Help, My House Won't Sell Itself!

By Kevin

Kendra S. writes:

Our house has been listed for sale for more than five months. The local market is very slow now. The listing agent has the house on her Web site and occasionally holds a weekend open house. What can we do?
WHAT CAN WE DO??!?!?!

Great advice is given: 1) lower price, 2) check to make sure listing is correct, 3) grill and pressure agent for assistance, 4) stage the home.

I won't pretend to get into the mind of the letter-writer. For all I know, she's originally from out-of-town and unsure whether there was something she was missing in the way real-estate works around DC. Or she might really have meant to ask what they could do without lowering their asking price. But could it be possible that there is a non-trivial number of home-sellers who just don't realize that lowering price will help move their property?

-- January 2, 2007 12:34 PM |

Comments

Mike wrote:

I have a few ideas of what you can do. Think outside the box for starters. A realestate company usually targets (1) people that are like you, (2) in your local area, and (3)don't leave the door open for your own attempts to sell.

Take it on yourself to advertise your house where no one has gone before. Try a Chinese, Latin newspaper advertisement. These are groups of people who turn inward like familys to make purchases, from people like themselves who speak like they do and don't scare them. These are places most realestate companies don't go.

Take it on yourself to sell out of your area. Make it clear to your realestate agent in the contract that you hold the right to advertise and sell your property yourself while they attempt to do the same. This sets the stage for competition and makes them work harder for your hard earned dollars. Advertise your house in Europe, in large US cities, in the Middle east, Australia, all industrial places where poeple from those countries are coming to America to work and need a place to move into. I bet your realestate company doesn't do that for you, yet here is a pool of buyers that need your home. If you have a big car factory near you, run ads in International employment sections where these people are looking for US jobs in your area. Let them know what corporations are near you. Make a list of their phone numbers in case you get a call from overseas for your home and a employment near you.

Does it work? After a 6 month no-draw with the realestate company I sold my ranch to a Chinese couple for the full price, because they were coming from a large city and expected high realestate values. And I advertised it for sale in a Chinese newspaper for only one week. So it did work for me, Most important lesson I found, don't wait on a guy making a commission to sell your house, get aggressive yourself and brain storm ideas that work for you.

-- January 10, 2007 3:40 AM ∞

Josh Cissell wrote:

"Make it clear to your realestate agent in the contract that you hold the right to advertise and sell your property yourself while they attempt to do the same. This sets the stage for competition and makes them work harder for your hard earned dollars."

Most good real estate agents won't do this. I would never allow someone the right to sell the homes themselves. If they get lucky and someone buys the house from them, I just lose (gave away) the money I spent on the house?

-- October 21, 2007 10:12 PM ∞

John wrote:

Hello,

I understand the difficulty that you're having. The same thing happened to me. You should put the house everywhere you can imagine. For starters try these two sites, they are both free:

www.listpropertiesnow.com
www.craigslist.org

John

-- November 6, 2008 5:38 AM ∞

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