How long did it take you to..................

[mla2177]

sell your house? I have had my townhouse on the market since July, and I haven't even had an offer yet!!!!!

 

[honeymom]

I'm a realtor in Arizona. It would be very hard to say what is going on in your market and whether your house is properly priced. If your realtor hasn't already done so, ask for an update on the competition, competitive sales data, etc. Make sure that there hasn't been a change to the market that has made your home seem overpriced. Also, is your home staged well. You don't necessarily have to buy new furniture or hire anybody to do it, but make sure that it shows well.

As to my personal home selling experience, we once had a very difficult home to sell. It was on a busy corner and only had 1 1/2 baths. What we found is that the home had to be perfect - perfectly clean, perfectly staged. I redid a bathroom and had the house professionally painted. I bought a lot of accessories at TJ Maxx. My realtor got the house featured in an article on our town and it showed great. So we had a lot of second views (most of whom ranaway because of the busy streets on the 2nd view). One family came back 3 times and after the article on the town, they finally made a decent offer. It took just under 60 days. And, while we spent about $20,000 fixing up, we made $100,000 from the investment (we had had the house on the market for 2 months the year before without the changes and took it off the market because we were only getting lowball offers from flippers.)

 

[ducklite]

We ran an open house for two days over a weekend and were in contract on Monday with a three way bid war that ended up getting us more than our asking price.

We had put a LOT of elbow grease into prepping the house for sale, including painting (every square inch including the garage walls and closet ceilings!), cleaning/powerwashing, new carpet, and new landscaping. Total cost was about $6000, we got every cent back plus some. Plus we had a quick sale to great buyers.

This was a year and a half ago, it was a townhouse in NJ, perfect for first time buyers. It was also an end unit and the biggest floorplan in the neighborhood, plus had a garage and an attic with flooring plywood for storage and a pulldown for easy access.

There are houses still on the market in the same neighborhood that people were trying to sell before us. They are over priced and disgusting--smell like curry or smoke or cat pee.

I was talking to one of the Realtors last summer, and she said it's impossible, the clients won't reduce the price and won't remediate the odors or declutter/stage the home.

Anne

 

[MsLeFever]

I feel your pain. We had a house in WV that sat on the market for 18 months! We'd painted, cleaned...and moved out for about a year!

 

[CEDmom]

It took us 6 months and we only got the offer we accepted. Good luck - it's tough right now.

 

[mla2177]

I asked our realtor about maybe lowering the price, and she said she did a search in our area for 3 bedroom-2.5 bath townhomes, and 140 came up!!!!!!! The good news is that there are only 3 that are priced lower than ours. It is just so frustrating though! I have a 2.5 yr old son that I have to keep running out of here for a couple hours at a time. With the exception of Nov and Dec, I am averaging about 2 showings a week. I keep asking my realtor if I should change anything, and she says no, that our townhouse is very desirable!!!! She has been in the business for 30 years in this area.........I guess she knows what she is talking about.

 

[ducklite]

Is she getting feedback from the people who are viewing it? Is she finding out why they are passing? If not, she sure should be.

Anne

 

[dreamcometrue]

it depends on your area! We just moved but in our old neighborhood there are houses that have been on the market for over a year! Some people finally pull their homes off the market and rent them out because they have moved already and cannot afford 2 mortgages out of their own pockets!

 

[arielsleepingbeauty]

Maybe you could set up a hidden camera like they do on "Sell this House". They find out the reason why it's not selling. This could be a help to finding out why people aren't interested.

 

[candicenicole19]

It is taking a LONG time to sell homes right now! We have not put ours on the market (Hope to this summer???) but i know that they are moving really slow! DE, your my neighbor! lol, I am in MD. We go to Ocean City and DE every year for vacation! So, wanna sqitch town hmes?

 

[annegal]

Have you watched the shows on HGTV about "sell this house?"

Watch it

Clear out all the personal pictures...no clutter-anywhere.

"Stage your room"...Decoirate....paint....you need the buyer to come in the house and say "WOW!!!"

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Is your townhome a "display"...fresh paint, clean, neutral, no personal items, and staged?

 

[ducklite]

Have you watched the shows on HGTV about "sell this house?"

Watch it

Clear out all the personal pictures...no clutter-anywhere.

"Stage your room"...Decoirate....paint....you need the buyer to come in the house and say "WOW!!!"

Exactly! After we painted the walls a cream color we didn't put anything back on them. The place looked brand new, we replaced faucets and light fixtures and it smelled like a new house. The two comments we got the most for the people who walked through were "It's so clean" and "It's so bright." We had every single light turned on and every blind opened all the way. And with very little furniture in them (we had moved 75% of our belongings out already), the rooms looked spacious.

Our living room, dining room, and one of the bedrooms were actually devoid of all furniture. In our case I think it helped.

Anne

 

[mla2177]

I am in a resort beach area, only about 2.5 miles from the beach. We are a tax free state, so we have a lot of retirees fleeing to this area. One of the biggest problems has been that there are 3 units for sale in this development and my unit backs up to a major highway, so they always take the units off the highway. We are even slightly lower than the other units too.

As far as staging the home, my realtor says the opposite. She says homes sell better in this area when they are "lived" in. Most older folks have been there done that and can look past wall color and such. She said if it is a concern to the buyer it will reflect in their offer. She said she does ask other agents for feedback, and the only negative she has heard was that it butts up to the major highway so they take the unit that is not.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

As far as staging the home, my realtor says the opposite. She says homes sell better in this area when they are "lived" in. Most older folks have been there done that and can look past wall color and such. She said if it is a concern to the buyer it will reflect in their offer. She said she does ask other agents for feedback, and the only negative she has heard was that it butts up to the major highway so they take the unit that is not.

Your realtor is wrong. People expect the home to be staged. Could be your problem right there!
My home sold in 8 days because I had it staged to the "nine's"....it was stunning darling. You need to do the same. ESP if you live off the highway!!!! You need a reason for them to buy it.
Watch Sell This House...lots of great tips.

 

[ducklite]

Do you have a fence or heavy landscaping as a buffer to noise and to provide privacy?

Every house in my current neighborhood that's on the market right now backs up to the main road in and out of the community. Houses that back to the golf course sell fast, but the ones that back to that main road just languish. Between the noise and the lack of privacy, they just aren't as desirable.

But money talks, and by reducing the price a bit it (or offering seller concessions at closing) will make it more attractive. Because there are other homes for sale in the neighborhood I think you are fighting a losing battle otherwise.

The good news is that people start thinking about vacation homes in that area in February, so maybe next month will bring increased traffic.

One other thing, if it's a smaller home suitable for a first time buyer, toss in some closing cost help, it could open you up to a whole new market of folks who are close but not quite there in your price range, and by offering help with closing, it would fit into thier prica range.

Also, there is a difference between staged, lived-in, and cluttered. Have you taken everything off the fridge, put away family photo's, applied fresh paint to all the walls, and cleaned out the clutter? Even retirees want to have fresh paint and no clutter. If your Realtor is telling you otherwise, she is doing you a disservice.

My sister was trying to sell her house for about eight months. I had gone up to visit, and the first thing that hit me as I walked through the door was the amount of clutter. It was EVERYWHERE!! Her antique knickknacks, family photo's on every wall and flat surface, just stuff all over the place. I had her pack away the photo's and most of the antique "stuff" that wasn't actual furniture. She brought the house plants which were overtaking every room to mostly in a couple of groupings in the living room, and moved some out to the front porch--it was a case of you really CAN have too many plants. She packed up half the kids toys and books, as well as all of the winter clothing and coats and boots. Once she had packed about half the house it made it look SO much bigger and less cluttered. She had an offer about two weeks later on a two hundred year old home, sales price $650,000. So not an easy house to sell to begin with. But I truly believe that the clutter was such a turn-off to the people who looked at it previously that they passed on a really lovely property.

Anne

 

[golfgal]

I have to agree that most experienced homebuyers can look past some pictures of your kids on the walls. "Staging" a home is a new trend and as long as your home is clean and priced right it will sell. Now, the priced right thing is subjective to the market. If you HAVE to sell your home, you will probably take a loss on it or sell it for less then you want. If you don't have to sell, take it off the market until the market is better. We have sold houses in a day, a week, a month and our latest house was on the market for 6 months, in a bad sellers market, we had a couple really low offers that didn't interest us so we took it off the market. We will relist the house when the market is better.

 

[honeymom]

I am in a resort beach area, only about 2.5 miles from the beach. We are a tax free state, so we have a lot of retirees fleeing to this area. One of the biggest problems has been that there are 3 units for sale in this development and my unit backs up to a major highway, so they always take the units off the highway. We are even slightly lower than the other units too.

As far as staging the home, my realtor says the opposite. She says homes sell better in this area when they are "lived" in. Most older folks have been there done that and can look past wall color and such. She said if it is a concern to the buyer it will reflect in their offer. She said she does ask other agents for feedback, and the only negative she has heard was that it butts up to the major highway so they take the unit that is not.

Okay - you have the same dilemma that I had selling my Connecticut home. Because your property has to overcome the highway situation, it will need to be perfect. I don't think you have to rush out to hire a professional stager. But, do watch Designed to Sell. You will learn a lot of tips for staging there. There is also a Designed to Sell book and a lot of tips on the hgtv website.

Also, your realtor needs to comp your property to similar properties (i.e. those that back to a highway) that have already sold (preferably within the last six months). If there haven't been many sales within the last six months, she should just run the comps of similar properties that have sold at some time, along with properties that weren't near the highway that sold at the same time as those properties. She can then work up a ratio (homes by highway/vs. homes not by highway) to apply to your home in developing a price. While your home may be priced to sell a little lower than the townhomes in better locations, it may be that it needs to be a lot lower to sell.

 

[mom2rb]

Our last house took two months. I put it on the market in April. I should have waited. I had a ton of people come look but no offers. All the feedback said house is great but we are still looking. May comes along and we had three offers over one weekend.

The month before we put the house on the market I rented a storage unit. I packed up 2/3 of our clothes and most of the kid's toys. Almost all of the kitchen and bath things went too. I also put most of my books in storage. By the time I was done my house, with the too small closets and lack of cabinets, looked huge.

 

[gypsydoodlebug]

About three months for us, back in 2004. But it's a semi-historical home and very noticable in the area. It was built in 1913 by the then postmaster and was a catalog home (like Sears, but it came from their competitor, Aladdin Homes).

It just sold AGAIN this past summer, and it looked like they had it on the market for six months or longer this time.

My parents' house took ... 48 hours. They had three offers and ended up with $1,000 more than they asked for. I KNEW they had it priced too low. But at least they sold it!