What is a realtor supposed to do for you re: selling house?
DH and I are in a mini-fight right now about our realtor. He came out and took pics of the house (I made him come back 2 more times to get pictures I finally liked) and put them online, printed up some flyers for the box on our for sale sign, and listed it on the MLS. Oh, he also hosted one open house on a Sunday afternoon at which 2 couples from our neighborhood stopped by to be nosey.
DH found our realtor through OrangeBloods - his version of the Nest, to which is addicted in the way that most crack addicts are right before they overdose. I want to sell NOW, so I keep asking DH to call the guy and just say "hey, remember us? What have you done to try to sell our house lately?" DH swears that he "asked around" and feels like there is nothing else he should be doing, so I should just be patient. Is he right? Are realtors not supposed to be more proactive? I know he can't make anyone buy it, but isn't there something he can do to get more people out to see it? It's been on the market since March and we've had only 2 showings! This is our first time to sell, so I don't want to be a pain in the butt, but I also don't want to let out house just sit on the market b/c we don't want to hurt this guy's feelings. Who's right here??
Re: What is a realtor supposed to do for you re: selling house?
I'm not a Realtor, but have sold several houses. Have you adjusted the price? Are you getting any feedback from the two showings?
Our Realtor did a ton of open houses and when we needed to sell quickly, he had a suggested schedule for dropping the price. I think the biggest thing was giving us honest feedback about what people were saying. He would talk to the other Realtors and pass stuff to us. Also, he talked about our property in some sort of company meeting where they tell all the other Realtors about their homes in case they have a client looking. He also listed it in the paper.
Oh, and I took the pictures for our last sale and sent them to him. I think you can post 20+ pictures now. I knew I wouldn't be happy with someone else taking them, and I'm really glad I did them.
Good luck selling your house- I hope you get more traffic.
Now, last season our Realtor did something like 8 open houses. Nothing came of them. When we interviewed Realtors this time around, we asked them about their open house philosophy. Almost all of them said that while they couldn't hurt, so few houses got sold through an open house, that they rarely held them open. So open houses probably aren't the traffic you want.
We also had a plan for dropping the price, so definitely talk to him about that. If nothing else, dropping gets you noticed again.
Finally, some price points just take more time than others. Ask him what the average days on market for your price and neighborhood is. If you've been on the market way longer than the average, it's probably worth looking at why. Ask him about what challenges he sees in selling your house.
Good luck!
I'm not a realtor either, but have been through two home sales (mine after I married DH, and then his/ours last year). My realtor who sold my house worked for a fairly well-known agency in our town, and they have weekly realtor walk-throughs - where all the other agents in their office view the home, in order to be able to refer any of their clients to it. Their company also has an online feedback form that the realtors filled out whenever they, or they + their clients, viewed the home, and my realtor also forwarded all of those feedback forms to me. Her company also listed my property in the paper every week, and they sent me a copy of the listing in the paper each week - I guess to let me know that they were doing something to market it. When I first signed my realtor, she also gave me a brief guidline of when we would do price reductions (~ every 30 days, depending on traffic). The house sold fairly quickly (a little over a month), and I'd had 2 offers prior to the one that actually bought it, so we never had to reduce the price, although the final sales price was negotiated to a point slightly lower than it was listed at. I was pleased with everything she did to market the property.
Last year when we sold DH's house (that I moved into after we got married), we hired a guy from our church to sell it. I don't know too many details of how he marketed it, because he mainly corresponded with DH (which was fine with me - since I didn't buy the house with DH and my name wasn't on the deed, I was okay with him doing most of the negotiating). That realtor took great pictures, but beyond that I don't know what all he did. He did have the house sold in a little over two months, though, so we didn't have any complaints.
When 3 Became 4
I'm not a Realtor either, but my understanding is that your agent should be doing a lot of work behind the scenes to market your house to other agents. Your Realtor should also have feedback for you both from showings with potential buyers and showings with other agents. There may be things that you can do to stage the house better, and your agent should be giving you some guidance.They should also be talking to you about price adjustments.
I'm not sure where your house is located, but where ours is, and in the price range where our house falls, houses are on the market an average of two months before selling. If you listed in March, you're probably at or past that two month mark.
Honestly, if it were me and I really wanted to sell, I'd say that it's time to have a meeting with your agent about EXACTLY what he has been doing to sell your house, and if you are not 100% satisfied with his efforts, then it's time to move on. Pull the house from the market, have a professional stager or real estate expert come through and give you some advice about the house. You may need to update some light fixtures, change some paint colors, rearrange a few things, etc. Hire a new agent with an aggressive marketing plan for your house, and then re-list at a new price.
Meredith, 6-1-06 and Alex, 11-5-09
I'm not a realtor either but I used one when I sold my house in Houston and moved to Round Rock in 2004. I went through two realtors and it took over a year on the market to get it sold!
Anyhow, your realtor should be communicating with you on a regular basis. If there are any showings then they should be getting feedback from those realtors and providing you with that info. He should also be able to send you a report that tells you how many times your house has been viewed online. I never had any open houses with my house but they did do like an agent open house where they invited only agents to come through and look and provide feedback plus it gave those agents an opportunity to tell a client about the house firsthand without wasting their clients time if they wouldn't like it. If you're wanting to sell quick you may need to consider dropping the price or offer some sort of incentive for both the buyers and the agents. Unless he's one of those realtors where you sign up with them and all they do is list the house for a small fee and you're supposed to be doing all the legwork, I'd suggest having a meeting with him to go over things and express to him that you want him to be aggressive on getting your house sold and that you need something to show you he's being proactive about selling your house.
Good luck!
Guess what? I'm not a realtor either...but I still have an opinion. I would say if you have only had 2 showings then maybe the price is too high? Or is there something wrong about the house, like something looks bad in the pictures or the description or you are lacking a bathroom or something most people are looking for? I think one of the most important things a realtor can do is give you feedback from those who have seen the house. If you have only had 2 showings then that isn't much to work with. Maybe this is where an open house could be helpful to get the feedback from those looking.