Copyright 2006 -
My house has been on the market for six months and hasn’t
Sold - why? Should I consider changing agents?
Sold -
A. There is a book titled “When bad things happen to good people”, which tries to teach people how to cope with the curve balls of life. Dr, Phil would just say, “Get real. Deal with it.” In real estate we have lots of articles about “When good houses don’t sell.” The bottom line in real estate is usually always the same – price, price, and price. It used to be location, location, location, but in today’s market we have come to realize that price is just as important that even location in determining how quickly a property will sell.
I suspect that this is not really news to you and that your agent has been gently (maybe too gently) trying to get you to consider a price reduction. My advice is DO IT NOW! Untie your agent’s hands and let them sell this puppy. You’ve had your six months of fun telling all your friends and relatives that you live in a $400,000 house, now let your agent see if he/she can move it for the $350,000 that the market says it’s worth. Hopefully some of the people that you turned off with the price when they first came through are still interested and still looking. Your Realtor has probably kept track of the people who’ve come through and could get word back out to them of the price change.
If, your house is priced competitively and you just haven’t been getting much traffic through it or interest in it, sit with your agent and go over with him/her the marketing efforts over the six-month period. See if you feel comfortable that the agent is doing everything within reason to market the house. If the last time that you saw the agent was six months ago when you signed the Listing Agreement, that is a red flag that you may need to find a new agent. Not every agent uses the same marketing techniques, so some may not hold open houses or some may not do ads on the Real Estate TV channel or some may not do virtual tours or some may not advertise in the little free Real Estate books or in newspapers.
But, if you have an agent that does nothing but place the house in the Multi-List Service and sit back and wait for it to sell, maybe you need to look around for a new agent. That happens sometimes, especially with very big, very busy agents. You should certainly expect to be getting regular feedback from your agent about showings and/or open house results. After a reasonable period, perhaps after the first 60 days, your agent should have enough feedback to advise you on whether or not the house is priced right for the market and whether there are any other factors that could affecting the marketability of the property. He should be requesting a sit down with you to go over any issues