Hello,

My wife and I are trying to sell our first house. We went with an experienced agent as we know little about the process. We live approx. 1 hour from NYC and are relocating to the midwest in early August.

Our house has been on the market for almost a month and we've had exactly 5 visits. Our house is on the lower end of the market price wise, due to size. However, the house is in very good condition compared to other houses in our price range. According to our realtor it is priced right.

Is there anything we can do? I am starting to freak out.

It's normal to have your feelings of FEAR and wanting to seek reassurance that you are doing all you can to sell your home.

Yes does your agent use homefeedback?

This captures all the agents that viewed the property with the buyers electronically and asks for there crucial feedback.

Example:buyers said house is too small.

What you could then do is find a way to get rid of the clutter and stage your home to where it appears to have more square footage.Also make sure your baths,master bedroom,and kitchen are top notch,this is where a majority of homeowners spend there time so they look at these areas closely.

good luck

Here is a tip for you get 500 business cards made up or have the agent do it.The cost will be minimal 30 to 50 bucks.Have pictures of the property on the front and details on the back then hand them out to your friends,family,and acqaintences.Someone might see your home and become interested.

Thanks for the suggestions. Yesterday we had a "broker's open house". Today we will call our agent to get some feedback.

The agent does use homefeedback. So far the comments have been mostly positive, but no takers.

Next question:

Could the lack of traffic mean we have priced the house too high. If so, is it better to reduce the price right away or wait and see if we get more visitors?

Thanks in advance.

If the price is too high, lower it ASAP. Listings aren't like Twinkies... They have a shelf life.

Yours is The Million Dollar Question of the Year - besides should we buy a horse (ga$oline). Mkt has cooled a LOT in the Tampa area/past 8 mo. My sellers are Very Freaked Out!
My listings r in every free site I can find, like Craigslist + paid for positioning on Realtor.com and other sites. I agree with all above comments. HAVE A PROFESSIONAL ABRIDGED APPRAISAL if you're insecure about $. I've been searching for inspiration: price=perceived value sells; agent to call EVERYBODY ever (mortgage, title, old clients) enthusiastic, excellent opportunity. One-on-one is The Most agressive mktng! is what is giving us results.
I have done Happy (One/Lunch Hour) House Hunting in downtown St. Pete. Lots of directionals, sandwich board person on st = lots of traffic, fun! Taita

Before you go dropping the price. Have your agent check comps for the area again. Its been a month, so there might be a few more sales in the area. See what the most recent sales have been and go from there.

I usually recommend to my clients to drop the price after 30 days, nothing drastic though.

When I have clients that want to sell there home quick, I usually suggest to them to do an open house several times a week. I provide them with signs, flyers, and my business cards and they put the signs up, usually 3-4 times a week. They get alot of traffic and it does help sometimes.

I know some people reading this would say, thats the agents job to do the open house. I am up front and honest with my client and I advise them that there is no way that I could do an open house 3 times a week. So far, I have had many clients want to do this and I think it helps sell the house quicker.

Our home is 4 months old, and $40,000 below comps. It has been on the market for 99 days (today), and we have only had 1 couple look at it. There's so much inventory in this area, that we can't even give it away.

A clarification question from Taita-The-Slave.

Worried seller:

Did I get this right? Your home is 4 months old?

You mean to say to us that you bought this home brand new, and one month later you listed it into the re-sale market?
Do you expect to "turn a profit" or to cover your closing expenses on both transactions?

I ask this because if there is new construction still going on around you, you are now competing with it.
We have turned into a Buyers Market here, and sellers in this position are finding that the Developers are offering to cover Buyers Closing Costs and in some cases a fat 7% commission to Buyers agents, plus a huge Bonu$.

Unless there is something very unique about your home - like it is a waterfront property, with a deep water canal connecting to the Gulf, loaded with a dock and a davit in an area where you can't get even a dock permit anymore; or a totally above builders basic: tray ceilings, double corwn moulding, real hardwood floors, Italian granite counter tops, faucet over the stove/gourmet ovens, floating sinks with high-end Kohler faucets, dressing room with built-in detailed rotating closets, double sided fireplace, energy efficient windows, radiant heat built into the floors, stationary lap pool, blah, blah ... you get my point.
These developers have sunk tons of money into their present projects, and they are cutting throats to get their inventory going.

So, wWhere is "home"?

In my area, the time for a quick flip is long over!
It is like, you bought it, you own it.
Live in it or live with it.
I would never advised a client to buy a house with the expectations of even breaking even on a sale under 3 to 5 years, at a minimum.
Real Estate is a great investiment.
It only has one bad aspect: liquidity.
You can almost never cash it in fast.

Are you truly trying to sell it?
What are you willing to accept?
Are you doing a 1031 exchange?
Are you willing to finance the sale yourself, or carry some of the buyers loan?
Did you take a assignable loan?
Could you post some more info, if your house has not sold yet?
Taita, the busy scribler

No, our home is not four months old. That was someone else. The house is actually about 60 years old but has been remodled a number of times.

We recently (this winter) put a brand new roof on the house, put about $2,000 dollars into the yard/landscaping (last spring and fall), and bought all new top of the line appliances (one year ago).

Since my first e-mail we've had a couple of visitors, but no takers yet. Our agent told us to sit tight for a few more weeks.

Being the closest to you, I can say on LI buyers are very picky these days. However, I have a house that has an offer after being on the market only 10 days. I do believe that many homes in this area are still very overpriced. Buyers know they are in control right now, and they have so many to pick from, and either one of 2 things are going to happen. Either you will wait a great deal longer (the avearge selling time is increasing here) or you will have to lower you price. Where in NY are you?

It's always about price.

We llive in Northern Westchester county.

Well the NY market is different now, so it will take time, but price can always remedy most problems.

This thread is a month or so old, but I work in Westchester. My office is located in mid-Westchester, however I have sold in Northern Westchester. Northern Westchester is slow, Putnam is dead. Right now that area is having a rough time. Even Mid and Lower Westchester is quiet. Buyers are in the drivers seat and they have suddenly become a very fussy bunch. A creampuff of a house will still sell fast, but if your house is in anything but picture-perfect condition, you will either have to lower the price or sweat it out.

Wish I had better news...in the meantime, I hope the home sold or at least has more activity.

Maybe then they could stretch the house using one of those medeveil torture devices.

Have a Yard Sale on a Saturday, w/for sale signs on both ends of lawn call your friends let them know, post neighborhood signs w home for sale sign next to yard sale sign.
Then have a BBQ on Sunday, invite friends and family and neighbors, ask each one of them to invite at least one person that you DONT know.

were in the same boat- although we have had more agents thru, its normal for them to leave cards, and only 1 has!!

Its a bum time to be selling but there are literally 1000's in our same boat so I dont feel so bad. We have a contingent offer in on another home so we want to sell as quickly as possible, although we still need as much as we can get from our sale to put down on the "new " house.

We been on for only 30 days exactly, we may drop another $5K here in the next few weeks, Mopst recent comps for same model that sold 30 days ago(still in escrow)was $465K, we are at $469.9K.

I really dont want to lower the price but...

What are others thoughts??

There is another alternative...if you want to drive more buyers to your property pay the agents with buyers more. Talk to your listing agent about increasing the co-op offer. (the split of the commission you are paying the agent that he/she will pay another agent to bring a buyer to the deal). Before cutting your price consider giving your listing agent an additional 0.5% (maybe 1%) to get more agents to show their buyers your property. Money talks...agents with buyers will bring you more offers if you offer them a bigger co-op.

If you drop your price you probably will have to drop it MUCH more than 1/2 to 1 percent. You get far bigger "bang for the buck" taking the money you will "spend" cutting your price and paying part of it to the agents with buyers. If as your agent has said, your property is priced well then you do not have a price problem you have other sellers competing for the buyers that are available. Concentrate your thoughts on how to get more agents to bring more buyers to you.

I would also try alternative listing mediums:

craigslist.com is a good one. It will attract younger buyers.

Also, I would agree that you must make sure your property is not listed too high. Patient buyers survey the entire market and will not go back to a house that was once overpriced.

Ashley - in my experience here in SD area, right now since its a HUGE buyers market, ive had to go down alot in the last month on my place, even though its perfect/turnkey,comps match up, and it's the largest unit in the complex.

Last year at this time these same places were in bidding wars and sold in under 10 days!
People are looking almost soley at price(at least here in N. County) since there is just so much inventory..

If you have any opinions on my place please let me know -heres a tour and pix of it. Constructiove criticism..
http://www.circlepix.com/tour.htm?id=407815&mls_tour=1

A couple of questions here.
1 What are homes similar to yours seller for
2 What is your average days on market for similar homes in your location in todays market. Not six motnsh ago.

Number 2 is extremly important for if you are in a 110-140 day market you are pretty much in line. If your market is 40-60 days your might have a problem.

To often all that is said is lower the price. Sometimes that always the case. Real estate may be the best investment there is. But on the flip side it’s not liquid. Meaning you can not just cash it in. Sometimes it can take some time. The key thing is what is happening in your market in today’s time frame. That’s where you need a very honest real estate professional who gives you the facts about what is happening in your market and not just yes sir no sir to get you to sign.

I have only about 6 transactions under my belt so I was looking for some constructive advice on one of my listings. We are in a very slooooow market.20k houses on the market (an all time high in my area). So, I have this ugly baby listed. It's overpriced, non-descript and needs some work. The seller does not live in the state and in the 9 weeks we have had it listed we have had 2 showings (both this past week). One agent didn't return my calls, the other said it was overpriced. Did I mention the neighbor's condo is listed for 20k less than mine and the same size/layout? Anyway, the son of the owner asked me to go vacuum the place today..... I assured him I check on it weekly and it's just fine. He then e-mails me that weekly at Saturday he would like a wirtten report on what I have done to market his property that week. You know, short of hiring a stripper for an open house,I am out of ideas... my lender (who says its a dog with fleas) say to tell him to go take a hike... but I hate to give up. His place is paid off- paid 80k asking 220k, comps show he could maybe get 196-200k. I am turning out to be the bad guy and hate it so I thought I would see if any pros have some advice.Yes, I have told him about the neighbors, given him comps, had an open house (only 3 neighbors came by), advertised and got no calls.....HELP!

No dis respect but you already know what has to be done. It seems to me you just do not want to admit it in your own words sorry So its overpriced you need to get the seller to either some work and or lower the price

Will the owner take back a second mortgage? I ask this because that will make it very easy to promote the house with 100% financing. I have one lender that will even allow 100% financing down to a 500 credit score...but only if the OWNER does a 20% second mortgage. Sounds like a house that could be marketed offerign 100% financing. And if the owner will contribute up to 6% towasrd closing costs it could easily be marketed to apartment complexes where the mortgage payments would be comparable to (or maybe less than) rent....

Steve Ervin
Owner & Buyer Connection
866-436-7600