Real Estate Advice
 

I put my condo on the market on April 1, 2011 for the price that was recommended by the Real Estate Agent. Zillow has the value at 12,000 more than what I put it on the market for.

I had not received one phone call for a showing and the open house on April 17, 2011, yielded seven visitors. One visitor feedback was “I am waiting to see what the market does”. And another visitor comment was they wanted the price to be lower.

My realtor called me up on April 20 and suggested I lower the price. He also mentioned with a lower price, I might get more than one offer and get more than the reduced price. My feeling is that when the market was good, this is a possibility but I seriously doubt that particular scenario is going to happen. I have seen from the literature that there is a 3 to 4 week of peak interest and it starts going down from there.

Since we are not talking about a substantial reduction, some questions come up:
1. Does it really make a difference to the REA as his or her fee is not going to be much different?
2. Is it common practice to ask for a reduction in price so soon?
3. Does the REA have my best interest at heart?
4. Is the REA looking to make a quick sale?
5. If I lower my price and the market improves, I can never ask more as the buying public has been tracking prices?

I know the selling price will be determined by what the buyer is willing to pay. I would like to be in TV before the next winter hits and start my new life. Some people have suggested in previous posts to bite the bullet and get on with it. This just struck me as a short period of time to be asking for a reduction in price. Since it is my money, I was wondering if I am being too jaded.

Any thoughts and suggestion would be greatly appreciated,

If your contract with the agent is 5% for every 10,000 you come down he loses 125$ listing agent recives 1/4 of the sale price In N.J.

In today's market, 20 days on the market is nothing. Maybe in 6 months you might want to consider a price change. Ask your REA what the average days on the market is for your area. Instead of a price change, if your anxious to sell, I would offer a bonus to the selling agent to be paid after closing. Look at the total commission. Say your home is listed for 300K at a 6% fee so an 18K commission. half goes to selling agent and half to listing agent. These figures may vary for your area, but you get the idea. So offer a 3K bonus to the selling agent. His fee now goes from 9K to 12K. This costs you less then lowing your price and creates more action for your home as it pays more to sell your home then other homes. You can always remove the bonus and drop your price later if it has not sold. After all, your REA did recommend the price. And if he wants to change it after 20 days, I would question his capability in the original pricing.

Are you in a hurry to sell?
 

We listed our house with realtor, had many interested buyers, as you have indicated with your home, took it off the market for 1 month, RAISED the price, and sold it the next day as a "Buy Owner" but did not rub-out the REA since she was a friend....Not sure if that was DUMB luck but it moved us to paradise and that makes me a very very happy person!

i agree with the proposal put forth by l2ridehd re the agent incentive - but - the parctice where i grew up was when a house did not sell after 3 months, the price went up!

i would also ask the agent if they are representing your best interest or theirs and their brokers - just to get a house sold and some $$ coming in! did the agent show you the comps for properties in the area? that's the first thing i always want to know and it's how i won our tax appeal with the county board of taxation! has your agent offered to advertise in the nyc newspapers - another resource.

good luck with the process...hope to see you at a square this winter!

You mentioned Zillow but you did not mention what a comparative analysis by one or more agents showed for your property to others in your immediate area. Was one done!!

What kind of RE agent do you have...is he/she primarily a lister or seller. i would stay away from listing agents..you want soneone that is going to show your home.

What is your time line and motive to sell your house. Yes some sell quickly but now a days it can take months...took us 20 months to sell in N Va and at a substantially reduced price. When our 6 month listings were to expire almost like clock work agents from all over the area (especially REMAX or the independent realators) would call asking why do you think your house did not sel??/They all want YOU to say the price is too high...its nothing off their back for you to lower the price. A RE agents incentive is to sell the house..at any price a buyer and seller can agree to....they dont get any income otherwise

Regarding the quick drop in price, believe it or not, some agents actually work that into there marketing plan...and this was a great technique to use in a "Sellers" market...but we are not there today. Also , alot of agents are more than willing to list the house initially at a higher price because you the seller like that figure, (thinking is ...why go with an agent who recommended listing the house $20K cheaper) the high ball agent gets the listing for 6 months hoping that you will see the light of day when no one is knocking on your door and you will lower the price to where the RE Agent has a more reasonable chance of making a sale.

If you want to sell quickly you need the comps for similar houses in your immediate area and price it under that. Make sure whoever is listing your house advertises it on the web at sites such as realtor.com and others and there should be a set of nice pictures. I am not one for give incentives to the selling agent for alot of people now a days find the house themselves on the web or through word of mouth. However you should be preapred to give the buyer incentives such as closing costs, home warranty, or even redecorating costs..whatever is comon in you area. Of course you must clear all the clutter and spruce up the front dor (yard) appeal as well as a fresh coat of paint.

Good luck!

Admittedly, real estate has gotten very complicated in recent years. I have two brothers who are real estate appraisers and other family members and friends who are connected to real estate and the one common thing they all say is that everything is about price these days. My appraiser brothers say that just about all the orders they get are for foreclosures and the few sales they are seeing are priced below market value. This is in Virginia which hasn't been hit particularly hard as compared to some areas. The best advice we got when selling our house last summer was to look at all the comparables then make sure ours looked better and was priced lower. It worked for us because we sold our house in 2 weeks even though we didn't have a lot of lookers. If you trust your realtor, you should take their advice. If you don't trust that their motives are in your best interest then you should get another realtor. Good luck!

Just my thoughts
 

Zillow is not a good indication of what your house is worth. It uses a statistical formula based on houses sold in your area by square feet and the prior sales history of the house. A good example is that in my neighborhood they have my neighbors house as worth more than mine and It is behind me with no view and I have water / city lights view a 100 thou value in my area.

I agree with the others who have said comps are what count.
I have my realtor take me to view the other direct comps that are currently for sale so I know what I am up against and make my own judgement. The quicker it sells the less work the agent has to do and that is often their motivation. Did they give you a marketing plan or are they just throwing it in the multilist. A brokers open or several that is for the realators in your area is vital and more important than an open house in my opinion. The best realator I ever had, had a lunch brokers open the third week it was listed and sent a personal invite to the top seller agents in town from all agencys not just his own, The following week I had 8 showings.
Also did they do a video tour attached to the listing. How does the listing look does it read well. If the pictures aren't great make the agent take new ones. If the agent isn't willing to do this dump him. Check on the law in your state more and more states let you discharge your agent with notice for not acting in your best interest.

They should be able to provide you with a chart of in what months most listing sell. In my area the most sales are in June July and August as they want to move between school years. I agree that 20 days is too soon to panic. Average days on the market for alot of areas is 6 to 9 months. A friend of ours was paniced and lowered the price way down after only a few weeks only to find out that the person who bought it was a realtor who then relisted it with a new paint job and a little landscaping at more money.

I have had my home up for sale for 7 months, Finally started to receive interest when I lowered the price well below what I wanted. It is hard to understand what is going on in the market. However It kind of looks this way. The village price of a new home is going up, existing homes are droping in value in the villages. Every one else in the country is lowering there price substantially to sell. It leaves everyone with a simple choice. Lower your price until someone buys and pay more to live in the villages or stay where you are and see what happens in about five years. That is about when the market is estimated to reach about half way back to where it was. I make no comment on how the village does business or what you actually set the price of your place at. I am not telling you to give up but telling you what is really happening. You can do the math. As for the real estate agent telling you to lower your price because they want to just make money on your sale. He or she knows the market better then we do. Their job is to tell you the truth as mine has told me, Several times. Believe me I lowered the price kicking and screaming. Frankly no one else cares how we feel. I finally started to at least get offers for my home much lower then the asking price. Which is a start for negoiations at least.

GERALD.......one of your points about staying put for 5 years and see what the market does...yes that is an option some people have along with the attitude I am not going to give my house away. But if they would only realize by waiting 5 years, they are probably giving up 5 of their healthiest years of their remaining life...and that is ASSUMING things change and they can sell their exisiting house at a price they expect to get.

There are houses in The Villages at all price levels both new and especially resale. we just previewed some new homes with a friend and the prices offered were substantially lower with better views than 3-5 years ago.
The world is changing, and believe it or not this is like a poker hand and for most it is best to play with the hand you are dealt rather than betting on the future.

Oh BTW in 5 years the Villages will most likely be built out!

As others have said, these choices are really a quality of life issue, especially in our retirement age group. By waiting until the market improves (maybe - and then, again, it could also worsen) in a few months or years, the prices in TV will also have likely increased; so where does the waiting actually get one?

It's not possible to know the actual motivation of your realtor, but as others have said, by getting and carefully studying the comparables, which is the best barometer of value, you will have more data to confer about, and to get the realtor to justify, if he/she can, the recommendation to lower your price. And, that way you won't feel that you are giving in/knuckling under to the realtor if you decide to reduce the price; but will have the information to make your own informed decision, with the realtor's input/opinion as just one factor, although an important one, to consider.

At the end of the day, if it means you get to TV years sooner, and get on with creating the rest of your life, it may make sense to do what you have to do to get a sale. And once you make a decision, such as to lower the price, if you do, let yourself off the hook and don't second-guess yourself, which is so stressful; just remember that things change, and you made the best decision you could with the information that was at hand at the time, regardless of what you thought in the past you wanted to get for your home; and that's all any of us can ever do. In the long run the difference you may net from your sale if you reduce the price will probably not wiggle the needle in your overall enjoyment of life.

I'm no real estate expert or economist, but everything I have read or heard from people who are makes me believe that it will be quite a few years before we will reliably see substantial recovery in the real estate market, both residential and commercial; and that TV will do much better in real estate values (and that would include YOUR home that you would buy in TV, too, and so thus your TV home might be the source of some recovery of the 'loss' you might feel you took on your current home up north if you sell it for less than you would like) than most other locations; so if it were me, especially since I love this sunshine down here (THAT, at least, is a sure thing, most days), I'd get it sold and move on.

Freeda,

Excellent post! :BigApplause:

2BNTV, Just wanted to wish you the best of luck in selling and hope you are in TV later on this year.

You really have to decide what is best for you at this time of your life. You can keep your condo in CT on the market for whatever price you think is best and move to The Villages. Chances are you will have 2 mortgages and no one really wants that burden.

You can lower the price on the condo to sell. Hopefully, you paid a lot less when you bought it. You can make money but not as much as keeping it on the market, maybe.

You can keep it on the market and stay in it until you do sell. That may be a long time or a short time.

Personally, I would sell a much lower price than others around me - take my profit - and move to The Villages. Pay cash for your home in The Villages and not have to think about a mortgage. Again, that is only what I would do.