Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I put my house up for sale in April 2016. For the first month I had dozens of people that looked at the house and put in offers. (I don't know what happened to all of these people. The realtor picked two and we focused on them and the other ones just disappeared.) The first two weeks of May, I would get one or two people a week that looked, but put in no offers. The second two weeks of May, no looks and no offers. It's now June and I have to move out of the state and am not coming back. I have one week left to get things organized.
I've asked my realtor what's going on and what her plans are and she just says "The right buyer will come along eventually."
She's very hands-off. The description of the house on the websites is pretty bad and it's difficult for buyers to get ahold of her.
How long should I give her to get things together before I move on to another realtor?
Why didn't you accept one of the offers? If you received a number of offers, surely you saw what people were willing to pay for your property. What was the problem?
"The right buyer will come along eventually"? Hmm . . .
How long is your listing agreement?
To be honest, if you had "dozens" of people in April, offers, and no contract, that means that there's something not quite right -- someone is unrealistic about the price of your home, the condition of your home or the location. Location you can't do anything about (i.e., busy street, next to a retail establishment, next to major power lines), but price and condition are definitely under your control.
I think it's time for a "come to Jesus" meeting with your real estate agent tomorrow, and talk about marketing from now until the end of the listing period. Frankly, she sounds bored with your listing. Have her come to the meeting with a revised comparative market analysis and a marketing plan, and tell her, up front, that you are making a decision as to whether or not to continue using her services. This would be a good time to discuss your dissatisfaction with the description of the house, and her unavailability (how do you know it's hard for buyers to reach her? Have buyers mentioned it?) If she gives you ANY push-back, that's your signal to start proceedings to terminate your listing agreement. In the meantime, you can start interviewing other agents -- it's not ethical for them to approach YOU, but you can approach THEM and simply say, "I'm thinking about changing agents, and would like to talk to you about listing my home."
At this point, you are at a disadvantage, because your home is "tired, old goods" -- everyone has seen it, and at this point, people are wondering "what's wrong with it, why didn't it sell?" Ask her and other agents how they plan to overcome that problem?
The first offer, I screwed it up (This is my first time selling a house. I just wanted to sell it as-is since there was so much interest in it in the beginning and they didn't like that and dropped out).
The second one, the realtor screwed it up. (We were exchanging offers back and forth and then all communication with them stopped and the realtor told me that new people wanted to look at the house. I figured that meant that they left so I said ok let's start showing it to new people. Then a week later she asked me if I wanted to take the offer of the original people. I said yes, but they had moved on by then.)
The realtor says that all of the people that have come through in the last month (About 10-20 of them. They seem to come in groups at the same time.) say that the house is just too small. Which isn't anything I can fix.
Question : is this a full priced realtor or did you go with a flat fee agent? Or did you negotiate some discount on her regular commission?
PS - in reading your description of what happened during your second offer, I don't see how the Realtor screwed it up. Sounds like you delayed on accepting or countering the offer.
The second one, the realtor screwed it up. (We were exchanging offers back and forth and then all communication with them stopped and the realtor told me that new people wanted to look at the house. I figured that meant that they left so I said ok let's start showing it to new people. Then a week later she asked me if I wanted to take the offer of the original people. I said yes, but they had moved on by then.)
Most offers have a time deadline for acceptance, usually 24-48 hours. Did you make a counteroffer that they rejected by letting the deadline go by? Or did they made an offer and were waiting for you to respond? You waited a week, didn't respond, so they figured you weren't interested and moved on? Sloppy on everyone's part -- the buyer's agent should have been all over your agent trying to get a response, and/or your agent for not prodding you to respond by the deadline or trying to get a response from the buyers.
Counteroffers are tricky things -- if someone makes an offer to you of $200,000, and you counter with $210,000, then they can just walk away, because the counter has changed the terms of the offer and created a new offer. It also means that the original offer is no longer 'in play'.
Does that mean while you were negotiating and did not have a contract, you stopped allowing shows of the house?
If your house is priced correctly for the market and condition, it will sell. My suggestion is have a talk with your agent. Ask her what she is doing to market the property besides waiting for the right buyer and get a fresh Comparative Market Analysis and if necessary, adjust your price. Talk to her about what you think needs to change about the description and ask where other than MLS is the house advertised. Take care of the things that need repaired or freshened up. You might want to consider having the house staged by a professional and have a professional photographer take new pictures.
good luck
I put my house up for sale in April 2016. For the first month I had dozens of people that looked at the house and put in offers. (I don't know what happened to all of these people. The realtor picked two and we focused on them and the other ones just disappeared.) The first two weeks of May, I would get one or two people a week that looked, but put in no offers. The second two weeks of May, no looks and no offers. It's now June and I have to move out of the state and am not coming back. I have one week left to get things organized.
I've asked my realtor what's going on and what her plans are and she just says "The right buyer will come along eventually."
She's very hands-off. The description of the house on the websites is pretty bad and it's difficult for buyers to get ahold of her.
How long should I give her to get things together before I move on to another realtor?
Till 12:21pm on June 1, 2016. There's no excuse for the deficiencies you mentioned.
If had dozens of offers in the first month, your house should have sold. You said your Realtor is very "hands off". In my opinion, you definitely need a Realtor who is very hands on. From the limited amount you shared, it sounds like your house should sold already and you need to consider terminating the contract with your agent. Before you make that decision, ask your current agent for the feedback from all of the viewings. ASK about the other offers and why they went away. Ask for specifics. Did you see the offers that "went away"? What were the terms of the offers?
Ask questions. Get specific answers. Decide if you want to move on and know what you want to happen differently with your next Realtor, or how you want things to change with your current Realtor.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
