I have working with a FSBO for about a month in a nice neighborhood. I have him some comps and a little bit of marketing help. I told him if I were to list your home, $313,000 to $320,000. I just checked the hotsheet and he listed for $360,000!

No Sweat - 3-5 months from now, when that listing expires, contact them again and let them know you're still available to help.

Wow, he will be disappointed when no one will be showing his overpriced home.

No biggie, let someone else buy this listing and waste their time and money marketing it. Once it expires, the seller will be much more realistic.

if i loose out on a listing (because another agent "buys the listing" i let the seller know (before it goes live -active-) that if they dont sell please do not hesitate to call me to get it sold

yep....stick around. Mark the calendar days about 60,90,120 days away and make sure you look for it in the expireds.

He did email me last night saying he went with the other agent. I replied saying I saw it on the MLS and will keep it in mind for my buyers. There is still only 1 photo (MLS allows for 16) and no virtual tour. I will be doing mailings again to that neighborhood later on today with average sales prices by bedrooms in the town and surrouding areas.

Yea I just do not get this. It almost pisses me off when I see a listing with one or two photos, even if they are great photos. So many buyers will want to see more of the house beforehand. I can see a few days, due to different signing scenarios. But after a few days you should have lots of good pics.

Still only 1 photo. Even when it was a fsbo, the owner did have a few photos of the house, but not any of the inside. Even most new construction & land in my market does have more than 1 photo.

I would have told him it's WAY overpriced!Did you not go over with him the most recent SOLDS and ABSORPTION rates????

If you did,did the seller explain why he though he could get 360 for the house?If it's what I need to get out of the house you should have shook his hand and left it at that.

Before pouring a TON of time into Expireds and Fsbo's you need to immediately upon making contact determine WHY they are selling and MOTIVATION.

It's an overpriced listing that you lost that will expire.When you meet with clients next time explain with data this is the market value of you home.If you go with the cheapest agent or broker than I am not right for you.If you want an agent/broker who will take your overpriced listing and tell you what you want to hear to make money off of your back with taking the buyers that call off the sign to other well priced listings then by all means go ahead.

You see Mr. seller I do not take overpriced listings as it's my goal to work for you and help you get your house sold at a price the market will bear.Anything over that is a waste of my time and yours.

Don't be afraid to stick up for yourself and don't waffle because you are desperate for a listing because you will regret it!

I did go over recent sales in the neighborhood and absorption rates. Nothing on his street has ever sold for more than $350k with the most recent sale being $320k.

He thought it was worth that much because he put in a deck and redid the hardwood floors (which every home in the price range has), put in a pool (too big for the yard and doesn't add value) and installed central air. The motivation was to sell as use the money to purchase a larger family room. I did show it a chart my broker made of buying up in a down market but it didn't matter to him.

It was about commision, since they are offering the same about of buyers comp as I do. The listing does a sign installed but not with her name or number but her offices info. I told him my company doesn't take overpriced listings and because of that, we were the only national company that had a better year in 2007 than we did in 2006.

WEAK motivation,move on to the next seller!As you do more presentations you will learn when to walk away.I would have made a brief presentation and left it at that.Seller doesn't have a motivating reason to sell.

When you hear baby is on the way,downsizing,divorce,job loss,facing foreclosure,job relocation,health issues,death in family,business problems those are MOTIVATORS.

good luck

I try to circumvent this issue pro-actively with a sheet of paper in my presentation. This sheet has 3 colums with my name on the top first. On the side, I state what I do and HOW MANY time I do it.
The other colums stay empty and I suggest the owner to interview other agents and write down what they do. So (s)he can compare who's the best for her/him.
It works well...

I think you have done everything to the book. Great persistence. Let the seller roast for a while. The day after expiry make sure to stop by the house in person.

I have do doubt you will do great in real estate.

There are currently 11 pictures up now, compared to just 1 that was on the listing for the 1st week. On Sunday, I was invited over to my clients which purchased the house in the same neighborhood and they asked me about the price of the house and when I told them, they thought the price was a joke.

It's easy for people to say, Never Take An Overpriced Listing..... However, I've learnt a few good lessons from this:

While I do agree that we should never take an overpriced listing, what I learnt most importantly is to never say the word, Never.

Back to the original question, the word should be it depends.

First of all, the motivation. Again, all Sellers project their motivations differently. I've had a Seller who told me that she needed to sell her house YESTERDAY. Listing with a different agent who promised her a more aggressive marketing plan than mine (that was what she said I lost out to) and almost 5 months later, it's still not priced correctly. So, how motivated is she really is? Nevertheless, motivation is the key to whether or not you might consider taking the listing.

Remember that having lots of listings is not good for your business or your health. If you were like me that sends a weekly report of showings and feedbacks, new activities (actives, pending and solds), suggestions and recommendations, this report itself takes me 3 hours to prepare. Just imagine if you had 10 of these, or 25 of these (the non-selling ones!)..... All you would be doing is reports ALL week! Having them motivated and priced correctly is the key.

Not all listings are saleable.

i do a weekly report as well. i think it is a great idea and i have been doing it since day 1. the seller should know the feedback from any activity on thier home and be up to date on the neighborhood activity.

the way that i do it as follows.

i have a map search cma with the criteria saved in my mls search. i only have to hit a button to note any changes in the area ie.. new homes on the market, selling prices of homes under contract and new homes under contract. then i call them and go over the results.

I've seen many overpriced listings sell. Many times I've taken a listing that I thought was too high only to learn that my logic and comparables proved useless. It may have been a fluke, however it happened. I do direct sellers where their home should sell, but if we don't agree I'm willing to work with them if they're willing to listen to me if their home isn't moving.

why do you think you lost the listing?

Sometimes you'll never get the listing after it expires because the bull-headed seller can't bear the thought of you saying you told him so.

But it's definitely worth the wait to try, anyway, and if you still don't get the listing, be comforted that you never spent a dime wasting your time while the other listing-buying agents go in the hole.

And also seeing that seller never sell even after a couple years of trying at "his price" is a nice feeling. I know this sounds like a bad attitude...but it feels good sometimes knowing you were right and you moved on to deal with other realistic clients!

It is funny that this thread is bummed up now. The house just got reduced $5000 today but is still about $40,000 above fair market value. I did get a call this morning from a seller which rejected a full price offer last year to do a new CMA for him since he had rented out the house. They rejected $510,000 in August and now I think it should list around $479,000 and sell for about $470,000.

If the motivation is there though, the listing would not be over priced to begin with. So instead the agent has wasted 5 months or marketing, and energy, on a property that will never sale? The seller don't want to here its priced to high, they want to hear how much more money you are throwing at the property to move it.

So then that sign just sits there month after month. No activity. The neighborhood is watching, thinking that agent is no good. The seller is likely getting mad at the agent and telling eveybody that you cant sell his underpriced listing.

So you take an overpriced listing, you finally get them motivated, then your listing contract expires, they use somebody else to relist. You still loose.

That house has been on the market for a little over a month. In that genereal price range, of the 33 listings in the city, noly 2 of them are under deposit and 1 is pending. The sign is up, but there is no name rider which is surpsing since their current agent lives a few houses up the road.

Don't sweat it. You win some, you lose some. If he's overpriced and truly wants to sell...just give it time. Most likely the agent who "bought" the listing will most likely fail and when it expires you will have an opportunity to bring up the discussion of helping him sell his home and hopefully this seller will be more receptive to using you the second, third time around.