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We've had our house up for sale for about 60 days in the Pudget Sound area of Washington State. We have been at or below comps, but just today our Realtor told us that a builder in our area is having problems and has slashed prices, making a couple of similar homes quite a bit under ours. The location isn't as good and the backyards are tiny so we're hoping that will be against them and for us. There is only one or two of these listed right now. We are becoming concerned that we haven't sold yet though, although the average sale time is about 4.5 months where we are. Do you think this might be a rare case or could it pull other house values down with it? One thing we are doing to make our house more attractive is to pay someone to stage it for us. That will be done on Monday. We are also considering offering a few thousand in closing costs to the buyer. Do you think that would make a difference? The builder that is having problems is offering $5000 buyer bonus, not sure if that's closing costs or upgrades.
One other concern I have is that our Realtor is no longer part of the Association of Realtors, thus we are not listed on Realtor.com. We are however on about 10 different websites including Craigslist with a really nice ad with pictures on there, as well as the MLS and local real estate company websites. Do you think not being on Realtor.com is greatly hurting us? Not much I can do about that now since we have a contract with her, but maybe I could ask her about that & see if she might join up again?
If we don't sell by end of October we are considering putting our house up for lease instead. The frustrating thing about that is that we wouldn't be able to list it for our full mortgage payment, so we'd still be paying some of that and paying a property management company. What do you guys think about leasing your house out? Would you put off buying a home until it sold or go ahead and buy if it's under lease? We wouldn't buy until next summer as we are leasing under a 12 mo. contract right now in another state (moved because of a new job).
You don't have to be a member of NAR to be on Realtor.com. The data gets fed directly from the MLS. If you are on the MLS, you should be on Realtor.com. Is your listing on the MLS?
You sound like 1) you need to understand what marketing your agent is doing and 2) have your expectations set correctly. 4.5 months is the average which means some take longer, and some take less.
I find paying down points is an incentive for buyers and has gotten me more showings on my listings.
You don't have to be a member of NAR to be on Realtor.com. The data gets fed directly from the MLS. If you are on the MLS, you should be on Realtor.com. Is your listing on the MLS?
You sound like 1) you need to understand what marketing your agent is doing and 2) have your expectations set correctly. 4.5 months is the average which means some take longer, and some take less.
I find paying down points is an incentive for buyers and has gotten me more showings on my listings.
Hi Silverfall Im just down the road from you in SW washington. mY husband and I have talked to our realtor about pulling our home off the RMLS and relisting as a new listing at our new lowered price. I had pondered at running past her about offering some kind of incentive to the buyers agent to see if can get more foot action in the door?? Is this something that buyers agents like to see?? We feel comfortable at the price we are at and she feels the same, but will drop again in a week or two if need be.
Hi Silverfall Im just down the road from you in SW washington. mY husband and I have talked to our realtor about pulling our home off the RMLS and relisting as a new listing at our new lowered price. I had pondered at running past her about offering some kind of incentive to the buyers agent to see if can get more foot action in the door?? Is this something that buyers agents like to see?? We feel comfortable at the price we are at and she feels the same, but will drop again in a week or two if need be.
Pulling the listing is a mute point. The RMLS has a history button directly on the MLS screen. One click...All agents do is hit the history button which shows if listing agents are manipulating the data.
My clients are offering to buy down 1-2 points for buyers. Points buy down the interest rate which makes their monthly payment smaller. With interest rates increasing as of late, buyers are liking the idea. I think it's better than closing costs.
When my husband gets home tomorrow night from work up in Seattle I will have to run that by him and then talk to our realtor about this. Thank you so much for the info.
I would stick with trying to sell as long as possible. I wouldn't stress about not being on realtor.com.
Keep in mind I haven't seen your house.....BUT ...it needs to way outshine the rest. I have worked with so many people who get offended. Just because "you like blue- doesn't mean a buyer will and offering to paint it with an offer just doesn't work as well". Neutral, clean carpet, no clutter, paint if needed, no grass in cracks of driveway, no weeds in mulch, trees trimmed, clean kitchen (if you have to spend a small amount to replace countertops if they are outdated), no wild decorations (even if your in love with your cats or collectables)....
Do you have all of these things done and about 100 more of the usuals? I mean really ask yourself this...If you do...your right...stage your home.
Leasing can be great when it works like it's sup. to. ....but even if you get a lease/option with a contract it can be tricky.....I myself would want to be done with it, instead of having to worry about it. If you get a lease/option make sure you have a decent e. check, so if they back out in 6 months or a year...they don't leave you high and dry. I would get that in addition to a deposit. I don't know your price range or your market....but just make sure you are covered. I'm sure your Realtor can help explain more...
We decided to lease out our home instead of sell it at a loss. Yes the rent does not cover all of our expenses and we had to hire a property management company which also collects a percentage of the rent. One of the factors that helped us decide to lease instead of sell is that we might return to the area at some point in the future so we decided to keep the home. Another factor was a strong rental market (high demand) in the area. Good luck it is not an easy decision.
My hubby talked to our Realtor today and she said there are 3 homes that have drastically reduced their price by about $30-40K. He doesn't know if they are all new builder inventory or not. This is bad news for us because we are already at our break even point and this is a major shock that they would do such drastic price drops. We can't lower that much, which is why we are now considering leasing it out. Our house is only 2.5 yrs old and all the Realtors that have been through it have given us lots of compliments. The market just sucks right now. We thought we'd be ok in our location and I'm hoping that this is just something extreme that after those homes are bought we'll be able to stay around where we and the rest of the homes are listed at. Realtor and hubby think that since we can't lower our price to that level it would be a waste of money to stage it at this point. So it sits empty, but the stager will do some basic stuff like nice towels and some decor, just not furniture. What do you guys think?
I sure wish we had know 2.5 yrs ago that we were on top of the bubble. We would have leased since we had moved out of state and weren't 100% sure we'd be there over 4 years. Our very experienced Realtor assured us that it was a great time to buy. So sad now! Ugghhhh
Which brings us to leasing it out. Since we can't go down that much, maybe leasing would be better for us even though we'd still be paying some out of pocket on the mortgage and stuff. Hopefully by next summer the builder's homes will be cleared out and things will be more steady. We could potentially lease a few years I guess until the market improves. We just worry about buying again while we own another house. It's risky.
They have a lot of good info about market conditions around Seattle. Some really bright people post there;real estate lawyers, Realtors and brokers. Gives you a good snaphot of reality. Plus, they've got really cool charts and stats and stuff.
I looked up the houses that have had price drops online last night and they all appear to be new builder homes and there are about 5 of them. Cannot believe a builder would be that desperate to lower $30-40K over night. They must be desperate. Meantime, they are killing the rest of us. We don't know whether to hold where we are (which was at comps before this) lower $10K, or lease at this point. Any thoughts would be wonderful.
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We don't know whether to hold where we are (which was at comps before this) lower $10K, or lease at this point. Any thoughts would be wonderful.
