That's exactly what has happend. Last Sunday while we were in South Carolina for Owie's birthday, our realtors held an open house for realtors and potential buyers. Marti and I had cleaned, polished and arranged everything so the house was picture perfect. The realtors sat and twiddled their thumbs for four hours. Not even a curious (or a nosey) neighbor! :c(
This house selling business is a new game for us, so far, since we've listed three weeks ago, we've had just one realtor visit and one couple wander by to look at the back yard. So it is going to be a bit of a wait.
In the mean time, just down the road a bit there are new houses going up like wildfire. Somebody is buying.
So we're starting to formulate "Plan B", just in case.
Thanks for visitng and feel free to leave a comment.
Sorry to say, that happens sometimes. :( Better luck on the next one...
ReplyDeleteIn all of the years I dabbled in Real Estate, I never saw a house sell from an open House, (although I suppose it does happen).
ReplyDeleteA house usually sells by marketing. Real Estate Flyers, Real Estate ads in Papers, Free ads on Cable, and internet exposure.
Google your address and see if it comes up as listed for sale.
Go to Zillow.com and search your address.
If it's not there, call your realtor and find out why.
Buy the Sunday paper and check out the Real Estate section. Your listing should be prominent.
Sometimes you have to build a fire under these people.
Good Luck...
Your house is gorgeous! It WILL sell!!!
ReplyDeleteKeep doing what you are doing and they will come!
ReplyDeleteThat's a bummer about the house market. Good thing to formulate plan B. John and I have a house in Tucson that we've rented out for the past two years. Its worked out fine so far. We didn't want the house not selling to hold us back from our dream.
ReplyDeleteOuch! We had ours on the market for 2.5 years before it sold, with a number of price reductions in the interim. We counted over 120 lookers in that period, luckily we were on the road most of that time. We did not have one open house, as our realtor thought they were not productive.
ReplyDeleteI hope you have a better track record!
Oh bum! Not even a nosy neighbor. That's actually kind of shocking.
ReplyDeleteSo forget the open houses and go with Doyle and Terri's advice it seems right on the money.
Buy Bill Mills a ticket to come up and interview your realtor. :-)
You've done so much work and it looks SO fine, why in the world would anyone want to build a new house.
Actually I think that should be outlawed. No more new houses. We have to get along with what we have. Enough paving and digging and.............. well anyway.
Keep on em' It will sell.
Ouch! That actually did happen to us once, many years ago.
ReplyDeleteKeep the faith. We sold that one and you'll sell this one :)
that stinks big time..spend all that time cleaning and no one shows..that is almost as bad as getting a call at work..someone one wants to come and look..race home..clean up a bit..and they are there for five minutes..no offers no bites..no feed back!!..geesh!!..keep the faith your house is lovely it will sell..just needs the right person to come along!!
ReplyDeleteWe feel your pain!! But please learn from us and don't just assume the realtor is doing all they can. We have a new realtor and have had 4 showings in last 2 weeks. No offers through so we are still waiting. We have sold 16 houses and never took more than a few months.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to know your plan B... We may have to come up with something also!!
Happened to us also, several open houses and not a person in sight. Like others have said, it could be your realtor, if nothing happens before to long, don't wait, look at other realtors who are actually selling houses.
ReplyDeleteOurs kept lying to us about the high price being far and marketable, it wasent, got a new realtor who was honest an we sold within a month.
Good Luck guys, money talks in todays market, so be prepared to take less than you may want.
Well, you don't want a bunch of lookey-loos wandering through anyhow.
ReplyDeleteThe houses mostly sell from good qualified buyers coming on appointments with realtors from other companies.
So make sure your home is listed in the MLS so other realtors can show your property
And make sure your realtor didn't list it as *exclusive* where only he/she can sell it, and keep the major portion of the commission.
When another realtor sells it, the commission is split four ways, between the 2 agents and their 2 offices. When your own agent sells it, he keeps 3/4 of the commission, only giving 1/4 to his own office....
Karen (ex realtor and broker of 9 years)
I always found that the open houses only help out the realtors sell *other* houses. It will sell, give it some time. I saw last night on the national news that housing sales were up. Keep the faith!
ReplyDeleteYes, it happened to us. We still sold in two months but had to lower the price :(. There are just not that many buyers.
ReplyDeleteHang in there.
Our home has been on the market for 5 months now - quite a few showings and we were "the bridesmaid" three times. Showings seem to have slowed down here in Santa Fe NM. We are designing a plan B now. If our home does not sell by Nov.1 we'll take it off the market as Santa Fe NM all but closes down in the winter. During this time we will put together a plan to get our RV in the spring of 2012 and put our house on the market as a Rental. If and when the RE market improves we'll perhaps put it back up for sale. This will not allow us as much "emergency cash" as we would like but it will be do-able.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your feedback on my blog regarding my paintings. Appreciate it. I've added you blog onto the list I follow from my blog.
ReplyDeleteHi Paul, this may seem a bit strange as a blog comment but my name is Rob Taylor, I'm in Northern VA and was at a well known used book store lately where they have a "free" bin of books on offer. My son (7) saw a book on disciplining kids by James Dobson and he thought we should pick it up. Well, inside there was a letter from you to Marti when you were on the USCGC Point Francis back in 1988 and I wondered if you'd like it back, maybe Marti would? You can reach me via rmkt@verizon.net if you'd like. I'm a Pastor here in NoVA and would be honoured to meet you both.
ReplyDeleteThanks and Fathers blessings, Rob
Well, I can't add anything except my sympathy. There's some really good advice in the comments above - I was amazed at how much I didn't know about selling a house.
ReplyDelete