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Houses on busier streets always sell for less. Hard to say exactly how much less - but I've always noticed this to be somewhere ~ 10% less than similar homes not on busy streets.
Your agent should have used other homes on busy roads as comparables for your home. This takes significantly more effort but always produces a more accurate result.
Either way 20 showings and no offers says "overpriced" to me. At the same time its been two weeks and we have had a few storms. I would give it maybe another week or so and then drop the price.
+1 This post that I quoted makes a lot of sense to me.
Something to consider, is that it costs the seller both money and time to keep the house on the market for a long time. If you can sell it faster by dropping the price, it might be worth it to you. Also it is hard to put a price on being free to just be able to move and go on with your life.
I wish I had some helpful tips for you, but I have never sold a house on a busy street.
Unless it is a very hot market, which apparently it is not, a 2 week time on the market is nothing to worry about.
In the traditional market in an average or even a slow market, a home is properly priced if it will attract a buyer in 90 days or less. At this time of the year, a lot of lookers are looking at homes to get an ideal of what is available and what you can get for $xx. A lot of them are not going to be making decisions until it is closer to time their children get out of school, but they are looking to get ideas, and to maybe spot a home they will make an offer on later.
We have been having the worst winter weather in years. There has just been another big storm in the North East USA. People are looking but not making decisions this time of year. One reason they are even looking, is they have been cooped up by storms etc. for a hard winter and are using looking at homes as a reason to get out. They will get serious in a couple of months when the trees bud out, and the grass starts to grow again. Just sit back, and let time pass before you panic.
Unless it is a very hot market, which apparently it is not, a 2 week time on the market is nothing to worry about.
In the traditional market in an average or even a slow market, a home is properly priced if it will attract a buyer in 90 days or less. At this time of the year, a lot of lookers are looking at homes to get an ideal of what is available and what you can get for $xx. A lot of them are not going to be making decisions until it is closer to time their children get out of school, but they are looking to get ideas, and to maybe spot a home they will make an offer on later.
We have been having the worst winter weather in years. There has just been another big storm in the North East USA. People are looking but not making decisions this time of year. One reason they are even looking, is they have been cooped up by storms etc. for a hard winter and are using looking at homes as a reason to get out. They will get serious in a couple of months when the trees bud out, and the grass starts to grow again. Just sit back, and let time pass before you panic.
I actually completely disagree...It is a very hot market...at least here in CT...and NJ may be similar. Anything new I list is gone in days and often in bidding wars. If my marketing time starts to creep past 2-3 weeks - I know I've overpriced. There is very limited inventory and this is the early part of the busiest season of the year. 3-4 months from now it will start to slow down for the summer. The people who close early summer are out looking now and they will be in contract by March- May. 90 days is way too long to try the market - especially this time of year.
After 90 days at one price you simply have a stale listing and good luck recovering from that. The longer you wait - the less you get.
Our house actually is set further back from the main road. We're on close to a half acre of property. The shape of the property makes it appear larger than it is. I'd say we're about equidistant from the road as we are from where our backyard ends...roughly in the middle of the property. A few of our neighbors have homes that are much closer to the road, which I think helps us (shoppers have something to compare to...).
We do have a deck in the backyard, and it's pretty nicely landscaped. It does have that "serene" feel, I would say. You can't really see this time of year, but we've got trees lining the edge of the backyard, and it gets quite green and lush in the summer - that offers additional privacy. None of the surrounding homes are right on top of each other as they are in many towns. We have a front yard that is also very nicely landscaped. We lined the edge of our property out front with a bit of a rock garden - combination of decorative rocks and variegated perennial grasses. Looks great and very low maintenance. We've gotten tons of compliments from our neighbors on that. Right in the front of our house (underneath large living room bay window), we have a small garden area. We just replaced the paver stones there and trimmed some of the existing shrubbery before the weather turned. We've got a few arborvitaes in that area, and, unfortunately, they got a bit banged up after getting this last bunch of snow, but we're working on fixing that.
We listed at the price two agents suggested to list at (ultimately we chose one of those agents to work with). None of them suggested anything outrageously lower than comps just because of our location. Both agents used a mix of comps - some on more main roads and some not. All comparably sized houses within a several hundred square feet, give or take. Our agent suggested considering a price drop after a month or so if we need to.
As for second showings, the only one we know of is coming up on Sunday. We had an open house a few days after hitting the market. The open house lasted 3 hours, and we had 10 "shoppers" visit. Now, a few of those visitors could have been nosy neighbors, we just don't know. Is it possible we had a visitor or two from that open house come back and see it again? Sure. Remember - not everyone leaves their info. at open houses, so I think it's a little difficult to tell for that reason.
As far as pricing - there isn't anything stopping anyone from presenting a lowball offer to us (not that we'd accept it). Just because you see a certain price on a house doesn't mean you have to offer exactly that. Our agent did say that the trend she's seen lately is that people might want to make an offer, but then they wait for a price drop, even if they're really interested in a house. That applies to houses located anywhere - coveted cul-de-sacs, side streets and main roads. Everyone is after a deal I suppose...
We are in a similar situation, busier residential road with a school at the end of it. We fenced and heavily landscaped the back yard, paved a widened drive (for K turns) and planted large trees in the front yard.
Like you, our market is 1st time buyers looking for a home in this school district w/i walking distance to the train (NEC).
We told our agent to list the house lower than she (and others recommended).
No showings until the open house. We received, at least, 3 offers from the open house.
Funny thing, the house is now under contract for the price our agent originally suggested.
Good luck with your sale, it is stressful!
Good for you, jerseyj! 3 offers is fantastic. We are nowhere near a train, which I think most city commuters probably prefer. No doubt that was to your benefit. The closest train w/ park-and-ride is about a 20 min. drive away. We are about 1-2 mile drive away from the park-and-ride in town (bus to the city). We did give some thought to starting out with what we viewed as a "lowball" list price, but we opted out of that because we're in a position where we really need the most we can get.
Difficult for me to explain it, but there is really no way for us to fence the house without a great deal of work/agitation. Our property is mostly flat, but to the left of the house, next to the garage, we have a small (maybe 2.5 feet high) retaining wall (decorative-looking) that leads to the "first level" of our backyard. On the opposite side of the house, we don't have that. We have a flatter part of yard along the side of the house that also leads to the first level of the backyard with a slight slope. In the backyard, we have a second retaining wall that leads to another level of the backyard. The levels themselves are entirely flat. I think it's actually really cool-looking, and when we first had the house, we did have an old above ground pool on the first level, so there is plenty of space. That caved in a few years later, and well, being in NJ, a pool is not a priority for us. Our money was spent on the inside because it needed it.
I do think one advantage we have with showings is when people stop by at times that aren't during rush hour. Weekday mornings and weekday evenings are the only real times for traffic on our road (and it's not even that bad!). So, when someone comes to see the house at 6pm, it truly frustrates me because they're right in that non-desirable window of time and CAN'T see how it is the rest of the time. That's only the reality for that time of day, but most other times, it's really not bad at all. It's certainly not a matter of not being able to sleep at night - actually, it's pretty quiet! The showings I like best, and we've luckily had a few of these, are ones that are on weekdays during the afternoon and on weekends. In fact, we just had a last-minute lunchtime showing today! We've got two showings on Sunday during late morning/early afternoon, one of which is the second showing.
We have received feedback from only a few of the visitors so far. One was a family with two kids, and they viewed it as too small (which, you know, part of me has to laugh at, because my nephews and their parents seem to do just fine in about 1,000 square feet, no garage, unfinished basement!...space IS nice, but you CAN live without it.). I guess they were looking for a 4 bed, and well, we only have 3. Like why bother looking at a house that you know isn't big enough for what you need/want?! One was a single guy whose realtor just said he's being super picky, doesn't really know what he wants, etc. We've generally gotten great comments on the interior updates we've made. I believe one of our first showings was a different family with kids - now, they specifically said they weren't keen on the main road. It does boggle my mind a bit - if someone is adamantly opposed to a main road, then, once again, why bother?
Ugh! Most frustrating process EVER! But, it's only been two weeks, and hopefully there's light at the end of the tunnel sooner than later.
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