House isn't selling (Oakdale, Ely, Stewart: fit in, for sale, foreclosures)

[oakdale]

This winter my husband and I put our house on the market. The agent we have hasn't done any open houses and isn't very motivated. We have had a few showings but no offers and the price has already been reduced.. and we are considering lowering it again. It's a end unit, 2 story town house in Oakdale, MN that was built in 2004. does anyone have any recommendations or any idea why the house hasn't even seen an offer?

[midwest456]

there is a lot of debate about whether the housing market is headed for a drop, just a minor correction/flat prices or will just keep going, but I won't get into that now as it's already being talked about in several threads here.

It DEFINITELY sounds like you deserve a better agent, so I would start with that. Sometimes a good staging can make the difference, though I can't recommend anyone specific or tell you what reasonable local market price is for that. Good luck!

[yellowsnow]

Headed for a drop? Guess what, it's here! Don't be too quick to blame your agent. They can't conjure up buyers. It's a pretty safe bet the agents aren't happy either. Someone has to buy something for them to get a pay day!

So last March stunk on ice. Well this March, sales are 23% lower. These statistics were in the Trib. There is so much inventory out there that you are going to have to GIVE your home away or just sit on it. And who knows how long you will be sitting! So sorry. My life sucks too!

Open houses, forget it! For an open house to be successful, you have to have BUYERS. If there are no buyers, the open house is just a waste of time. A lot of people believe open houses are good for the agents...not the sellers but who knows.

My agent did an open house last summer. No one showed up. The house across the street from me is for sale too. Their agent has had an open house every weekend. No one has showed up yet. That agent has a lot of spare time I guess. Another home has been FSBO for 2 years now. They aren't seeing any traffic either. This is the second summer for me. My home is priced less than what it appraised for SEVEN years ago. And there is no one interested.

You could try staging but that subtracts from your bottom line. If you are already going to have to discount to the max to sell, that can be a problem. Can you afford to not sell? Can you afford to spend 1 or 2% on staging? Ask yourself what can you reasonably do to make your home stand out from the others on the market? Use a site like ziprealty and look at everything for sale in your area. How long have these homes been on the market? Are the prices reduced?

Take all this in with a huge grain of salt. People do things to manipulate the time on the market thing. Your realtor should be able to give you info too. Like how long is the average home on the market? How many showings does it take to sell the average house? How many homes are for sale in the MSP area? How many within a mile of your home?

Inventory is huge but we aren't even looking at the whole picture. How many failed listings are out there where the people have temporarily given up till the market improves? As soon as people feel optimistic, all those homes will go back on the market.

Good luck! Hope your house sells!

[TimtheGuy]

Just to add to your pain the wonderful state legislature is trying to outlaw some of the loan products that are currently availble because they see them as too risky. The senate has all ready OK'ed the home-loan bill and Governor Pawlenty said he is willing to sign it. I suppose he can't veto everything the Dems put across his desk.

If passed this could effectively cut 10-20% of the possible buyers out of the market, which would further deflate and depreciate the housing market.

Why the state feels they need to get involved is beyond me as market forces will correct themselves WITHOUT regulation. Should they go after predatory lenders? Of coarse. Should an A+ borrower not be able to get a mortgage because the structure of his/her income does not fit in the secondary market guidelines? OF COARSE NOT!!

[Hoosier]

Staging is the key! I've taken that cue from the guy who is on the Minnesota board regularly...Robert Stewart. He gave some excellent advice about staging your house. The guy knows his stuff!! I personally don't think it's so much about how many are on the market as how you're showing the place. Now mind you I am not a realtor, I'm in marketing...but in some senses you have to think like a marketer when you're selling your home.

What are the things you loved about the house when you first bought it? Accentuate the positives and downplay the negatives. I watch way too much HGTV...consider putting a bowl of fresh fruit on the kitchen table. It adds color and life to the room. I'd recommend against flowers as you never know who has allergies. My wife is very allergic to lilies. We can't even walk into church on Easter without her going into an attack.

Just my two cents!

[yellowsnow]

Staging is great but you still have to get someone in the door!

[BeckyS]

Not having open houses may have nothing to do with your house not selling. Open houses are mostly visited by nosy neighbors!

Make sure the photos on the MLS look nice - maybe add a supplement to highlight the best features - put it on craigslist, put flyers up in the neighborhood (not you personally; your agent). Homes need to be marketed to sell in a slow market and just having it on the MLS is not marketing. The older your listing gets, the less likely people are to come see it. If absolutely no one is interested, your price is probably (still) too high. Rather than reduce the price, it may make sense to cancel the listing or wait for it to expire instead of just reducing the current price - then it will again be a "new" listing.

Try offering some seller concessions, look at other homes in your price range and see how they stack up. The market isn't what it had been for the last few years but there is definitely still a market, people buy and sell houses everyday.

[TimtheGuy]

There are a GLUT of townhomes listed for sale and they are still building new ones you have to compete with too. If you need to sell you will have to drop you price until interest is generated.

You are also competing against the foreclosures that can go for VERY cheap. I just saw a purchase agreement on a foreclosed upon townhome that sold BRAND NEW in 2004 for $225k. The new buyer is paying $161K!! Awful hard to compete against that.

[catluvr]

We just posted our house up a month ago. We have a starter house. Our agent did have opens, but nobody showed the second and third time. In this internet age, who needs opens because I've concluded they do not work. We lowered the price a little after seeing what is happening. We still do not have any bites and have not had any showings in the last week.

It's totally not our realtor's fault. He wants to make money and we want to sell. I think we need a interest raise to get the sleepers motivated to buy. Right now there is a lot of looking, but no buying. The media has told buyers they can basically get whatever they want and they want a lot for nothing.

That's my market opinion. We are not going to dump the house on the market yet, but people will want to buy this summer if they have kids to get them ready for school, moved in, etc. I think the market will start to turn after July 1.

[SlyFrog]

I think people are sick of paying insane amounts of money for houses, and that there are too many buyers still trying to get 20% more than the neighbor got back in 2005.

Not suggesting that is it in your particular case, just suggesting my gut reaction to why the market is slowing generally, based on being in the process of looking for a house myself (and I have been looking since November).

I really get a feeling that people are stepping back and saying, "Wait a minute, why am I being asked to pay $400,000 (more than 5 times the median Minnesota family of four income) for a 2800 sq. ft. house in a second ring suburb?"