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Our house has been listed for approx. 105 days. Average days on market for the area is 182. There is a glut of inventory and houses in my price range are not moving quickly.
As we enter the high and dry days of winter, we are again considering pulling our listing until March when activity picks up. We do not need to sell the house quickly, we are moving because we want new beginnings, not out of need. Our feeling is that if the house is going to sit idle with no showings, it would be better to pull it rather than to accumulate more DOM and appear stale.
All the feedback we have received has been very positive, it's just not the perfect house for buyers for reasons particular to each buyer (small dining room for someone who wants a large dining room, lower level garage for an older couple, etc.). However, our house shows much better in the warmer months (the garden curb appeal and a beautiful wooded conservation area for a back yard look a little dead this time of year).
Should we pull it so it will be fresh in the spring or ride it out and ignore the implications of a stale listing?
Last edited by misueno; 01-04-2010 at 08:57 AM..
Reason: clarification
Would your home appeal to a first timer? I mean is it in that price range? The first time home buyer has to be under contract by April 30 to get the credit. You don't want to lose those buyers. While we don't know what will happen, most agents are expecting a strong spring selling season followed by a more dismal summer, as people buy earlier to get the credit.
I would have pulled it off earlier, personally, and have had several clients that I am doing pocket listings for. We will be back on the MLS February 1. My MLS does not have a CDOM (cumulative days on the market) feature, but many do. The CDOM can make your home look super stale because it tracks on and off market games.
I think the other thing is that you need to check your pricing. If you don't need to sell and aren't priced competitively why go through the stress of showings for a house that won't sell. So, talk with your agent and see what they recommend.
I am NOT an agent (taking classes right now) but wanted to point something out: We put an offer in on our current home on Dec 14th a couple of years ago. There was snow on the ground and the house was cluttered due to Christmas decorations and such. It didn't matter to us. We loved the house and we were looking to buy.
My feeling is if your home is not on the market when that right person is ready to buy (and that could be any month of the year) then you lose out on that sale. DOM, in my opinion, can look bad. BUT if you are priced right it will move. Just my opinion.
If you want to wait, that is your choice and I get it-most places do show better in the spring/summer. But we have: sold a home in March. Bought a home in Feb. Bought a home in Dec. Bought a home in August. Sold a home in July. It just depends on needs. In my opinion.
Good luck whatever you decide...I am sure whatever you do will be the right choice for you!
To reset the Days On Market in my area you have to leave it off the market 30 days and it does make it look like a new listing. I've seen many people do this especially in December.
Personally, Most of the time I show homes that usually have a shorter DOM but early spring it is not as big of a factor as summer. DOM through the winter will be higher than summer. If your system does something like the 30 day reset I would take it off late Jan and make sure it is back on by March 1.
January can be a good time to sell since many buyers wait till the holidays are over to address relocating.
our realtor us know of listings he'd had that had been temporarily withdrawn and offered to talk to those sellers and see if they wanted to sell to us now instead of waiting for the home to go back on the market. We didn't end up doing that, but I thought that was nice to know from him. Would your agent be willing to mention your place to someone who was looking in your price range if you took it off the market for a while? That might be an option then. Otherwise, I think the person who pointed out the 1st time home buyers credit has a good point. Brandon Hoffman and Rakin make good points also.
We have a "Listing History" button on our MLS that any agent can see when it had been listed, relisted and all the price changes. It would not help to take it off now in my market.
There is a glut of inventory and houses in my price range are not moving quickly.
We do not need to sell the house quickly, we are moving because we want new beginnings, not out of need. Our feeling is that if the house is going to sit idle with no showings, it would be better to pull it rather than to accumulate more DOM and appear stale .
To the OP, examine these 3 sentences that I've highlighted in your post.
Assuming you are in a down market, you need to be serious about selling your home. That means competing with comps in your area. Not just the current price comps of active listings but the previous comps of last sold homes within the past 4-6 months. That's what buyers are going to judge your home against. If you are competing with a glut of homes on the market, you maybe having to compete with foreclosures and short sales.
Again, while I don't advocate anyone "giving their homes away," in most depressed real estate markets, the ones with the most aggressive prices will sell quickly.
Also factor if your home is in jumbo loan territory even with 20% downpayment for buyers. The reason is because the jumbo loan market is pretty much dead (much higher interest rates for jumbo loans) because Freddie/Fannie (aka us the taxpayers) aren't insuring those jumbo loans so that secondary market will force those rates higher. So consider if the buyers will have loans higher than 417K in regular areas and loans as high as 729K in higher cost areas like Washington DC, LA, NY, SF.
Days on the market obviously matter. But I've seen homes in Florida finally sale after 500 plus days on the market when the owner finally decided to reduce their prices to 2009 prices instead of 2007 prices. It's that simple.
So if you aren't in a hurry to sale and aren't willing to do aggressive pricing (that means competing directly with short sales/foreclosures) than it doesn't matter if you keep your home on the market or not. It's just going to sit. Declining real market means less money for the sellers the longer the home sits on the market as other posters have stated.
tricky question for sure. I did both, one year I took it off between August and February, then put it back on in March, and another I left it on for a full year and a half until it sold this past October. There are arguments for both sides, but given the home buyer tax credit, I'd keep it on and not worry about the DOM, especially since everyone's DOM is high.
My house was also one that every realtor described as being a "summer house", meaning it showed best then. That may be...we received our offer in late August, but that doesn't mean these same buyers might not have fallen in love with it in January if that was their timeline.
The fact is that over the winter in a cold climate, you will have less traffic yes, but you will also have less competition. Come spring when everyone puts their house on the market, you may see your price pushed down again due to competition. I'd try to sell it now.
For a whole lot of reasons I think that the benefits of pulling a listing right now are minimal. The OP is still WAY UNDER the avergage DOM for their area. They are trying to sell to move, as opposed to NEEDING to sell and in such cases EXPOSURE is key -- not listed == ZERO exposure!
The issue of there be TOO FEW BUYERS is very real, as is the hope that you MIGHT be able to capture a first time buyer OR EVEN a move up buyer that will be enticed by tax incentives.
Your AGENT needs to amp up the exposure. The seller needs to do everything they can to highlight the homes BEST features, if that means NEW interior photos alongside exterior photos that highlight the curb appeal from warmer months SO BE IT.
If the pricing is not as agressive as you can be you may not capture the price motivated buyers and those are a group that may be worth targeting.
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