We listed our house almost 3 weeks ago. Our realtor had 2 open houses on the following sundays the first was pretty busy (15 couples) the 2nd not so much (3 couples) and we've only had 1 private showing. The majority of the comments have said that the house is priced "right." She said it could be that the market is slower right now (only 2 of 27 comp properties have gone under contract since we listed average time on market is 45-60 days in our area). But she did think we'd have more showings, regardless. I offered to pay to have a pro take new photos, we took off the 24 hr notice on showings during the week and 2 hour on weekends. She suggested 10-14 days we drop the price maybe 5k. This whole process is so nerve wracking.... Advice, tips, commiseration welcome
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This happened to my neighbor. House was originally listed at $172k with no bites, they dropped it $12k and now it's super busy. They had showings all day long on Sunday.
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I'm guessing either you need better staging / pictures and/or people think you're priced too high and waiting for you to drop it.
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we have about a 10k cushion we could lower the price before it will start to affect the house we could purchase without getting "creative" with our financing. Hubs thinks its too soon to drop the price.
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Are the listing photos not by a professional? I'd be pushing the realtor to pay for that. That should be part of their marketing budget (at least it is for decent realtors around here).
Keep in mind what a sale will pay this person. They should be willing to do A LOT to get your house sold!
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@Chillybear: I'd definitely have a pro take new photos, but it should be part of the marketing budget.
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I think you've gotten some good advice from
Your agent so far. It's what we would tell clients at work. Taking the showing notice off should get you some more showings. I would give it a few days before lowering the price since you say your market moves kind of slow. In another week I'd drop it 5k.ETA: if you want to or need to sell quickly I would lower the price now.
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So these are thumbnails of the photos that are shown with the listing.... she took them with her phone.... I was very surprised by that, I felt like I could do a better job with angles and such but she seemed pleased with them
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@Chillybear: That's not good. They need to be taken with a proper camera.
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@Chillybear: with a phone?! The iPhone can take some pretty kick ass photos by the proper user. But I would want my listing photos to be with a proper camera!
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I was texting with her last night and found a real estate photographer with decent prices (under $200) for our size property and she's looking into him.
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@avivoca: I think you need better picture with better daylight. Right now your house looks dark and the rooms look small because of it. I definitely agree with you that the angles could be better!
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@Chillybear: I think they also say that the curtains/blinds should all be open and all the lights should be on.
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@avivoca: im pretty sure most of the lights were on except our bedroom (the green one)
@regberadaisy: the rooms are not huge our house is only 1500sq ft but i felt they could "look" bigger esp the room with the bar -
@Chillybear: Are you right around a price mark? Like are you listed at $225 but could drop to 219 to get below that 220 mark? Also look at your price per square foot. Are you in line with others and could you maybe drop just a tiny bit to advertise that as bait (under $125/sq foot!)
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Your pics look too dark. I'm surprised your agent doesn't have a photographer that she works with. I'd definitely push for better photos.
ETA: even with all of the lights on and curtains open without light correction indoor photos will look dark.
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@Chillybear: I just looked at your FB album of your reno today! I was pulling up old kitchen reno for ideas.
One thing I heard that pro-photos offers is not only better lighting but the right angles to give buyers the idea of the layout. Because of your addition and dark colors is hard to get a sense for layout. I would really recommend maybe posting a sketch of the floor plan or better photos that show how rooms are connected.
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@Mrs. Pickle: she thinks this week wont make much of a difference and we shouldnt expect many appointments because of the holiday this weekend. There's nothing pressing that makes this a must sell right away, we dont have another house yet. Its more just the stress of moving homes, keeping things clean, not knowing where we'll be in 6 months.
More the issue is we want to jump into a higher price point when we buy and need to make sure we can cover the cost -
Is it possible your price is "right" but missing people in a certain range? For example, if your house is listed at $260,000 but most people only search up to $250,000 - you could be missing out on potential buyers from that. Our last house we listed ending in $45k to catch the people who search only up to $50k. Just a thought!
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Def, def need professional pictures! They make a world of difference! I notice a lot of curtains aren't even completely pulled back to allow as much lighting in as possible!
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@Chillybear: from your pictures it looks like you have a lot of colors going on - any chance you can paint the entire lower level the same color? (something neutral) I think it would brighten up the place and make it appear bigger!
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@T.H.O.U.: We're listed at 269k.... there's a lot of variables in pricing in our neighborhood currently there are 5 properties on our street in various states as far as renovations go nad we fall middle of the road. the one closest to us just went contigent/pending and they were listed at 279k, but it was a flip with brand new kitchen and way better photos.
I may have some drawings of the downstairs I dont think i have any full house layouts
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Before you drop the price I'd see if better photos and less photos would get more people in the door.
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@Chillybear: Here is what I can guess of the flow based on these pictures.
1st the front door opens to the main living room.
From there, I can't tell where the 4th picture falls into the layout (white dining room table).
Then I see there is a small kitchen which has the door to the dining room. But no sense of where the kitchen is in relation to the living room in pictures 2/3.
Picture 8 (bar) I know is the addition based on your reno story but again, I can't tell how its connected to either the kitchen/the dining room/ or the living room.
Picture 9 - Not sure this is necessary, not really showing any "feature"
Picture 10 - Ok breakfast nook, but needs to better show that the bar area is to the left of the built in bench. Maybe thats shown in picture 12.
Picture 11 and 13 seem to be kinda a duplicate. Again if this was taken from a better angle maybe you could see where those two doorways lead to see how this addition is connected to the main part of the house.
Picture 14 (curtains) No idea what this space is?
Picture 15 - Powder room - Very nice but again, needs something to show how it connects to the other spaces.
Picture 16 - Ok back to the main living room and I see now there are stairs leading up from that front living room.
Picture 17 - I wish I could see just a tiny bit more to what this doorway/opening leads to.
Picture 18 - Landing. nice shot, but again, maybe show better angle for what is that room immediately at the top of the stairs
Bedroom pictures look good.
Additional bath - Not bad, but just not sure where this is. Is this a master bath or a shared bath for rooms up top?
Basement looks good although the first shot could maybe show off the separate laundry room?
Sorry if this is long, I've just been looking at a lot of for sale posts!
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I would inquire further as to what your realtor's marketing plan is before dropping the price.
Is she being proactive at all, or just hoping someone will see your listing?
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last time I sold a house it took 13 months, we are at 6 months so far this time. We are in a relatively slow area which we realize. You only need 1 buyer to love it so I wouldn't suggest dropping the price too much, leave yourself room to negotiate. We have worked with 4 realtors so far and all have taken their own pictures so I think that's dependent on the area
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@oliviaoblivia: Yes! This is what I was thinking. Not only is lighting better but you can get a much better sense of the "flow" or floor plan of the house by proper pictures.
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@Chillybear: You definitely need better photos! I would do that first. I understand about not knowing where you're going to be and the stress that comes with it.
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@T.H.O.U.: i just sent this over to my realtor this was the drawing I did when we were planning out the addition
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@oliviaoblivia: yup my photos are definitly the before pics..... I'm definitely going to push for the photographer now
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@T.H.O.U.: upstairs the main bath is over the kitchen, the green bedroom front over dining, Fi's room over front living room and blue over back living room - that has 2 reg closets & a walk in closet
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To be honest, the pictures make your house look really dark and cramped. Agreed that there should be more light and the angles need to be changed. Also, there are way too many pictures! People don't need to see a picture of the staircase at the top and bottom - people will lose interest. You need to only have pictures that make people want to come to your house to see more - if you're showing them all the details they have no incentive to come actually see it in person.
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@lisa1783: those photos are from our "listing's website" the actual MLS listing only has 20ish photos
I think they're boring they dont really look like anything special but i wasnt sure if it was because I live there and see those spaces everyday
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She's adding the floor plan to the website and i'm going to talk to jon and call her tonight about getting new pics before we drop the price
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My mom is a realtor and hires a professional to take the pics and the results are incredible.
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Totally agree new photos and your realtor should pay for them. It makes a huge difference.
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Jumping on here to echo what everyone else has said. It's the pictures. We've sold 3 houses, and the one that sold the quickest had professional pictures, which in my mind, made the difference. The one that took the longest was with my realtor's DSLR, but he clearly only had it in auto setting. With the quick sale, I was amazed at how my house looked in the photos. If you don't have that feeling, others aren't going to be inspired to view or buy your house.
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Before having professional photos taken, I would also consider packing up anything you can live without until you sell (or storing stuff our of sight)
A kitchenaid mixer is nice, but it takes up a lot of room. And empty counter will look longer. And the movable cart in the kitchen screams "This kitchen is too small for us so we brought in extra furniture!"
Less "stuff" in the photos (including trash cans and wall art) will make the rooms look a lot bigger.
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We bought last year so I evaluated your pictures with that mindset. A few things - definitely get new pictures. I agree with @MaryM: about stripping the house down to the bare bones and putting away the mixer, the hat/coat rack in the living room, etc. And honestly, if I were viewing that house online the colors of some of the walls would be a turn off. I know that others will disagree because paint is a cheap/easy fix BUT we purposely didn't visit any homes with paint jobs that weren't neutral because we were burnt out and didn't want to bother with it. There's a lot of different colors going on in your home right now.
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@Chillybear: I just checked, and I still have the generic checklist from the stager our realtor hired when we sold last year (the stager was included in his marketing budget).
If you want me to send it, just wall me your email address. There's also a pre-showing (shorter) checklist of things not to forget.
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