Taking a home off the mls with the inention of relisting in 90 days (incentive, agent)
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.
Had an interesting conversation with my neighbor, who has had a house for sale for more than a month with no offers. She has an unusual solution that I thought might make an interesting topic. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen this approach brought up here. Has anyone tried this, and if so, how well did it work out for you?
She wants to take her home off the mls for 90 days. Apparently after 90 days you can relist and the clock for "days listed" resets to 0. 90 days would have her relisting in late January, which is the start of the spring selling season in this area. She thinks the selling season is dead now and will remain so through the holidays, and this way she won't have to disrupt her holiday plans for buyers who make appointments but don't bother to show up.
She thinks buyers are spooked by what is happening on wall street and by interest rates going up, but that by January these fears will have settled down. She also thinks the economy will continue to be strong for the next few months, and the area may get a boost if Amazon decides to choose Virginia for it's HQ2 (a reasonable guess, but not a done deal by any means).
This particular neighborhood has a lot of appeal to young families, and those tend to be "spring season buyers". Lots of couple move here when they start having children, and she thinks those clients aren't likely to be looking now because the kids are in school. She also thinks the millenials are just starting to have kids, and thus there will be more and more people who need to get out of apartments and tiny condos now that their families are growing.
She says the realtor will continue to show the home during the 90-day period off the mls. Apparently there are ways to market the house without an mls listing. Not quite sure how that works, would love to hear more about this from those of you who have done it.
She said they thought about lowering the price, but she doesn't think it will help right now, unless she lowers it by a truly drastic amount. Which I sort of get, because there's another house a few blocks away that just lowered their price by $40K and I thought they would get offers right away when they did that, but it's still for sale. I really don't get it, but maybe buyers ARE spooked right now. It seems as likely as any other reason I've heard. If they still need to lower the price after relisting in the spring, she would. But she wants to wait until then to see if a strong economy brings out the buyers that are apparently nowhere to be found right now.
While being off the MLS for 90 days will reset the DOM and CDOM clocks, anyone can look at the property history and see that it sat on the market and wasn't sold.
Yes, there are plenty of legitimate ways to market a property without an MLS listing. Local rules apply, and the agent may be required by the MLS rules to enter some paperwork, signed by the seller, acknowledging that the property will not have the same exposure.
It's no big deal.
All that said, cutting corners on MLS listings, DOM, CDOM are among the most common ethical violations by listing agents.
I hope this one dots i's and crosses t's, as many do not.
I think that yes, buyers ARE spooked now but I don't think it's because of interest rates. I think it's because of the tax law changes that people know will remove their SALT deductions. I don't know what the state taxes are in Virginia but I live in Illinois and people are freaking out and leaving the state in droves. There are areas around here where people just can't sell their house and in Nov, they are going to elect a governor who will raise taxes even more. I am mostly talking about homes $1m and up. Not sure what your price range is. Our neighborhood is very similar to yours in that the people moving in are younger and have kids. Also, our homes are all built in the late 90's and early 2000's and I am hearing millennials want all brand new updated homes, which ours are not. My friend listed her home and is trying to sell quickly and in 30 days has had 2 price drops and still no offers, but does have showings.
The first tax filings under the new law are coming up in the spring and people are starting to think about it. Also, They capped the mortgage interest deduction to loans up to $750k. So people who have smaller loans will take the standard deduction. The only people getting a deduction now will be in the higher end of the range up to $750k so that incentive is essentially gone to buy a home.
While being off the MLS for 90 days will reset the DOM and CDOM clocks, anyone can look at the property history and see that it sat on the market and wasn't sold.
I suppose the argument is the DOM is the first thing flashed in many listing sites (and maybe even on the mls listing). Zillow, for example, puts the DOM right on the initial photo of a property. Whereas you won;t see the listing history until you read through a listing, giving you time to become interested in it. And, if you're waiting for spring one way or the other, it might be better to have a listing history showing it sat for 30 days as opposed to a history that says it sat for 120 days.
All that said, cutting corners on MLS listings, DOM, CDOM are among the most common ethical violations by listing agents.
I hope this one dots i's and crosses t's, as many do not.
LOL that's almost the same thing I told her. Well, I didn't tell her the part about it being common or that it's an ethical violation (is it?). But I told her there are a lot of agents out there doing some funny things. Not all, of course, but she should watch this closely.
Last night I was mulling over this, thinking about this fear that people seem to have regarding a rising fed rate. I think she might have a point that people will get over it once they've had time to settle in with the idea. When I bought my first house, I had a mortgage with a 12% rate. It meant I couldn't buy the bigger house that I wanted at first, but it didn't keep me from buying a house.
Maybe it might even mean good news for people with older homes. The millennials might want a brand new house, but will realize with the new rates they'll need to settle for something 15-20 years old that still happens to be in a nice neighborhood (even if it's older). It'll be interesting to see if this is how things shake out.
The latest thing is to put it on something a private listing network before it actually goes live on the MLS. It doesn't add to the DOM but they are showing it. They are trying to make it out like it's some inside exclusive thing and that buyer's want to buy before it hits the market and that it gives the seller an advantage.
In addition to coming up as a "new listing," you may also have a new pool of buyers 90 days from now. I think people seem to think if you let it sit on the market then it's probably already been seen by all potential buyers and the main other option as you said would be a significant price drop. But yes, as Mike said, buyers can easily see that it was listed and pulled.
OP, how old are most of the kids that these "young families" have? IMO, the "spring season" is primarily relevant for families with school age children. Plenty of "young families" with kids aged 0-4 or so that are likely house shopping at all times of the year.
it's highly likely that we are finally seeing some "seasonality". That seasonality can be weather, it can be holiday times, it can be election time, and it could be that 90% of the buyers for the home are indeed families making school moves that don't do so until April - July.
It's quite possible also for a well-connected agent to sell a home without it being on the MLS at all. They can stay in touch with the agents that have already shown the home. They can do so with agents in their office/offices of their brokerage. And they can use a network of agents within their area that work for different brokerages. They might even be able to monitor showing activity of the remaining inventory, and communicate with those agents.
Mike is indeed quite right that agents have to be careful with this method - there has to be a valid listing agreement between agent & seller, and it must spell out HOW the house is marketed. In our Triangle MLS, we have 2 extra forms - one for a "Withheld from the MLS" (it does not appear on MLS but DOES accumulate DOM) and the other for "Coming Soon" which means ZERO showings so long as it's in that status.
I see a lot of them that have been removed and relisted multiple times. I never have understood the reasoning for it.
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.
