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I live in Denver Metro, Parker, CO to be exact and we put our house on the market about 4 months ago. We started our listing price on the high side to test the waters and have reduced price by 10k since then in 3 different price reductions. We have had 35 showings and not one offer. I am trying to figure out why.
Our place is really nice, honestly, but I can objectively see some problems we are having. No AC, no upgrades in 10 years, other than new roof and great new outside paint, and landscaping. We are so good about taking care of our place that we never needed upgrades or wanted them.
Intially we made our marketing so exciting and vague I think we got a bunch of unqualified buyers looking at our house.
Buyers's agents have told us that they didn't like our floor plan because they needed one more bedroom or one more bathroom or not all bedrooms are on same floor because of kids. I even had one say they wanted a 3 car garage, not 2 car. Well duh! it says 2 car on MLS.
So should we consider another price drop? Is it even worth it? A couple of realtors said we were priced ok, but frankly I think we are still to high, because when I had our agent pull sold transactions in last 90 days in our subdivision everything that sold was atleast 20k less than us. We started at $340k for 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath 2500sf with unfinished basement and now we are $330k. The same model in the last year sold for as little as 280k as a short sale or foreclosure but it needed some work for sure.
All this work keeping our house show ready is wearing on me and my wife. It takes about an hour for each showing and then some no show, but hey I do my best not take it personal.
So what gives. Are foreclosures and short sales considered as comps or not? I get conflicting info from agents.
So go ahead and please give me your objective feedback I have thick skin.
I live in Denver Metro, Parker, CO to be exact and we put our house on the market about 4 months ago. We started our listing price on the high side to test the waters and have reduced price by 10k since then in 3 different price reductions. We have had 35 showings and not one offer. I am trying to figure out why.
Our place is really nice, honestly, but I can objectively see some problems we are having. No AC, no upgrades in 10 years, other than new roof and great new outside paint, and landscaping. We are so good about taking care of our place that we never needed upgrades or wanted them.
Intially we made our marketing so exciting and vague I think we got a bunch of unqualified buyers looking at our house.
Buyers's agents have told us that they didn't like our floor plan because they needed one more bedroom or one more bathroom or not all bedrooms are on same floor because of kids. I even had one say they wanted a 3 car garage, not 2 car. Well duh! it says 2 car on MLS.
So should we consider another price drop? Is it even worth it? A couple of realtors said we were priced ok, but frankly I think we are still to high, because when I had our agent pull sold transactions in last 90 days in our subdivision everything that sold was atleast 20k less than us. We started at $340k for 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath 2500sf with unfinished basement and now we are $330k. The same model in the last year sold for as little as 280k as a short sale or foreclosure but it needed some work for sure.
All this work keeping our house show ready is wearing on me and my wife. It takes about an hour for each showing and then some no show, but hey I do my best not take it personal.
So what gives. Are foreclosures and short sales considered as comps or not? I get conflicting info from agents.
So go ahead and please give me your objective feedback I have thick skin.
TIA
Dan
"...frankly I think we are still to high..."
Trust your gut.
You are priced too high.
Don't worry about the feedback, bedrooms, garage sizes, etc.
Price fixes everything, and all the feedback is telling you is that no one who has seen your house has bought it yet.
I guess you've learned that starting high and reducing the price wasn't the best idea.
Houses which are realistically priced based on recent sold comps will sell without much problem.. if price is the only objection.
If sold comps have central air and you do not, you need to adjust price accordingly. FWIW I don't use shortsales or foreclosures as comps when I'm making an offer on a house. I am a realistic buyer.
35 showings with no offers means too high for sure.
Short sales and foreclosures are comps if they are a large sector of comps. If there are 10 comps and only 1 or 2 are distressed properties, you can use the other ones. if there are 10 comps and 5-6 are distressed, then the foreclosures are part of the regular market and need to be considered.
Think about this from a buyer perspective. You have a home that is slightly dated for $50k more than a home that needs work. If they have to do the work anyway, why not go with the cheaper property?
Thanks for the good feedback and please keep it coming.
I am in sales so I am pretty good at reading people. When we met with traditional brokers, one the lived a mile from us he told us to price between 310-320k, but my wife didn't like hearing that at all. She's not as objective as me. The ones whom told us we could price it higher, were flat fee listing services and we chose one of them, although I had concerns. We made them show us comps but I don't know what a legit comp is? When someone tells me what I want to hear and then gets all the money up front and has no more skin in the game it raises concerns.
The only reason I agreed to go flat fee listing is I lost my job in June and I read a lot of stats that show seller agents don't bring buyers, buyer's agent do so we paid $800 and the flat fee guy has been decent, but slowing delegating more responsibility to us that he promised to do. We were smart enough to make sure we are offering buyer's agent the full co-op 2.8% standard for Denver Metro so the wouldn't discriminate against us.
I am sure there are good flat fee listing people, but when I heard after we paid our agent, I wouldn't even call him that much, has over 100 clients I thought wow 100 x 800 that's a pretty good wage for signing ppl up and then what is his motivation to continue to earn the $800 since he was already paid.
I guess you've learned that starting high and reducing the price wasn't the best idea.
This is the most common really really bad idea that sellers come up with. Almost every seller I talk to comes up with it too and I have to talk them out of it. The problem with this is your listing sees the most activity in the first two weeks it's on the market. If you make a bad impression on those buyers off the bat, it takes a serious price drop to get them to come back for another look.
This is not a market in which one should "test the waters". We assume that your agent brought you comparable sales in the area (not listing prices, sale prices). And that you figured you didn't want "to give it away".
Homes that start out too far above market value languish on the market, and the listing gets stale. The best buyers are those who look at the home within the first 3 weeks, when the listing is new. They've seen everything else and are looking for the combination of price, location, condition.
Now unfortunately, you may have to sell for less than you would have if it was originally listed slightly below your competition. Additionally, if the buyer is taking a mortgage, the house has to appraise for the exact sale price or higher, if not, you either lose the deal or lower the price.
If you are now highly motivated, make a drastic price drop soon to generate more interest. (Buyers ask about number of days on the market, an above average long market time will draw lowball offers.)
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