boom market, but the loan money should loosen up a bit so potential buyers will have an easier time qualifying. A recession is possible, in which case you’ll be worse off, but I don’t see it in the cards the way things are going.
There comes a point when you really cannot lower the price without losing far too much. Sometimes it’s not about making money, it’s about not losing money.
Foxy40, I feel your pain. Our house is on the market but it’s only been a couple of weeks. Still–it’s a good thing I’m the stay behind spouse because I tend to be compulsively neat. Even with that trait, I’m getting tired of endless cleaning and having to take my kitties to be kenneled on the weekends we have open house (they are strictly indoor kitties).
We are not looking to make money, we are looking to not lose money. And I will stay here until that happens.
Oh Crap. That is what I did wrong. It is all so clear.
Yes I could lower the price. I do have a lot of equity and am not really desperate to sell but I really don’t want to feel like I gave it away. It is a custom built home in a higher priced neighborhood and things just don’t seem to be moving. The woman across the street had her house listed for a year and showed it twice. She has considerably less square footage, one less bedroom and no pool so we are looking at different types of buyers but that is a bit disconcerting too. I just want out of this elephant of a house now that my son in at school and my husband has moved out. It is ridiculous to maintain for myself, a 7 year old and two dogs.
I guess I am trying this at a bad time and should really consider hanging on for another year or two. I am fortunate that I didn’t get suckered into one of those interest only loans, the payments are manageable but it is the extras to maintain it that are killing me. Pool service, lawn service, landscaping, cleaning lady.
I think I will try Craigslist too. I guess I put down the brokers name as a contact. I need to go dig up St. Joe and turn his butt around now.
I didn’t say we were looking to sell quickly, because that’s not our expectation (although we wouldn’t say no). We are looking to sell our house without losing money.
I went through this situation, I put my house on the market in Sep 2006 and after about 4 months of practically no action I decided to just MOVE and buy another house before selling the first one. I hated trying to keep the house in showable condition all the time, plus it was a small house with a lot of stuff. With 2 mortgages I was in shaky financial shape over the summer, but after lowering the price a couple times it finally sold in August.
That’s not an option we are willing to consider, especially since our mortgage in Boston will probably be about three times what it is here. Carrying that sort of debt load isn’t something we will do. So yeah, I get to stay here until the house sells.
Yeah it was a calculated risk. Taught me to live very lean for a while.
My best suggestions are to revise your listing from time to time, I think that puts you higher on the list, and of course lower the price every month or two. It will sell, it’s just a matter of how long.
Say you don’t sell – are there things you can do and stay in the house? Close the pool to save on pool service comes to mind. I know you run a company and thus work full-time, so I doubt you’d be willing to do lawn maintenence, but perhaps you could ‘downsize’ your service. Close off rooms in the house you’re not using?
We’re in the middle of a sale too, and unfortunately, sometimes, no-shows happen. We listed nearly 3 months ago, and we’ve had something like 20 people through the place, 2 deals that fell through and still it continues. What I can say is this;
As soon as you can, dump your realtor. Look for what’s called a “flat fee lister” who will technically be your realtor of record, but really does nothing more than list your home (on the MLS and real-estate websites). They usually charge between $350 and $500 to list, and it can be anywhere from 6 months to a year that they’ll list it before you have to fork over any money again.
Doing this will allow you to be more flexible with the price, because you don’t have to pay the sellers agent, which can be a pricey thing. You will have to proffer a buyers agent commission (I would suggest 2% with negotiablity to 3%) but keep it low. You’ll want to make your own flyers too, with all the stuff on em, plus good pics. With a little creativity, and either Word or Publisher, you can have better ones than the realtors provide.
(warning; you’ll have to show the house yourself, but since you’re there anyway, why not, who knows the place better than you?)
Remove everything but what you absolutely need. The house should echo when you’re done moving things out. To storage if you can’t hide it neatly, but what ever you do, empty the place.
Every three or four weeks, have your realtor make a price change, up or down (just not significantly up). This pricks the ears of buyers agents and you’ll see that with every change in price, new gawkers will come by, and eventually, one of them will purchase.
Since you have the services mentioned, you can talk with the service providers and if you are able to go with the flat fee lister, offer free pool service and free cleaning for 6 months on the flyers, for a reduced rate (or free) to you, if you agree to apply their information to your flyers. Incentives work.
I seem to remember reading in Freakonomics that the number of exclamation marks in a real estate listing is in direct proportion to the shittiness of the property. The reason was that if you don’t have anything good to say about the place, the best you can do is feign excitement.
And I just want to rub it in that my wife and I are buying, not selling. Pretty good time to be a home buyer. There’s a lot of desparation out there…
Yeah I will be very happy to be a buyer in Boston assuming this weird market continues there also. The difference in price will be a lot bigger there than here.
I miss my husband.
There’s a lot of desparation out there…