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Old 07-30-2018, 11:47 AM
Status: "Made the Retirement Run in under 12 parsecs!!!" (set 22 days ago)
 
Location: Cary, NC
43,176 posts, read 76,815,786 times
Reputation: 45533

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Quote:
Originally Posted by MinivanDriver View Post
Okay. So here's my deal.

House on the market since early June. Clean as a whistle, shows well, priced correctly according to Zillow, and realtors who have come by state that it's a great house at a good price in an attractive neighborhood with top-notch schools.

Here's my problem. Against my better judgment, we went with a family friend to sell it. Someone who lives across town. Since we put the house on the market, we had a realtor open house the first week, and then nothing else. No open houses for the public, no real efforts on her part. We have had people show and it takes her forever to get feedback.

So it's a two-part question:

1) How important is it to have a realtor who knows a specific part of town?

2) What should she be doing to drum up more interest?
1. Forget Zillow. I hope that was in no way involved in the calculation of pricing.
2. Some agents just do not give feedback. And, much feedback is not much good anyway.
Have you looked at your MLS listing for spelling, accuracy, and professional presentation?
How about the photos? Decent quality, or not so good?

Quote:
Originally Posted by MinivanDriver View Post
Don't get me wrong. She did her homework on the front end, showed us comparables, and no one thinks the price is out of whack. We're getting good agent feedback to that effect.

I think one of the problems is that she is marketing an area with which she has no familiarity. The neighborhood where I am has the state's top school system, a great location, and is pretty much the high-end suburb in my metro area. At the same time, it has its own quirks and eccentricities--Okay, snobbery. Our first showing arrived early before I could leave and the realtor asked point blank, "Why did you list with an agent way over there?"
You tell anyone who asks, "Family Friend." It happens all the time.


Quote:
Originally Posted by BoBromhal View Post
what's the average DOM for a home like yours?
Quote:
Originally Posted by MinivanDriver View Post
dom?
Days On Market.
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Old 07-30-2018, 11:56 AM
 
10,500 posts, read 6,983,845 times
Reputation: 32334
Ah. 45 days.

My theory is that the key selling season in my neighborhood is late February-May and we just got to market too late.
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Old 07-30-2018, 12:09 PM
 
Location: Raleigh NC
25,119 posts, read 16,146,620 times
Reputation: 14408
Buyers agents and Buyers - especially Buyers - don't really care who the listing agent is. Now, I've been at it long enough that I know some of the agents that routinely overprice homes, routinely are difficult to deal with, etc. And I share that info with my Buyers .... but they decide what to see and what to buy.

The DOM question was the average for your neighborhood/sub-community. If you're below that average, then no worries. I can't speak to the house-buying activity there, but I do expect it's diminished during the summer as folks escape the B'ham heat.

I would put the front shot with grass first. Is a garage common, or uncommon? I never knew you had one until I got to that photo. And it looks like a 1 car to me, not a 3 car. I also assume Zillow pulls age/remodel year from tax records. Certainly your kitchen work is within the last 10 years, and would be more important than most of the other listed changes.
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Old 07-30-2018, 12:17 PM
 
Location: Rochester, WA
14,416 posts, read 11,954,182 times
Reputation: 38811
Quote:
Originally Posted by MinivanDriver View Post
Don't get me wrong. She did her homework on the front end, showed us comparables, and no one thinks the price is out of whack. We're getting good agent feedback to that effect.

I think one of the problems is that she is marketing an area with which she has no familiarity. The neighborhood where I am has the state's top school system, a great location, and is pretty much the high-end suburb in my metro area. At the same time, it has its own quirks and eccentricities--Okay, snobbery. Our first showing arrived early before I could leave and the realtor asked point blank, "Why did you list with an agent way over there?"
The agents are NOT avoiding the listing because of who your agent is.

I am not necessarily seeing signs that unfamiliarity with the area is a problem. If the price was wrong then maybe. We've seen that.... Agents from up north where prices are higher, overpricing homes down here because they don't know the market. It happens. They sit on the market until they reduce the price.

If you want to increase the activity and get it sold, perhaps do a price reduction, and an open house to publicize the reduction and get new eyes on it.
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Old 07-30-2018, 01:28 PM
 
11,025 posts, read 7,797,253 times
Reputation: 23702
Quote:
Originally Posted by MinivanDriver View Post
Ah. 45 days.

My theory is that the key selling season in my neighborhood is late February-May and we just got to market too late.
Days on market for you is about 45 - the question was what is the average days on market for your area. If that's also 45 you should be ready - if you have the average house at the average price and everything else is right at the average. Did you arrive at your theory on key selling season statistically or by gut feeling?

You have not responded to how well the text of your listing highlights the best things in your house and the schools and everything else about the area. You have not said who took the pictures and how well they represent the best things about your house. Does the picture of your dining room show the table, chairs and part of the wall behind it or does it view across the table to the French doors to the outside? You have not said whether your house has an "eclectic vibe" and "unique paint scheme" or is all brown. Is the house full of family pictures and wall decals of biblical passages? How's the yard? The landscaping? Is there a double yellow line in the street in front of your house? An auto recycling facility across the street? Is your house or yard the largest in the neighborhood or the smallest? What about your garage, basement, attic?

Do most houses for sale in your area have open houses frequently or not at all? How long does it take your agent to advise you a viewing is being requested? How often do you talk to the agent? Who initiates those conversations? How many viewings have you had? What's the average for your area?

How far is "across town" for your agent? A mile and a half or an hour and a half?

When you're able to answer most of these questions you may have a better idea of why you still own the house.

Last edited by kokonutty; 07-30-2018 at 02:29 PM..
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Old 07-30-2018, 02:25 PM
 
Location: Forest bathing
3,198 posts, read 2,464,697 times
Reputation: 7253
City Data has some amazing Realtors. You are so helpful.
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Old 07-30-2018, 02:31 PM
 
9,891 posts, read 11,721,623 times
Reputation: 22086
Quote:
Originally Posted by MinivanDriver View Post
Okay. So here's my deal.

House on the market since early June. Clean as a whistle, shows well, priced correctly according to Zillow, and realtors who have come by state that it's a great house at a good price in an attractive neighborhood with top-notch schools.

Here is the big question the answer to that will tell a lot. Have you been getting showings of the property? If the home is being shown and no offers, then there is a problem that is keeping it from selling. Lets look at possibilities.

Price: Using Zillow as a way to judge if the price is right, is using the most unreliable source, and can be a huge difference between a local appraisal and a Zillow value. It is impossible for a company like Zillow to set the value of a property, hundreds to thousands of miles away. You need a local comparable market analysis done by a local Realtor, or an appraisal to know the true market value.

Property needs to be compared to other properties on the market that are selling, to find why people are buying other property, rather than yours.


Here's my problem. Against my better judgment, we went with a family friend to sell it. Someone who lives across town. Since we put the house on the market, we had a realtor open house the first week, and then nothing else. No open houses for the public, no real efforts on her part.

Open houses rarely sell the home that holds the open house. The link is to an article that is very true and accurate. The good Realtors do not hold open houses, as they are a waste of time.

https://www.thebalance.com/do-houses...-house-1798977


We have had people show and it takes her forever to get feedback.

This is normal in the Real Estate Business. And feedback is mostly not the accurate information that you are looking for. The most common thing that the buyers give to the agent, is the first excuse that comes to their head. Such things as I just don't feel this is what we are looking for so lets look at the next house on the list, and agents cannot third degree the buyers to get the type of information you are looking for.

Listing agents do not sell the property. Buyers agents sell the property. Today everything the buyers read is get your own buyers agent, and never buy direct from the listing agent. The job of the agent, is to make every real estate agent aware your home is for sale, and to get it in MLS so that the clients can find homes for sale over the Internet. The listing agent living in the area, has little to do with getting your home sold. It is buyers agent, that will do the selling. The listing agent is working behind the scene and the sellers never realize how much work the agent does they never know about.


So it's a two-part question:

1) How important is it to have a realtor who knows a specific part of town?

2) What should she be doing to drum up more interest?
Here are a questions for you to answer.

1: Are other homes in the same neighborhood selling and yours is the only one not selling?

2: What is the average time on the market for homes selling in your neighborhood/town. You may find that the average time on the market is longer than your home has been listed.

You may find that though you think it is a great neighborhood, and should sell fast, that home sales in your neighborhood are few and far between, while another neighborhood is selling fast. Then you have to look at why your neighborhood has few sales. Is it that the homes in your neighborhood, are priced a few thousand higher than similar homes in another also acceptable neighborhood. If this is the reason, it is the buyers for your type home, are finding much better buys in their opinion in the other neighborhood.

Your neighborhood is desirable, but the people that are attracted to it, are not able to spend that much for a home and getting a mortgage to buy it, so they have to settle for less. If there are a lot of new homes being built at the same price point, a large percentage of people rather have a brand new home, than an existing one for the same price, and sometimes less.

As to what our Realtor can do to drum up more interest, is a difficult thing to come up with as an answer. Sometimes a Realtor is doing everything they can to find prospective buyers, but the fact it will be the other agents in town that are going to make the actual sale, the home still does not sell. If your home is located in a slow selling neighborhood, between all the agents marketing homes and none to few sales, it usually comes down to one big factor.

The homes in your neighborhood are overpriced as far as the buyers see it, and people are buying in other parts of the town, where they feel they are getting a lot more for their money.

If other homes in the neighborhood are selling, and yours is not selling it is for one of two reasons.

1: The buyers feel the other homes give them more for the money, and they buy the other homes. Your home has a problem in the buyers eyes, that turns them off, and they are not interested in buying your home.

2: Your home is overpriced for the neighborhood, and the buyers see it right away, and are buying the other homes instead of yours. If you feel your price is justified due to a Zillow price, forget the Zillow estimate. It can be thousands of dollars off as to the value of your home, often on the high side. It may be worth your while, to get an appraisal, and use the appraisal as a tool, to justify your price. Or if the appraisal is below your asking price, lower your price to match the appraisal.

I do know a little about the business, as I was an investment real estate broker from 1972 until I finally retired. My best home sales for one day were 14 homes sold in 2 hours on the telephone. But there is a reason. A 13 home to be built subdivision, and as they had to have half sold before they could get financing, so they gave me a low price. Sold those 13 homes plus a home that had to be sold that day to avoid a VA repo scheduled the next day. Sold 5 to one investor, and not less than 2 to anyone. Every call, was a sale.
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Old 07-30-2018, 02:54 PM
 
11,025 posts, read 7,797,253 times
Reputation: 23702
Quote:
Originally Posted by oldtrader View Post
Here are a questions for you to answer.

1: Are other homes in the same neighborhood selling and yours is the only one not selling?

2: What is the average time on the market for homes selling in your neighborhood/town. You may find that the average time on the market is longer than your home has been listed.

You may find that though you think it is a great neighborhood, and should sell fast, that home sales in your neighborhood are few and far between, while another neighborhood is selling fast. Then you have to look at why your neighborhood has few sales. Is it that the homes in your neighborhood, are priced a few thousand higher than similar homes in another also acceptable neighborhood. If this is the reason, it is the buyers for your type home, are finding much better buys in their opinion in the other neighborhood.

Your neighborhood is desirable, but the people that are attracted to it, are not able to spend that much for a home and getting a mortgage to buy it, so they have to settle for less. If there are a lot of new homes being built at the same price point, a large percentage of people rather have a brand new home, than an existing one for the same price, and sometimes less.

As to what our Realtor can do to drum up more interest, is a difficult thing to come up with as an answer. Sometimes a Realtor is doing everything they can to find prospective buyers, but the fact it will be the other agents in town that are going to make the actual sale, the home still does not sell. If your home is located in a slow selling neighborhood, between all the agents marketing homes and none to few sales, it usually comes down to one big factor.

The homes in your neighborhood are overpriced as far as the buyers see it, and people are buying in other parts of the town, where they feel they are getting a lot more for their money.

If other homes in the neighborhood are selling, and yours is not selling it is for one of two reasons.

1: The buyers feel the other homes give them more for the money, and they buy the other homes. Your home has a problem in the buyers eyes, that turns them off, and they are not interested in buying your home.

2: Your home is overpriced for the neighborhood, and the buyers see it right away, and are buying the other homes instead of yours. If you feel your price is justified due to a Zillow price, forget the Zillow estimate. It can be thousands of dollars off as to the value of your home, often on the high side. It may be worth your while, to get an appraisal, and use the appraisal as a tool, to justify your price. Or if the appraisal is below your asking price, lower your price to match the appraisal.

I do know a little about the business, as I was an investment real estate broker from 1972 until I finally retired. My best home sales for one day were 14 homes sold in 2 hours on the telephone. But there is a reason. A 13 home to be built subdivision, and as they had to have half sold before they could get financing, so they gave me a low price. Sold those 13 homes plus a home that had to be sold that day to avoid a VA repo scheduled the next day. Sold 5 to one investor, and not less than 2 to anyone. Every call, was a sale.
"All real estate is local." And so are the ways houses are sold varied, largely tied to location. Citing an article about open houses, which represents only the author's opinion and does not cite any specific or even general statistics, may seem effective if that writer's opinion mirrors yours but is virtually useless as a metric for the OP's unknown location, your location and even Sacramento California, the writer's location. Local convention is certainly more pertinent.

To make the blanket statement "The good Realtors do not hold open houses, as they are a waste of time" is ridiculous. Even if there was some kind of data to prove such a thing in general it may have absolutely nothing to do with your area or, especially, that of the OP.

Your apparent assumption that every buyer has an agent and every agent is at the top of their game disregards all those buyers who are more hands on and will scan the newspapers and websites for open house announcements and either do a "drive-by" in advance or direct their agent that they want to see a house rather than waiting to see if the agent suggests it on their own.
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Old 07-30-2018, 03:55 PM
 
Location: Morrisville, NC
9,141 posts, read 14,715,987 times
Reputation: 9054
Quote:
Originally Posted by Taz22 View Post
Yes, MinivanDriver, you are spot on. Like every other job, there are people who are attracted to this field and who do an amazing job. Others will do an average job, but this hurts the client if details are skipped,this job is not like working in retail where the wrong item is rung up. A realtor needs to wear many hats to do it right.

The last two realtors we had, my spouse summed up in one word, commission. The realtor before that was incredible. I hired him to sell MIL’s house and he went above and beyond. He was always avaliable to talk to, I’d think of a nagging detail at 11pm, shoot him an email and boom, answered in ten minutes! His work ethic was outstanding, I know the millennial generation got a bad rap, but this guy proved his honesty and integrity many times over. He gave me honest feedback on their house and would say things like a picture needs to go here, you need to clean up your paint spatter here and the front door needs a new doorknob. Many realtors won’t give those details, and there is more to selling a house than just cleaning it up. He used to do landscaping before becoming a realtor and this may have developed his eye for details. He also did thoughtful things like paying for a house cleaner right before putting it on the market. I spent a year working a full time job and working on their house every weekend. I used up all my PTO and vacation days to have more time to work on their house. This one simple, thoughtful gesture saved me a marathon of cleaning before it went on the market.

I really hope this guy stays in real estate for life, their house sold in a couple of months for a good price, he wasn’t always wanting to drop the price, plus he was on board every day. I just can’t say enough nice things about this guy. He and a very sharp lady who was originally from the Philippines, were the best and most on the ball realtors we’ve ever had. Some people are just born to sell real estate.
Why didn’t you use your incredible guy for the other homes?
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Old 07-30-2018, 04:06 PM
 
Location: Raleigh NC
25,119 posts, read 16,146,620 times
Reputation: 14408
sounds like MIL's house was in a different market than where Taz22 lives.
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