Anyone have their house on the market?

[mrssmith06]

Hi, Realtor here 8 days is not very long at all to be on the market. You can't expect your house to sell right away, it just doesn't happen that fast normally. (But YAY if it does!! LOL) It can take a few months or much more. Try to be patient and in the meantime do some research and see what you can do to help get it sold faster...like "staging" your home for buyers. Good luck, I hope you get some bites soon!

 

[bellarella]

Have you double checked your realtor's work?

Before listing my home I have always had three realtors give us a competitive market analysis and had them explain what price point they would pick and why and also what their marketing plan would be. We did not always choose the agent with the highest price and we have not always listed for what the agent recommended.

I also make sure I know all of the comps in my area -- what they were listed for, what they sold for and how many days they were on the market. This helps set my own expectations.

Good luck!

 

[tipsytrtle]

the folks i nanny for put their house up july of 2010, they signed deal today and have a closing date of july 1st 2011

 

[dislal]

I am in SE PA and have been looking for a while. Here, houses in two really good school districts sell like hotcakes. Honestly, they are selling in one week, sometimes less. We've been interested in bidding on three of them, and all three sold within days of going on the market for listing price. I went to an open house today—listed at $525k--and there were about five couples walking through at the same time. It's nuts. But, I dont think our area has been impacted like the others.

It's depressing as a buyer; on the other hand, both houses in my neighborhood also sold within a couple of months. So, that's good for me.

I think this is the only time people like me have been able to afford these schools. They have many many $1 million and up houses. So, it really depends on where you live.

Our area has many big companies, like QVC, Vanguard, Pfizer, Wyeth, etc. and they are saving us.

I live in SW PA and this is exactly what our neighborhood is like, it is so frustrating the houses are going on the market at high prices and are being bought within in a month or so. Dh and I are house hunting and we don't want to move out of our school district so I guess we are going to have to be very patient, even just property is selling for about $15,000 an acre. We bought our place 17 years ago for $28,000 for over 6 acres with an old mobile home, that we lived in for about 9 years and then we eventually built on the property.

 

[mcever4]

I am a Realtor and actually have my own house on the market! It has been listed for over a YEAR now and I have only had 5 showings! It is priced right, but the problem is, there are so many foreclosures out there that people can get a bigger and better house for LESS money than mine is listed for. I am not too discouraged though. Things are picking up a little and all it takes is ONE person to love the house. We could lower our price to get more activity, but we don't HAVE to move. We live out in the country and just want to move a little closer into town and get back in a neighborhood. If it sells, great. If not, no big deal. I would love for it to though, then I could jump on one of those great foreclosure deals!!!!

Robin

 

[swkmom]

Our house has been on the market since late August 2010. We've had probably 10 showings and 2 open houses. The most recent open house was a week ago and our realtor said we had a great turn out and the people there liked the house. Still no offers. We're relocating and must sell, my husband's company will buy the house but we have to try for so long to sell it ourselves. We're in the best school district in our county but I can't figure out why it won't sell. However there are other houses in our area that have been for sale longer. We dropped the price in January and we're getting ready to drop it again today. It's very frustrating.

 

[Local_Girl]

May I interject a little hope for you and all who have homes on the market? DH and I decided rather quickly a couple of months ago that we wanted to buy...our agent sent us some listings via email, and we finally had her set up some showings a few weeks later. We saw 5 houses that first day, the first 4 weren't in great shape (foreclosures, short sales, etc.), but the last house was great! The price was right, it was well maintained, it was uncluttered and clean, and they staged it very well. We knew we wanted it as soon as we walked in! We are in Michigan...in the greater Detroit area.

We offered their full asking price, but asked them to pay part of our closing costs. I think the sellers were in absolute shock that they had an offer on the table in less than a week after listing. There seemed to be a lot of scrambling on their end! Anyway, now we are most of the way through the process and just waiting for our closing date.

Make sure that your home is well priced, well maintained, uncluttered, clean, and well staged for showings...hopefully your buyer is out there just looking for your home!

Wishing all of you selling your homes the best of luck.

 

[quagmire0]

Yeah, 8 days may have been the norm 10 years ago, but definitely not today. Give it time. If you don't see much activity within a month, consider changing the price and/or having some open house events. It all depends on how *desperate* you are to sell.

IMO, these days if you don't NEED to move, it's best to stay put.

 

[GrnMtnMan]

Make sure that your home is well priced, well maintained, uncluttered, clean, and well staged for showings...hopefully your buyer is out there just looking for your home!

Amen.

Here's my recent experience:

The home we bought on October had been on the market for nine days when we made our offer. It showed very well (I see the warts on it now that we've lived in it six months). It smelled of fresh paint, wood floors were freshly refinished, it was very clean and bright, and was very well priced for the neighborhood.

We got a contract on our condo within 48 hours of it being listed. We did pretty much everything our Realtor suggested (new counters in kitchen, painted the whole place, put in new vanities in the bathrooms), and paid for a stager. Buyer didn't want us to go through our open house, so he offered $15k over our asking.

My in-laws sold their condo over the holidays using the same Realtor. She insisted on painting the place, staging it, and pricing it aggressively. It went to contract for full asking price the week after New Year's, typically a dead time of year.

There are houses and condos in all these areas that have been sitting on the market since we were shopping/selling. The key to our good experience has been a good realtor who knows what they are doing and following that advice. Waiting for a miracle buyer to come through who will pay an inflated asking price is hoping for a winning lottery ticket. You might get a winning ticket, but it's not likely.

 

[BabyTigger99]

All it takes is the right people to come through.

We had been talking about selling for a while, but I was worried about it. While we were in the beginning stages of talking about it, we had a realtor come to the house, let us know what they liked, what we should fix, etc. The gave us some great ideas for rearranging the furniture, getting rid of some things to open up areas, things like that. We listed our house on July 7, 2010. We had an open house on July 18th. Five couples ended up coming through. One couple called to come back during the week, but cancelled. Had an open house the following Sunday, July 24. The family that wanted to come back during the week came back again, made an offer. We countered. They got cold feet, wanted to see it again. They came back with one more offer, we accepted the offer on July 27th. I was shocked. I thought our home was going to sit forever. Just stay positive!!!

 

[gigi1976]

OP here, I agree with the staging and such, we worked our tails off for 2 weeks straight getting it ready, luckily we bought it as a foreclosure so we are able to price it right, and it is in the best school (that was a tear falling, I'll miss it).

To those who thought I may have been jumping the gun, overreacting, not being patient enough (all of my known personality traits) you are right!

And to those who said it only takes one...you are right!!!!! The first people, the ones I was crying about as "the only" ones, wrote a contract last night!!!! We will see it tonight when DH gets home, but our agent said it's for 5k below asking and closing date 4/14 or 4/8. Hopefully it goes off without a hitch. Yikes, I should pack something!

To those still waiting to sell, it really does just take the right buyer! Hoping you get in panic packing mode soon!

 

[GrnMtnMan]

CONGRATS!!! BUT DO NOT WAIT!!!!!

Get that contract signed right now!!!!

When we were buying, we put in an offer around 9 PM one evening. I wasn't comfortable with it, but I thought that when I slept on it I'd feel better.

WRONG.

The next day I felt even worse, so we pulled the offer around 11 AM the next day.

Now if the sellers had signed that night, I'd be living somewhere else right now...just with a bigger mortgage (nothing was wrong with the place, just a little more than we wanted to pay, but could easily have handled it).

DO NOT LET THE BUYER GET COLD FEET!!!! SIGN NOW!!!!!!

 

[John Tag]

We too have been on the market for 18 months. Tons of feedback Oh its soo nice, Shows like model, Great area ect ect. But still no great offers. The buyers right now are looking for a steal of a deal for sure. The other 2 homes in our area too are long listed. Only 1 has sold in last year of the 4 that listed. Area is great,Safe(I can even leave a sign on lawn,Gone on vacation and doors are open..Nobody would bother house) True family southern sub division. We too are 15K under what home should be. Our agent even had us use a staging rep, well we did all with agent and after staging home 9 month later still no good offers. Im soo tired of daily cleaning to keep it show ready I cant wait for our vacation..LOL

Anybody looking to move to NC, Here is a great deal... http://www.allentate.com/DesktopDef...4&Region=&ListingPosition=15&From=QuickSearch

 

[acomasdiaz]

I wouldn't give up just yet. The market is really in shambles right and it's really hard to predict how long a home will be in the market. We sold our home 3 months ago and we had it on the market for 3 months before we got an offer. The home we just bought was on the market for 4 months before we made our offer.

My in-laws have had their house on the market since the end of Dec. and have had about 10 people come and see it. My sister on the other hand listed her house 2 weeks ago and got a full price offer on it in 2 days which I believe was just good luck on her part.