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I am one of those sellers that is trying to interpret everything that comes our way! Ive done everything possible to get this house sold, so when I get vague feedback I tend to read into it.
The one feedback we got was that the house showed "good" but "priced too high" and there was "no interest" in buying the place. OK, got it, not interested.
The next feedback was that the place showed "fair", price "didn't leave an answer", are they interested "no answer given," comments:they did like the house but unsure of the street"
SO of course I am reading into the second one since there was no answer on the price or if they were interested or not. It's been 4 days since the showing, so I am thinking it's too late anyways.
I have a problem with saying they LIKED the house, but it showed FAIR? The place was IMMACULATE..I've done every staging trick Ive learned, I've had MUCH better feedback when the price was higher and didn't look as nice.I guess my question is, how much stock can you put into vague feedback? Also, how long after a showing is too late to expect any offers?
Only a fool will do a CMA for you and tell you the price. That is your agent's job, and the Buyer's agent is out of line if saying anything but "Too High."
As far as vagueness in feedback, you can touch base on the neighborhood concerns, and ask what you can do to improve the home.
Many agents, including myself sometimes, will give vague feedback and try to slip away because of being abused by crazed listing agents who think they have a birthright to in-depth positive solid-gold, "I love it," feedback, and who have convinced their clients that they have a birthright to feedback, when the feedback "No Offer Today," is right in front of them
The only feedback that really matters is an offer.
It takes more than clean for a house to show well.
You will make yourself crazy trying to second guess the public.
An offer can come at any time. Not everyone sees a house, then puts pen to paper. Especially if they are looking at a lot of houses. Some people like to think long & hard, crunch the numbers, then sleep on it. I once had an offer come 44 days after the showing.
educated buyers aren't buying from private sellers, because more than likely can't compete with REOs.
There are few markets that would be needles in the haystack, where that would not apply. What market are you in? I will commend you for getting floor traffic (hopefully they weren't from We Buy Ugly Houses). My experience says it takes about 8 showings to get a good offer or buyer you can work with. Look at the comps...and you have to compete with the foreclosures (and we know those need work).
Most buyers' agents will give vague feedback, and most buyers that are not interested in the property sometimes don't give "vibes" ... they are vague themselves. I've had buyers who give no facial expressions at all .. you just can't read them. Agents usually try to get "yes" answers on how the house suits the buyers' needs.
Buyers also like to give "objections" to get the price down, and many won't give the real reason that the house is not for them. In this market "price is high" means nothing. If that were the real reason, and they loved the house enough, they would make an offer. Not all buyers or agents are brutally honest in the feedback.
Eh...if pressed, people are just going to say *something* about the house...it may not even be a strong feeling, but they feel like they have to say _something_.
An offer (or not getting an offer) is your best feedback.
CLEAN is always very good. In a way, the lack of any negative feedback probably means that you have do a nice job of getting rid of any OBVIOUS obstacles to getting people to appreciate your home HOWEVER I strongly believe that, except when buyers are in a 'frenzy' , IF you do not make a real effort to go the extra mile and really stage the daylights out of your home to make it irresistible to at least some buyers you will be on the market for at least the AVERAGE (which right now in most parts of the country remains DEPRESSINGLY long)...
There are different ways to touch the almost subconscious reaction that turn potential buyers into the folks that are thinking about how their furniture would look in the house, how they'd feel welcoming guests to the front door, waking up in the bedroom, enjoying a meal, taking a shower and all the other "little things" that a top notch stager can do to turn "meh" into WOW...
If you want to wait out with the rest of inventory for "the right buyer" you will LOSE MONEY far more so than if you put in the effort to KNOCK THE SOCKS off buyers.
Keep in mind that both sides are working to get the best deal for themselves. For buyers, it's the lowest price and terms in their favor, and for sellers, it's highest price and best terms. It's not in the buyers' (or their agent's) interest to provide information to the seller that may hurt their negotiating position. Would you expect a buyer or agent to tell you that the home is priced well if they should decide to make an offer later?
I've bought and sold a lot of real estate over the years both for personal residence and investment. After I've considered the location, several things in an otherwise clean and presumably well maintained space can cause problems for me:
Uniqueness: I stay away from cookie cutter neighborhoods where the developer used maybe three to five different housing designs and mixed them up, turning them right and left to add interest and diversity in residential subdivisions. There's nothing you can do about this if you are in one of those neighborhoods, but consider separating your home from the herd with curb appeal charm and landscaping.
Floor plan or layout: My particular bugaboos are walking directly into a living room from the front door, kitchens that are too small or cut off from the flow of the house, no storage, super odd plans that are too far out of whack from an average life style requiring a specialty buyer.
Obvious or poorly executed additions: Include in this category, cheap finishing, poorly installed anything. Such corner cutting makes me wonder what's hidden behind walls and between floors. Conversely lipstick on a "pig" also worries me. Top drawer doodads such as trendy knobs on cheap doors or good hardware on bargain basement cabinets.
Any problems in the utility areas or with exterior maintenance: Unless I'm going for a gut remodel and the house is appropriately priced, the HVAC systems, electrical panel, the visible wiring and plumbing better be up to snuff and professionally executed. I crawl into attics and crawl spaces to look at these things even on a first visit. Ditto with guttering, door/window frames, sheathing, roofing, foundation walls. They need to be pretty bullet proof. Most people get used to a sagging gutter, some peeling paint on their sills, shabby nicked up doors or tired porches but a buyer will see these things in a second and there is nothing like poor or deferred maintenance to kill a sale for an otherwise appealing property.
If your house is located adjacent to a less appealing area, consider having at least your agent route through better adjacent areas to get to your home with prospective buyers.
Smoking, mildew or musty smell, pet odors or lingering cooking odors such as garlic. (While I love pets and garlic, I'm not so fond of smelling them in a house.) You might not be able to detect long standing odors anymore being so used to them. Get a second opinion from someone that will be brutally honest. And those scented candles, air fresheners, or whatnot do not cut it for a good nose like mine. I almost always detect the odor being masked.
While this doesn't bother me so much, too crowded of a space, too much furniture, too many personal belongings, overflowing closets, crammed garages, basements filled to the rafters, make a house difficult to view and inspect. I've moved on to other properties rather than have unpleasant surprises hidden by furniture or belongings.
Specialty interior design: I looked at a otherwise nice home in a nice area once that was entirely pink inside. It was well done (for a pink house) and the owners left specially framed prints and linens that coordinated with the various rooms which was thoughtful, but I can't imagine too many people wanting to live with that level of pink. A powder room maybe, but the whole house? Yikes! Though the house had pretty much everything I wanted, I didn't want to entirely redo the house decor so I passed on it. Ditto on dated decor but it is much easier to consider tearing out worn rugs and old yellow formica than a house full of newish pink carpets.
Sometimes there is nothing really wrong with a place. People come with their lists of wishes and needs and often enough a property just doesn't meet those criteria. Or the property may fill most of them but lacks the oomph that pulls them in being too bland to excite.
This may not help you much. You may have all of your ducks in a row. I agree that the offer when it comes will be your best form of feedback but until then, try to look at your home/neighborhood with the critical eyes of a buyer, making no excuses or concessions and work through any problems that you might find. And if you are in one of those markets where foreclosures rule, the best way to elevate your home above that crowd is to be in a "no finger lifted" move in condition.
Best of luck on your home sale
Last edited by AK-Cathy; 03-03-2011 at 11:52 AM..
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