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We've had our house on the market for three months. We've had about 15 showings. Our price is right.
Problem, I don't know if I can do any more showings.
Our house is lived in. Kids, a dog, busy schedule. We live here. Hard. I can't keep up with it in between to keep it show-ready. Also because the showings are usually on the weekends, it's not worth it keeping it perfect all week. Don't get me wrong, it is always clean and hygienic, always. But that is a huge difference from show-ready.
So I get the call the day before. This could be the one! Let the cleaning begin! And it's not even the cleaning, because I would have to do that any way. It's making it look all perfect. It's hiding our stuff and the dog bowls and putting out the fake fluffy towels and trying to make my very lived-in house look like a hotel. And she cleans up nice, the old girl. And I'm a good stager. But my muscles, I feel like I got hit by a truck.
Then the showing day. I have to somehow get the house perfect, I'm sweating, then we have to load the kids and the dog into the car and go drive around for two hours, by the time we leave ahead of time and because so many people are late.
Then the buyers....or should I call them the fake buyers. I already wrote a thread about them but most of them have a house to sell that isn't even on the market yet. GET OUT OF MY HOUSE YOU LOOKY LOO
Oh hey move-upper, you bought a ranch in 2007 for 500K and you want to move up into my house now and of course, your house will sell days after you put it on the market, uh huh. Oh and you need the equity out of your house (psst it's gone) to buy this one. Go to open houses you, go. Or better yet, go watch House Hunters.
Oh hello downsizer. Oh yeah, your house is worth 2 million? When? Back in 06? Sure. And you want to see what's out there before you sell your big bloated house. I got an idea, why don't you stay in your big house because you're never getting 2 million for it.
Oh hey a renter! This should be promising, a renter actually needs a house right? Oh, your lease is up in fall of next year. Great, thanks for playing. I'd love to know what downpayments these people have.
We've talked to our realtor about screening more diligently, and I do believe she is trying, but the agents know all of the tricks about what to say so it's not going that well. We did put off a third showing from someone who had a house to sell first, so progress there I guess.
I need a break from this. Maybe I'll just rent after this is over so I never have to do this again. I don't even want to own a house anymore. Any house.
LOL, maybe you should start a blog? I loved your take on the lookers.
Don't make it so stressful. We have 3 kids so I feel your pain on showings. However, they all had to take one for the team and much of their stuff was put away for good while we needed to keep the house in tip top shape.
I kept my "hotel towels" under the real towels - I used to just take the used towels and throw them in the hamper. The "show pillows" went on the beds every morning, etc. It has to be a habit.
You pretty much do have to keep everything put away so that you're ready to go at a moment's notice. It's a pain but when the house sells for the price you want you'll be happy.
Having just come back from a house hunting trip, I have to say that as a buyer I have no desire to look at houses just to look at them. Quite a few of the houses we visited we did so because there were not very many pictures in the MLS. Then we walked in and saw one thing and we were done looking. So my recommendation is to have lots of pictures taken of every area of the house. For example, I am looking for a house that has double sinks in the master bathroom if the picture shows that there is only one sink I won't visit it. Another thing that is helpful is a floor-plan to show the layout of the house. If you include measurements even better.
I understand your point-of-view. It is a pain to sell a house that is also an active home. Unfortunately, it is just the way it goes.
You could do a few things, though, to make it go faster, easier, or minimize the wasted showings. For faster, you can lower your price to the point where buyers will see an unpassable value whether it shows well or not. For easier, you could limit showings to only certain days or times. It's not an ideal way to do things because it makes it more difficult for agents to schedule showings but it might help you in terms of stress. To minimize wasted showings, tell your agent to talk first with showing agents so s/he can better qualify them and eliminate the types you mentioned. Again, the more you restrict, the harder you make it to sell but sometimes it is worth the risk of passing on a showing even if there is some small chance that they will end up as your buyer.
As a listing agent, my goal is to have as many people as possible see the property because you never know who they might mention it to even if they don't like it, themselves, but I also understand how that can really stress out my sellers. Everything is a balance so you just need to find yours.
People with a realtor aren't running around looking at houses for funsies. It's a lot of work. Maybe you're getting lookers from the MLS but no takers because of something else. Given how you view all the buyers that come in, maybe you have ambitious plans for how much the house is worth vs what a buyer is actually willing to pay.
Selling a house is stressful. For buyers and sellers. What can you do about it? Nothing. Besides pulling the listing. If you want to sell you're gonna have to put up with lookie loo's. Because you never know who will be the buyer.
You can have the agent submit a pre approval letter from the buyers loan agent in order to show. That should cut down on lookie Loo's.
If you refuse showings you could be saying no to the right buyer. You also placed your house up in the "off season". Normally the people looking at this time are buyers.
Unfortunately a house doesn't sell if you can't show it.
When we sell our house, we plan to tell the Realtor that "This is a lived in house. Advise all potential lookers of that. It will not be eligible for a feature article in "House Beautiful"!"
I will have the place professionally cleaned. Once. Maybe again in a month or so, if necessary. The lawn and pasture will be mowed weekly.
That's it!
I insisted on showings "by appointment only". Couldn't handle the stress of short notice even though I am a neat freak and my house was always "show ready". Strangers traipsing through was torture for me.
I've also owned 2 houses on the same street and sold both with just a BY OWNER sign one in 16 HOURS (2005) and one in 3 weeks (2014) but that was in a low inventory, highly desirable area. You can also put BY OWNER listing on Zillow btw.)
I insisted on showings "by appointment only". Couldn't handle the stress of short notice even though I am a neat freak and my house was always "show ready". Strangers traipsing through was torture for me.
I've also owned 2 houses on the same street and sold both with just a BY OWNER sign one in 16 HOURS (2005) and one in 3 weeks (2014) but that was in a low inventory, highly desirable area. You can also put BY OWNER listing on Zillow btw.)
We're by appointment only too, or that is the custom around here, it doesn't officially say that on the MLS. Still torture!
When we sell our house, we plan to tell the Realtor that "This is a lived in house. Advise all potential lookers of that. It will not be eligible for a feature article in "House Beautiful"!"
I will have the place professionally cleaned. Once. Maybe again in a month or so, if necessary. The lawn and pasture will be mowed weekly.
That's it!
LOL that's a good attitude.
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