Help - Why won't my house sell

[LilyWDW]

Your listing, as it is, needs to come down. The pictures and errors in it makes it seem like a joke or like you are not serious to sell. I just can't believe that any realtor would put their name on that listing! I showed it to my cousin who is a realtor (sadly, not anywhere near where you are OP) and she laughed. She said the odds of the house selling, even with new pics at this point, is slim to none because it has already been out there this long with the old listing. Her suggestion is to pull the listing, fire your realtor, and give it a bit before putting it back on the market with things all fixed up.

I would have to agree with others here. Step one is fire your realtor. It is obvious she is not taking your listing seriously or that she is a professional. If I was looking for a home, there is no way in heck I would be coming to your place in person after seeing that listing. The house and yard both look like they need a lot of work. It looks run down and junky.

 

[tvguy]

I agree that you should not do anything expensive on the house. Updates can get you a sale, but you generally lose money on them. You can also run into the potential buyer who just hates the color of the new floor that you put in. Ack!

I think a better approach is to make everything that is there the best that it can be on the cheap. Make it as inviting as possible. That is something that was definitely missing from your original pics - an inviting feel. Everything must be immaculate (including the outdoor areas). Small things (which it sounds like you have already done some of) are also things that you can borrow from your current home during the selling of this one.

Good luck. And tell your realtor that this is it for her - do or die time.

This ties into having a good realtor. When I sold my parents 53 year old house, which basically was exactly as it was built in 1960 down to the pink tile in the bathroom, all 6 realtors I interviewed said "don't paint, don't change carpet (it was the original), leave it as it is. But the reality is, anyone looking for a house in that area was looking to buy a home for the 1/2 acre lot to tear it down and build a McMansion or was expecting to do a top to bottom remodel before moving in. I had 3 cash offers within 17 days of signing the listing contract. Of 3 homes sold in that area in 2013, 2 were torn down, and my parents got a top to bottom remodel by investors who bought it to flip it. They did a beautiful job, and couldn't sell it. They had it on the market for a whole year before selling it for $169,000 more than they paid for it. One of the neighbors looked up the value of the remodels on the County Permit page, figured in a year's worth of property taxes, plus real estate commissions, plus they paid all my closing costs. We figure they lost about $100,000

 

[VandVsmama]

So, if I ditch the gray color that is currently on the kitchen/living room/hallway walls, what color would you use? It will all have to be the same color, there isn't a good transition point. I"m not sure white/antique white would work with the white cabinets.

So far I have painted the master bedroom, bonus room, and the front yellow room. I've also gotten some fall colored dishes and linens for the countertop. New white shears in the master bedroom and bought a new set of blinds for the smaller window in that room but haven't put it up yet. Got some fluffy towels for the towel racks and a new shower curtain. I also got a set of white curtains for the kitchen window but really don't like the way they look. I'll probably return those and get something else. I'll also replace the kids blinds with some larger ones that match the ones in the front windows.

It's supposed to rain all weekend, but if not I'll get the kids out and do some yard work. At least spread some pine straw in the front and redo some of the older flowers. I got my son started clearing out the shed, still not sure what I'll do with that but will make a decision once I can get a better idea of the floor situation in there. Big kid is pretty handy, I may get him some lumber and put him to work with Ana White's adirondack chair plans.

I really do appreciate all the suggestions and am taking everything into consideration. Unfortunately, I am not going to be able to replace floors or countertops. Painting the outside of the house isn't an option either (although I do love the idea, it is expensive and we would be the only house on our street that was painted). I simply can't put $15,000 (I have gotten quotes to do these things in the past year - $8000 for carpet, $3000 for countertops, around $10,000 for hardwood, $5000 to paint our current house so assuming similar with this one) into this house with no hope of recouping it after a sale. I'm having a hard enough time even convincing my husband that the painting needs to be done. Going into debt to get this house sold isn't going to fly with him.

I agree w/not painting the outside of the house. I don't think you need to paint the outside shutters either. Nor do I think you should put in new flooring or countertops anywhere.

 

[jaybirdsmommy]

Latest development - my realtor just fired me.

Not really, but she just called and said another agent in the company asked if he could take over the listing. I don't know him but his listings look nice and his pictures are clear. I guess he's as good a place to start as any.

Her ears must have been burning from this thread.

 

[robinb]

Latest development - my realtor just fired me.

Not really, but she just called and said another agent in the company asked if he could take over the listing. I don't know him but his listings look nice and his pictures are clear. I guess he's as good a place to start as any.

Her ears must have been burning from this thread.

Does this "restart" your agreement with the agency? I would be more proactive about finding a new agent than to just take whoever the agency sends you.

 

[Disflyer226]

Latest development - my realtor just fired me.

Not really, but she just called and said another agent in the company asked if he could take over the listing. I don't know him but his listings look nice and his pictures are clear. I guess he's as good a place to start as any.

Her ears must have been burning from this thread.

The broker at that agency allowed your awful listing to remain online for five months. Fire the whole office and find a new realtor.

 

[jaybirdsmommy]

Does this "restart" your agreement with the agency? I would be more proactive about finding a new agent than to just take whoever the agency sends you.

I'm not sure, I'll find out when I talk to him.

 

[cabanafrau]

Latest development - my realtor just fired me.

Not really, but she just called and said another agent in the company asked if he could take over the listing. I don't know him but his listings look nice and his pictures are clear. I guess he's as good a place to start as any.

Her ears must have been burning from this thread.

Perfect opportunity to tell her you want to pull the house off the market for a bit.

BTW, I would not be one bit surprised if she had become aware of this thread if your listing is suddenly getting a lot of internet interest.

 

[Southernmiss]

Yeah, we probably need to revisit the price. We set it based on comps earlier in the year and we went with what the realtor said to do. I don't think we are priced high based on other houses that have sold this year in the neighborhood, it just doesn't seem like anything in that price range is moving right now. $500K + mcmansions are selling like hotcakes and the tiny starter homes are going quickly but nothing in the middle ranges seem to be moving.

I just went and checked listings based on 16+ sqft and 0.5+ acres and under $300K. There are 9 that meet that criteria in the entire town. Only 1 is a reasonable comp for ours and it's about the same price (and, believe it or not their pictures are WORSE than ours). The others are in rental neighborhoods, have train tracks running through their backyards, or are on the main road that has university traffic, middle school, junior high, and high school traffic all at the same time.

I took some pictures this weekend but couldn't figure out how to get them off my phone on to here.

This is why the pictures and on line description must be perfect to sell the house. Those looking on the internet DO see them as similar comps to your house are very turned off by what they see.

If it were between looking at homes from the pictures of your house (as the listing shows) and others I have seen in your town on line, even with the what you see as less desirable locations, I'd have to look at those other homes first. I could live with train tracks-did it growing up and school traffic, have that now where I am- if it meant that i did not have a lot of work to do to make the house a place I was proud to buy.And how would I know if a neighborhood was full of rentals? With a sizable military population here, I also live in a neighborhood of rentals. But all are kept up to our home owner association standards.

I am surprised that you listed the house before making a lot of the suggested cosmetic changes. We did a lot of work (cleaning, hiring a professional painter, decluttering, yard work) before we listed our last house to be sure that the first impression was not a disappointment. We sold in 3 months and I thought that was a long time on the market, but we got our original asking price.

I too would be looking for a different AGENCY and not just realtor and have to let the house sit through the holidays (might give you more time to make a few cosmetic improvements) and then bring it back on the market in January.

I get being disappointed in the traffic and that the home has not sold. My mom and her brother have my grandmother's home up for sale. When she first told me the price they were asking for it, I said out loud "It'll never sell for that." They had it priced close to what I would price my home for if I were to sell and my home is 40 years newer with more modern upgrades, 400 more square feet, and in a more desirable location in town. I just knew prices on homes in our town-a hobby of mine when I am bored. And they have recently had to drop the price by $30,000. I expect that if it doesn't sell for this price, it will come off the market for a few months, too before going back up.

 

[GoofyBaseballMom26]

Nothing to contribute but WAR EAGLE! Used to live in Auburn, great place to live and raise a family.

 

[firecracker725]

Dear lord. I've just checked out the realtor's Facebook page. If this is the extent of her social media prowess, I'm afraid she needs to get out of the real estate game altogether.

 

[PlutoPony]

Not really, but she just called and said another agent in the company asked if he could take over the listing. I don't know him but his listings look nice and his pictures are clear. I guess he's as good a place to start as any.

Just because his listings and pictures look better than the other agent doesn't means he's a better realtor than the other agent. It just means he writes better listings and takes better pictures. As you've seen, being a good RE agent involves a lot of other skills and you have no idea if this guy has them. Agree with others that I'd run from the agency - the agency manager clearly doesn't require even a minimal degree of professionalism of their agents. That's not who you want working for you.

Would strongly recommend taking house off the market and cleaning up the yard, but don't do anything inside (other than clean) while you interview other agents with other realty agencies. Wouldn't suggest you saying much about what you think has gone wrong with this listing or what's wrong with your house. Remember that the agents you bring in to potentially hire will be on the other side, negotiating the sale of your house for their client (if you don't pick them), when you go back on the market. You don't want to give them any ammunition for them to use negotiating a lower price down the road.

In the interview process think it would be useful to say you know the pictures used in the listing did hurt the marketing as you had a lot of negative feedback about them. But other than that act clueless to what caused the house to not move and let them do the talking. Don't need to agree with any of their statements, just listen. Say very little. Ask how many homes they've listed, # they've sold, how long on market, % asking price received, would they suggest any changes for your house, marketing plan, etc. Get a sense of how professional they are.

Best of luck to you!

 

[GoofyBaseballMom26]

I can recommend a realtor in the Auburn/Opelika area. PM me if you would like the contact information. You really got stuck with a lousy one.

 

[gillep]

Personally, I wouldn't even entertain the idea of a new agent from that same agency. You need to do some leg work now in finding a new agent. Ask around for recommendations, look at as many current and recent listings online as possible to get an idea of what agents are putting out there and how quickly they are getting sales, go to some open houses to see how the agents are handling them, and pick someone completely new that will work for you. I wouldn't paint anything or do any major work. You will probably want to pull the house from the market for a bit just to get the old listing out of people's minds.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I was waiting on a new battery for my laptop so I couldn't type longer messages until now.

I know many have already said it and I'm glad your original realtor is not going to be yours anymore but those photos were pretty bad. But at the same time on your end there were a few things like clutter and screens from the door off. I don't honestly know if it's true or not but I know I heard it on one of the HGTV shows (I want to say Property Brothers maybe) that when potential buyers see screens off doors or windows they think something is wrong. Its also been said that once potential buyers get negative thoughts going that can be hard to stop. Things like painting or light fixtures that are usually minimal then become larger concerns once those negative thoughts get started. Your home was lived in for sure but a potential homebuyer still wants to be able to see a place without thinking about the years worth of stuff one just accumulates over time. Hindsight of course working here but if I was getting ready for my house to sell and I just had a lot of..stuff..I would rent a storage unit even short term and clear out the clutter and then take the photos.

Honest question but did your realtor make an appointment with you before stopping by to take the photos?

For instance I'm seeing a towel and loofah over the shower. There really shouldn't be an excuse for a toilet lid being up. It seems very minor for sure but it's just one of those things I think we just don't want to think about. The toilet paper in one photo looks like it was just used since it's unraveled a bit. You wouldn't have to do anything fancy with it like you see the triangle at hotel rooms but at the very least it should be rolled up. People know you lived in the house but it's sorta like when looking for a house you don't want to know the intimate lives of the owners.

When I saw the photos of the outside I sorta cringed. I could tell there's been some landscape done in the past at the very least plants planted but now it just looked..like it hadn't had some loving recently. The photo of the backyard with the shed. Yipes! It could be something someone could completely look over once actually at the house but to take a picture completely showing that there's just stuff stuffed into a storage shed is not good. The photo could have been taken from an angle to show a storage shed but not the stuff inside. Time of year is only a partial excuse. Leaves on the ground to an extent (not a ton amount but some-I mean you can't help it if you just raked a day or two ago and now there's leaves on the ground again so long as it hasn't covered the yeard) and leaves off of trees people can look past. But those pictures tell me that I would have to put in some $$ and some time in order to get the yard (both front and back) looking real good. That can weigh in on someone's decision if they really want to put in the work.

If I saw just your photos online I probably would have bypassed wanting to see it in person which is unfortunate because you've already cleared it all out so all that clutter and whatnot..is gone. There is a downside to that which is can be hard to envision what a potential homebuyer can do with the space.

All and all there should be a partnership between you and the realtor. You both would need to work together. At this point a bare house could work in your favor IDK just depends on the particular potential buyers you might have. I'm geniunely not trying to be mean but honestly I can't put the blame just on your realtor. If you're wanting to sell your house and you've got years worth of living there you gotta clean it out especially if you want people to walk in and say "oh yeah I could totally see myself living here with my couch there and my kitchen table there, oh and my bed here, etc" You also would want to prepare your home for pictures at any time plus showings too (I know that's a hard one to do if you're still living there especially). The home was on the internet way too long with those photos IMO.

I really hope your house sells in the end and for what you're wanting as well.

 

[dreiwhit]

It might not be your house so much as it's your realtor.

+1. My sister and my brother-in-law picked a realtor to sell their house based upon recommendations. But, that realtor did almost nothing other than put the house on the MLS. So for six months, very few people looked at it and no offers.

They fired that realtor and got another one, who was aggressive about promoting the house. A few months later, the house sold.

 

[Liberty Belle]

OP, I looked at the pictures you took before seeing the listing and was confused at some of the comments. Your pictures are way way way better than the listing. I know when I'm looking at listings, cluttered houses just make me want to back right out and look at another house. Little things in the pictures make a difference (drawer in the kitchen not completely closed, pen under the dresser in the bedroom, storage box under the bed, bed ruffle not perfect, toilet seats up, clutter, clutter, clutter). And no one expects someone to constantly live in a perfect house, but it should look as perfect as possible in the pictures on the listing.

I think the house is cute and the yard has great potential, but I never would have thought that by looking at the realtor's pictures. Do you have a university/community college in your town? A photography student may be willing to take nice pictures for free, to add to their portfolio.

 

[Poohlove]

I only skimmed through the first few pages so I hope that I'm not repeating too much. I am sure that you had to have signed a listing agreement with your listing agent. The listing agreement spells out the agents commission and they dont want to work for free When I sold my home 3 years ago my agent enlisted a photographer to take pictures and I feel that was a very wise move on her part. The pictures were amazing and held potential buyer's attention. When we first listed the house there was a lot of activity but it tapered off quickly, within a week or so. Some of the feedback was regarding things I couldn't change like lot size but we shot high on the price to test the water. I ended up lowering the price and activity picked up. I closed on the sale of my house within 60 days. The property description was also very well worded.

I would suggest working with a different agent, talk to a couple different ones to get an idea of what their game plans are. Better pictures and more online exposure would go a long way, maybe utilize Facebook and YouTube to reach a different demographic.

Buying and selling is so stressful, I wish you the best and hope you sell soon!