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Sueinge, I came here prepared to post about this very thing. Yesterday we left our house for a showing and today I find out it was a nosy buyer/neighbor who is closing on a house in our neighborhood in a few days and a friend of hers who is planning on putting her house on the market. From now on I will be asking my realtor, "Is the buyer serious?" and if I don't get an answer from her then I'll be present for the showing and wearing my pajamas while I do the laundry.
No way your listing agent will know if another agent's buyer is serious, or not.
One of the best ways to flush out the curious is to have the listing agent hold an Open House. This usually eliminates the just curious and nosy neighbors, one of whom might just tell the next guy about this great house they saw and.....it could turn into a buyer.
OK, I'm going to be the contrarian here. The average "internet buyer" looks online 8 months before contacting an agent. Some buyers who are thinking ahead and know they are/might be moving to my state contact me a year in advance and come up on "vacation" for a week and want to see houses and neighborhoods. I may have been corresponding with them for many months before their trip and they do not plan to buy until 2009. Pictures on the web are great, but the only way to really learn about the market is to look at homes. I'm a listing agent too and I don't like it when it happens to my sellers, but if you're property is for sale, you are going to get people to look. Some home on the market this spring may be on the market next spring too, I'm reading some stories on this forum of people listing for 2 6 month cycles. People go into department stores and car dealers all the time "just looking," they do the same thing with houses. If you don't want to be on the market for very long, price the house accordingly, have unbelievable curb appeal, choose an agent that understands marketing and beat the averages.
And about the 3-bathroom person... we gave our agent a whole list of criteria when we started looking for this house (in 1994). We were serious (first-time homebuyers) but we thought it would take months to find the right house.
Turns out we looked at about 10, and ended up buying the FIRST house we looked at - which was above our price range (but it was a 2-unit, which we hadn't previously considered, so the rent more than made up the difference in price), wasn't the kind of house we thought we wanted (we'd said "no ranches" and it was a ranch), and would never have even been shown to us but for the fact that our agent was living there (renting) and she had to let her dogs out before we went house-hunting. She said, well, you're here to look at houses, this one is for sale, but it doesn't really meet your criteria... but you can look at it if you want. We said, what the heck, we can "practice" (). Fell in love with it and still love it 14 years later!
So you might THINK you need 3 bathrooms (wow, that person must have a bunch of kids! or she just loves cleaning bathrooms...), but if you really love a property enough, you might end up changing your mind.
I say ALMOST any showing is a good showing. When I show my house I don't hesitate to mention my mom's down the road (also for sale), and she refers people to mine. I know that's rare (two family members with houses for sale 1 mile apart), but people do talk to others, and hey, you never know. Also, the 3 bathroom person might just not FIND anything that meets ALL the requirements, and might end up loosening them a bit in time.
I also agree with finding a middle ground between junky and sterile. I have a ways to go yet, toward sterile, but around here anyway, I think a nicely decorated place (nothing too far out - the Frank Zappa "Baby Snakes" poster has to go!) shows better than a totally empty one.
Talking about people who just aren't interested in buying your house and wasting your time...when we had our house on the market in late September 2006, we had some guy stop by just shortly after an open house. We thought he was interested in buying the house. Turns out he was just some nosey neighbor who thought he could make a killing in the market because his "friend" told him he could get $280,000 for his house. Our floor plans were the same, but we had a different, more expensive elevation and a lot of upgrades. Once we figured out he was just a lookie loo, he was ushered out the front door. In the height of the market, we might could have gotten around $240,000 for our house. We sold it for $210,000 in November of 2006. This neighbor put his house up for about $275,000. It is STILL on the market nearly one and a half years later!! He's down to a low $250,000 lol
I know that most people are not fond of Open Houses, but as a buyer, I find them very efficient. My agent does not have to go through the trouble to set up appts, you don't have to clean the house and leave "just for me."
I walk in and can tell in 5 minutes if I am interested at all. If I know it isn't right, I say thanks and split. In an hour or two, I can knock out tons of places that would otherwise have taken half a day and tons of effort.
Yes they are that bad. We had ONE. On a very busy saturday here in town, lots of people, tons of people in town for the Parade of Homes...we had two people come through...one was a guy who owns a lot across the street, the other a couple who live in town and getting ideas. For that I bust my butt cleaning, get my dogs out of the house all day (anyone ever driven around with 3 dogs all day), all for zip. Even our agent doesn't do them, so we tried it once.
I really am fed up with my home looking like a prison. Can you say boring! We have traveled, and have quite a few pieces of art and pottery that we have purchased. unfortunately most of it is boxed up and on our quad trailer out in the garage ready to move. But I am going to dig out some more pictures and try to make it feel like a home.
oh my beer neons, all collector items, but I agree, they needed to go into storage, not everyone appreciates them like we do.
We looked at 15 houses in 3 days before we decided to build. I wanted to get a feel for the market. I was not pre-approved at the time, but was pre-approvable. Additionally my previous house was "paid off" - so while selling it would have helped logistically, it was not necessary.
The reason that open-houses didn't work for us is because I was already living in our new state - but my husband was back in the old state trying to sell our house. So he had 3 days off in the middle of a week and came down to visit - and we looked at 15 houses.
My real estate agent set up the appts., I think they were for 1 hour time windows. Most of the houses were empty (already victims of this sub-prime crisis) - however some were clearly homes. Of those - a few had done a very nice job of making the house look perfect. Others had just left the house the way it was. We judged neither - but ultimately decided building was the way to go for us.
I'm sorry if the people were inconvenience by our "just looking" but it was a necessary evil for us to make a decision about the way we wanted to go.
Additonally - I've found that open houses here (cincinnati area) are for VERY short periods of time - like Noon-2pm. In Michigan (where I'm from) open houses were often for the whole day 10-5 or at least the whole afternoon 12-5. When open houses are for 2 hours - it is very difficult to get to see more than one house in a day -- which means you'd have to schedule a private visit anyway.
I think we all understand your situation, what is getting to me are the people coming through who are looky loos....hoping to get a 500,000 home for 300,000 and there are plenty of professional low ball folks rolling through this whole area, and it sounds like all over, like it's a sunday drive oh lets just go look at homes. and I blame the agents, too, for letting their clients 'assume' they can low ball everyone. I really don't want my neighbors in my home, the guy with the lot was probably just looking for ideas for his home, and the local couple who came through that open house day just had nothing better to do.
We just want to have some folks come through like you who are serious is all...but then again I am just venting...if I were moving so far I would see what areas I like and what's out there...most of the ones coming through to look here already live in the area.
I think we all understand your situation, what is getting to me are the people coming through who are looky loos....hoping to get a 500,000 home for 300,000 and there are plenty of professional low ball folks rolling through this whole area, and it sounds like all over, like it's a sunday drive oh lets just go look at homes. and I blame the agents, too, for letting their clients 'assume' they can low ball everyone. I really don't want my neighbors in my home, the guy with the lot was probably just looking for ideas for his home, and the local couple who came through that open house day just had nothing better to do.
We just want to have some folks come through like you who are serious is all...but then again I am just venting...if I were moving so far I would see what areas I like and what's out there...most of the ones coming through to look here already live in the area.
dogmom, look at it this way. 3-4 years ago the exact OPPOSITE was happening. People couldn't buy fast enough. There were bidding wars galore on homes. You are just selling at the wrong time and finally buyers have an upper hand and can choose to be picky. People are making the biggest purchase of their life and have the right to look at all their options. You stuck your neck out there and put your house on the market. You need to accept what comes with that.
Also, "Lowballs" are somewhat of a misnomer. If someone ACCEPTS an offer, it is not a lowball. No one has a gun to their head to accept. If an offer is too low In your opinion, then don't accept or start countering, simple as that.
We took our home off the market recently because we were getting disgusted with stuff like this as well. We got tired of looking at homes and bugging other home owners as we couldn't make an offer until our home sold. We were just doing drivebys and it was good enough but realized fast that inventory that we desired was limited all of a sudden.
But as a mom of 4, (3 of which are 2,4,5) a part time job, and belonging to several volunteer functions with my Church, I was worn out keeping house at its best. Since we took it off I have been feeling so much more relaxed. My Dh isn't thrilled with staying but we made changes to make him happier here.
I know its annoying when the come to see the house and the listing is clear about everything but they say in feedback "I didn't want a house in a culdesac" ok .. the listing has a title and in that title is clearly stated in bold CULDESAC!
Grrr
Linda
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). Fell in love with it and still love it 14 years later!
