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Any REA here? I need guidance.
I am in the NE and have had my house on the market since April with a well known agency and our contract ends in November.
Houses in my area are *rock bottom* right now, just a large inventory, so it's not that unusual to be on the market this long here. My house is priced probably 20k over it's selling price - but I needed some negotiating room. (we're about 40K underwater as it stands - and though we don't HAVE to move - we really want to.)
We had one nibble last month but they came in obscenely low (75k or so under asking). the negotiations dropped off after the second day, which was dissapointing because we were close - but they just couldn't/wouldn't seem to get our drop dead bottom line.
Anyway - over the course of these months my agent has never shown the house. Never once. She had an open house in the beginning, after that - every showing was made by other agents from other agencies and one from her office.
During our negotiations she was very distracted by her infirmed fathers care (which of course I totally understood and was very patient with - even spending a lot of time during negotitaions to listen to the latest).
Anyway - now this contract is coming to an end and I'm trying to decide what to do.
I really am not too impressed with my current agents performance. She really didn't do much besides put some ads in local papers and call to arrange showings when other agents had potencial buyers. It seems silly to stick with her to me.
I intend to keep the price as is (again, about 20k over where I'll be able to sell it) until at least spring. At that point I'll be in a better position to go lower.
First, Is there any downside to moving my house to another agency?
Second - with my contract ending in November - is it best to stay off the market until the new year or should I get it right back on? I feel like if I were looking for a house - time of year wouldn't matter to me - but obviously everyone talks about Spring being THE time to list your home. Thoughts?
I'm open to any suggestions or thoughts.
I'm so over this :0)
Re: Any REA here? I need guidance.
yikes - that's long, sorry. It didn;t feel long when I was writing it!
when we were looking at houses, we never met with the sellers agent. it was just us and our realtor. we looked at a bunch of houses, and having set meeting times would have slowed us down. that, and we looked over several weekends, and ultimately, our schedule was dictated by the baby. if she got fussy, it was time to go home.
the market here is also a bit different...but a house that was on the market a long time was less attractive to us. there are a lot of cash buyers here, so if a house is priced well, they often get offers within a week. we actually saw a number of houses that got offers within a couple days of listing. the only house that was on the market for a few months that we were interested in wasn't willing to budge at all on price when we offered what we felt the house would appraise for.
Have you seen my monkey?
I agree with nital; when we were looking at houses, we had our own agent show us all the homes. The seller's agent is there for the seller, so there isn't any benefit for the buyer to go directly through the seller's agent. We never once met with the seller's agent, nor spoke to the seller's agent. The seller's agent should, however, be reaching out to other agents in the area to see what their current buyers are interested in purchasing.
You mention that you are listed about $20K above what you can afford to sell the house. What do the comps say? If the comps are lower than you can afford to sell the house, then I would pull it from the market and wait until things change. It may be a few years, but you aren't going to find many buyers that are willing to pay more for a house than what the comps indicate they should pay.
Good luck!
Click it if you can't say it!
I agree with PP where it sounds like you are saying you are overpriced by $20k. If that is the case you are shooting yourself in the foot. As a buyer we looked at a few house that were really overpriced and even though I liked a couple I didn't even consider offering because I assumed the sellers were going to be unreasonable since they were clearly not paying any attention to comps. So any offer we made would be $30k under list price which a seller would get insulted at even though the offer is where it should be.
If I was you I would remove the house during the winter (since you aren't in a hurry to sell) and relist in the spring at the appropriate price. So you restart the clock on how long you have been listed. Get your house in perfect condition and price it correctly. If you cannot afford to price it appropriately I would just wait until you have either saved up enough to be able to sell and bring money or until the market adjusts up (could be years). Otherwise you are just wasting time and energy.
If your house is priced $20K above what it should be, then you might as well just take it off the market until you can list at a competitive price. Even if someone absolutely falls in love with it, offers you close to asking price, chances are the appraisal will come in lower than asking price and you will still not be able to sell.
Being overpriced is not a smart thing to do in this market unless you are in a VERY desirable area where houses rarely come on the market. I understand you are in a financial predicament being underwater on the house, but you also have to be realistic when it comes to selling.
You can try switching agents if you are really unhappy with your current one. However, I have to agree if you are priced above comps then that is most likely the problem.
In terms of her not showing the house... I know we asked our agent if she was showing us any of her listings and she said no that it was a conflict of interest, which we were happy to hear because we agreed and did not want to see her listings. My sister sold her house using the same agent as the buyer and she felt that the agent really only looked out for one party and it happened to be the buyers. I think most people would advise to go with separate representation for each party involved to make sure the realtor is looking to meet your needs.
I would probably take the house off the market for a bit. I think people low ball houses that have been on the market for awhile.