I have never had a buyer contact me who already knew what they wanted. Some THOUGHT they knew what they wanted. Most are as unrealistic about when they think they have to spend as the seller are in their asking prices.

ColoBroker: As others have said broker open houses are just for those brokers that are cheap and have nothing better to do.
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Broker's open house is how I preview inventory so I can speak intelligently about a house when a buyer asks about it. The last thing a buyer wants to hear is "well, I haven't been inside it."

Selling a property can often seem like a hit and miss proposition in today’s real estate market. If you find you are missing a lot, you need to figure out why.

Most homes fail to sell for three primary reasons – price, appearance and exposure. Let’s take a closer look.

First, look at your house in a really objective way. Does it look nice? Does it look inviting? Does it look like it’s worth the price you’re asking for it?

If your house looks lovely from the outside, go inside and look around.

If your house is spotless on the inside and out – try to evaluate yourself as a host.

if none of these seem to be the reason why there is a dearth of offers, check your asking price. You should have set a price that is within the acceptable price range for that kind of property in a specific market.

sleepingbeauty

Ok, your house is just overpriced. We are in depreciating market now and it is pretty typical for that kind of market to overprice a house. The reason you can't sell it if you even decrease the price is that the market is going down faster than you reposition your house and you are following the market. What you need to do is to create perception of value in buyers. You need to create an energy price that will bring that interest. Simply said, put the house 10% under the market value (on that way you will not follow the market, you will just go ahead the market), that will create perception of value in buyers and will generate multiple offers. Buyers will start bidding on your house and you will get top money for the current market, other ways you will stay and watch the traffic and will never receive reasonable offer. Make buyers compete for your property. Don't forget real estate is a commodity not a product. Buyer establishes the price of the commodity like on Wall Street; the price on the product is established by the seller. Real estate is emotional commodity so that makes buyers to bid when see perception of value in some house. Do it and will sell for good money. This is a great technik and you will never lose money in depreciating market. If you would like more about that just call me any time and we will talk:-)

Good luck!

Under valuing a home can be a bit risky, don't you think Viktor? I mean of course making two mortgages can be even rougher, but what if you still get no offers? You've then demonstrated you're willing to take anything that comes your way and the buyer truly has the upper hand. I suppose though, no risk means no reward.

It seems risky on paper but lately, from doing bpo's, I've seen quite a few homes sell in less than a week for more than they listed - I was concerned that cc would think I made a typo cuz we haven't been putting in numbers such as that in years.

There are buyers out there looking for a bargain and when they find it they get all "eBay'y" about it and start bidding more than they had planned to because now they're in a horse-race for the home they want and emotions are involved.

There is a number that will sell your home today; there is a number that will cause multiple offers to come streaming in - find it.

Good luck

I tend to agree with Viktor, given that appraisals nowadays are not automatically and magically coming in at contract purchase price, and that in the last 6 months I have had both an appraiser and an underwriter in our market state that "since values are depreciating in this area" one appraised low even with good comps, and the other (very strong lender in our market) decided to DECLINE the appraisal and not lend as much as the appraisal stated the property was worth (which shocked all of us and was something we had never heard before).

Therefore, I don't necessarily think it is risky for a truly motivated seller to under price by a small margin if the goal is to actually sell and close instead of wallowing on the market whining about why they can't get "their" price that they "need," which has absolutely no bearing on a buyer.