UPDATE in OP -How can we bring in more buyers for our home?

[WatchingThemGrow]

UPDATE: Not sure why I didn't think of this sure-fire way to get lots of showings... plan to go out of town and leave grandparents, babysitters who can't drive yet, and DH to juggle all 3 DC! I'm going to Steamboat tomorrow morning with 3 other mamas (WOOOOO HOOOO!!!!) and sure enough, when I've got long johns and ski poles and goggles galore littering the house, we get the first call for a showing (agent only) for today. Fair enough. Over the next 3 hours we get TWO additional showings for midday tomorrow, before I even reach my destination! Since the showings are back to back during the time the ILs are supposed to give the boys to the babysitter (at our house) I've had to come up with a plan to drop a double stroller at a friend's house so they can meet up there, have lunchboxes ready, then play at a park and stroller home slowly until the 2nd showing is over. Phew. Thanks for all the tips! I'll try to put them into action when I get back from the slopes!


Our home has been on the market for a month. We listed right before Christmas and went out of town. We've had 3 buyers, 3 realtors, 2 cancellations, and one realtor I brought in. I know that we're on the cusp of "the season" where lots of homes go on the market and lots of buyers start really looking, but I want to be among those buyers, not sitting here waiting for a property to sell before we can make an offer on something else.

We've listed with a discount broker who pays the buyer's agent the full 3% commission, but only takes 1% (as opposed to 3%) for himself/his company. With that type of service, we get on the MLS and negotiation/paperwork, but no open houses and no newspaper/print ads.

Our realtor is out of town for the next week or so, but he left us his wife/bus. partner's contact info if we need her for anything, said he can handle negotiations, etc. while away. I asked this morning about some things we could do to increase traffic, but I wanted to get your ideas too.

DH and I want to print up flyers (realtor emailed them to us last night) to stick in the box, put the house on craigslist (with postlets.com) and create a website for the house using the address. I am going skiing with 3 other moms next week (yooo hooo!!!!) so we will wait to lower the price until I've returned from my trip.

Can you think of any other things we should do to get the word out about the house?

[barkley1]

DH and I want to print up flyers (realtor emailed them to us last night) to stick in the box, put the house on craigslist (with postlets.com) and create a website for the house using the address.



We did all this when attempting to sell by owner, but got zero response. What ultimately worked for us was our second realtor...she was very well known, and aggressive !!

We found the home we bought on zillow.com. You could try that, too.

[pinkmomagain]

Does your town have it's own local paper? In our town, to be known in real estate, people take out ads in our local paper. Definitely with a picture and link to a website that has multiple interior pictures. And open houses.

[crl]

I know conventional wisdom is that houses do not sell from opens. But both of ours sold to someone who came to the open house. Both of our agents held opens the first weekend of the listing, the first sold (in a hot market) the following day to a woman who came to the open, came back to see it the next day and made an offer that same day. The second sold (in a NOT good market) to a couple who came to the open, came back twice and finally made an offer.

Our second agent drew in a ton of traffic with strategic advertising. Our house was in an excellent school pyramid and extremely close to the metro (subway) system. So our agent targeted an in the city, but looking to move out, audience. His proposed advertising campaign is why we hired him. And that is exactly who bought our place. So I would consider if there is a target audience for your place and how you would reach them.

Catherine

[Momit]

Yes, make sure it's on Zillow, Trulia and the real estate ads for your local paper. Definitely do the Craigslist listing like you planned.

Maybe hold an open house for agents on their tour day (many areas have a designated day where realtors all go "on tour" and preview new listings.

Get a virtual tour done and make sure you have lots of GOOD photos of the house.

Add a QR code to your sign and brochure that link to the virtual tour or website.

Things should start picking up after the Super Bowl. Many people say Thanksgiving-Super Bowl is the slow season for real estate.

We always had the best luck listing with one of the heavy hitters in our market rather than a lesser-known agent. Just food for thought if you still don't get the response you're looking for.

[khm]

Hold the open yourself. We fsbo'd our house and craigslist ads plus a couple opens did the trick. Point lots of signs toward your open.

[Giantbear]

what market are you in? I know for the NYC area, you are actually 6-8 weeks too early for the buying season.

I sold and bought this summer, what got us in the door, besides location, location location, were really good pictures emphasizing curb appeal and the best features of the house. What turned my wife off were listings that did not have pictures of the master, kitchen, bathrooms and living space. Pictures are of the utmost importance, my listing broker brought in a professional to take pictures and, when compared to the pictures we used two years ago when we listed it, it was night and day. Have someone review your MSL profile to give you an unbiased opinion on your pictures and description. You can pm me the listing link if you want and i will have my wife look at it tonight.

If the property sits for a long time, you may consider going to a traditional commission arrangement, by only giving your broker 1%, you have not really incentived them to sell your place. A lot of times what gets people in the house is the brokers connections with other brokers and what sells the place is the brokers ability to work the property. This may be a case of being a penny wise and a pound foolish. Also, 2 and 2 is now the norm in the NYC area.

[minnie-zb]

What's the average number of days on market before getting a contract in your area?

What commission are you offering the buyers agent? What is the norm for your area?

And, I'm going to mention the elephant in the room, price. It ultimately comes down to price if you aren't getting foot traffic, than chances are the price is too high. i just saw on your other thread you say the house backs to a busy road. The price really needs to reflect this.

Ask to go see some of the comps in your immediate area in your price range. This can be very eye opening and really let you know how your house compares price and showing wise.

Oh, and it is very important to have fabulous photos on the internet. Lots of people shop from their computer and if the photos aren't great, than that could be hurting you.

Good luck! All it takes is one buyer to get an offer.

[lhafer]

what market are you in? I know for the NYC area, you are actually 6-8 weeks too early for the buying season.

I sold and bought this summer, what got us in the door, besides location, location location, were really good pictures emphasizing curb appeal and the best features of the house. What turned my wife off were listings that did not have pictures of the master, kitchen, bathrooms and living space. Pictures are of the utmost importance, my listing broker brought in a professional to take pictures and, when compared to the pictures we used two years ago when we listed it, it was night and day. Have someone review your MSL profile to give you an unbiased opinion on your pictures and description. You can pm me the listing link if you want and i will have my wife look at it tonight.

If the property sits for a long time, you may consider going to a traditional commission arrangement, by only giving your broker 1%, you have not really incentived them to sell your place. A lot of times what gets people in the house is the brokers connections with other brokers and what sells the place is the brokers ability to work the property. This may be a case of being a penny wise and a pound foolish. Also, 2 and 2 is now the norm in the NYC area.

Totally agree, and also LOVE video tours. Our realtor had someone come stage our house, and the realtor took excellent pictures of our house.

[123LuckyMom]

A good realtor really is worth the money when selling your home. A realtor who is successful in your area will know how best to market and price your home so it will sell quickly. I'd make sure your house is priced competitively, and I'd do all you can to get advice about how to stage your home so that buyers don't have to use too much imagination to see themselves living there. A good realtor will give you advice in that area, too. Sometimes packing up clutter and painting a room or two can make thousands of dollars of difference in your sale price! It's ridiculous but true! Seeing comparable houses will help with this. Make your house look cleaner and more updated than the comps, and your house will sell first. I agree that you put your house on the market in a slow season. Use this time to spruce things up, and you'll be ready for the crowds in the spring. Good luck!!!

[infocrazy]

We didn't use a discount broker, but had the same deal with a realtor who was new to our area and wanted to increase her exposure/listings...however, after about 2 weeks we found out from another agent that we had interviewed that "our" realtor actually split the 4% and was only offering 2% to the buyers agent...which obviously hurt our chances.

Just FYI, you should check it out and make sure.

We got a lot of traffic, but our old house was looking for a special buyer. It was DH's house before me so it was pretty much a bachelor pad. Awesome lot, great master, walk-out basement, awkward floorplan, terrible kitchen, no garage, bad schools.

[ssjarrett]

I'd give it another month and then make a significant price reduction (not just like $5K). Our house finally sold after 11 months on the market earlier this year and only once our price was a good bit less than any other home in the neighborhood, despite having many upgrades. Even though that is painful to do, you will hopefully get a great deal on your new home and things will even out. Good luck!!

[carolinamama]

Our home sold almost 4 years ago within a week with 3 offers on the table - we took our pick. Of course the market was better. We interviewed 3 different realtors and picked the one who had sold a large handful in our neighborhood so he knew the local market very well. He had someone come in and stage the home and then took the pictures, which were great. He really emphasized curb appeal and used the right angles in our home to show off the assets and make it look great. I'm pretty sure they were never posted on CL or zillow or anything. I think most of his marketing was done with other agents that he knew. He held an agents' walkthrough and had lots of connections with others as he was part of a large broker group. I also think your timing is pretty early so things will probably pick up closer to spring. So great pictures and the spring would be my only suggestions.

Good Luck! It's so stressful selling a home.

[mom2binsd]

Are there any large employers in the area, and do they have online bulletin boards, if you can see if you can get your listing on their boards.

Also contact the relocation offices of any employers and let them know, send a link to your listing.

Craigslist yes!!!!

Like others said, if there's a day that your local paper does real estate listings, focus on that day.

Also trulia and zillow and make sure everything on the MLS listing is accurate and have friends critique the photo's....or we can if you want to share, I know a few other boardies got excellent feedback about their listing but some boardies prefer to stay anonymous which is understandable.

You many need to rethink the agent too if you have any doubts, around here it really seems there are a few really good agents who sell houses and do it fast...they seem to have what it takes, sometimes a new agent is good but other times you suffer.

[twowhat?]

I haven't read all the other replies yet...

A good realtor will have already done all the "right" things - make sure the listing is on zillow, realtor.com, etc; used a professional photographer to take pictures for the listing, mass-email to all the other realtors for the company they work for, etc. It may be worth trying open houses, but our realtor told us open houses aren't what sells a home - in fact we never had an open house.

Our realtor also told us that showings will peak within 1-2 weeks of initial listing, and then they will drop off significantly. If you're not getting promising hits within a month, I would consider changing something.

The "easiest" thing to change to garner more showings is the price. But you may not have to reduce it by much - for example if you list at 235K, then re-list at 229K. Just to get it into the next price bracket DOWN. You'll then get a whole slew of new buyers who have never even seen your house before because they limited their search to only homes costing less than 230K. Obviously you have to check the comps and see what they are doing, if they are reducing their prices, etc to stay in the competition. For our house in the end it was the price reduction that sold it - we got a whole slew of new buyers looking within the week.

Definitely talk to your realtor to see what she suggests - I am sure that what you end up doing depends highly on the market in your area and when during the year sales start to ramp up (it may just be that you need to wait for the "rush"). Good luck!!

[squimp]

Yes, make sure it's on Zillow, Trulia and the real estate ads for your local paper. Definitely do the Craigslist listing like you planned.

Maybe hold an open house for agents on their tour day (many areas have a designated day where realtors all go "on tour" and preview new listings.



I agree with this advice (except the local paper - ours doesn't even seem to list houses any more). Zillow, CL and Trulia are great resources. Also Realtor.com.

Here it's important to get all the agents to come by your house on the realtors' tour. Our agent did a gift card giveaway and asked the agents to leave feedback on their cards in order to get some immediate experienced input on the house. It really helped because those realtors will tell their clients if they think the house is right for them.

I also agree that it's too early, at least for our market. Could be a disadvantage. Here if houses sit too long they seem cursed and it's harder to sell. Timing and pricing are still key here, but our market is still pretty good.

[WatchingThemGrow]

Great ideas, everyone! We chose this realtor because he sold the neighbor's house in 16 days for full asking price just a few months ago (they were our good friends) and both the sellers and the new neighbors said he was easy to work with. He used to be a prof. photographer, so the photography is great, and everyone thinks my staging and decluttering (and painting and handyman hiring) make it look amazing. His company doesn't do tons of networking type stuff I don't think. I did contact the realtor who sold it to me, and I wonder about doing a tour for the other agents in the area. Hmmm...

DH has been working on a .info website today to put a personal touch on what we like about the house. We're currently working on a google map with all the things we can walk to. It has amazing walkability for a 3br house. I mean, which of you has a farmer's market, a library, a theatre, and TJ's/WF/and TFM within an arm's reach! I'm really going to miss that part.

We'll be sure to try out some of the other suggestions, then lower the price when I get back from skiing!

[AnnieW625]

We bought our house from and open house. If you really think you need one one then put it on CL as an open house and list it yourself. Our neighbors house at the height of the market in early 2006 used a discount realtor and it sat for two months with no movement. They moved to another regular regular realtor and it sold in less than a month.

If you haven't done so yet hire a home stager.

[val01]

My friend sold her house in 2 weeks using postlets. I was very fortunate last year and sold my house in 9 days. We live in a military town, so it's always buying season here.

http://www.postlets.com/

I hope this helps.
Valerie

[WatchingThemGrow]

My friend sold her house in 2 weeks using postlets. I was very fortunate last year and sold my house in 9 days. We live in a military town, so it's always buying season here.

http://www.postlets.com/

I made my own postlet in Aug, kept it up for a week, and the darn lower price shows up on Zillow in my history. Not sure what to do to make it go away since our listing price is higher now. :(

[val01]

I made my own postlet in Aug, kept it up for a week, and the darn lower price shows up on Zillow in my history. Not sure what to do to make it go away since our listing price is higher now. :(

I would check the help section on Zillow.com, or contact Zillow to see if they can assist. It never hurts to ask. Good Luck with your sale!

[WatchingThemGrow]

I would check the help section on Zillow.com, or contact Zillow to see if they can assist. It never hurts to ask. Good Luck with your sale! thanks! I asked the question on there earlier, but it's been 14 hours (they time it) and no response yet. Friends who saw the postlet were impressed! It's a neat product!

[stinkyfeet]

DH and I are putting our house in the market next week. I'm not sure if this is expert advice as this is our first time selling a house. Our realtor did a lot for us. Like others have mentioned, the professional stager and photographer did wonders for our house. It really looks like a model home now. He also suggested for us to give the buyer's agent a 2K-5K bonus in addition to the full 3% commission. He said that not all agents in the industry are 100% motivated by client interests (he said in a very nice way). He said this monetary incentive will probably put your house at the top of the list of houses to see for the day. It will also probably keep the buyer's agent from killing the sale by pointing out "problems or issues" with the house. He suggested that the bonus may be particularly attractive to the buyers agent after the holiday season when his/her credit card bills from the holiday season are coming in :)

We may do the bonus for the first two months out house is on the market.

I hope this helps!

[egoldber]

That really is not a lot of foot traffic, which makes me wonder if perhaps it is overpriced? If you and the realtor think it is a good price vs. comps in the area, then I would still give it time.

Our housing market is good here, but it still takes 30-90 days for most homes to sell.

[hellokitty]

We bought both of our houses from viewing an open house. So, I would consider one if I were you. You never know who will walk into your house and just fall in love with it. Good luck!

[cvanbrunt]

Check and see if redfin.com is in your area. It provides more data than zillow including recent comps and similar sq. footage homes for sale nearby. It calculates average price per square foot so its a quick way to see if you are priced too high per square ft based on comps and other properties on the market. We use it all the time. These services mine the MLS data so price reductions show up. So does your property tax.

[ourbabygirl]

Another vote for Do an Open House! (or two!) We sold both of our previous houses to people who came to the open house, much to the surprise of our first realtor (he kind of poo-pooed them, too). I say, whatever gets your house out there for a lot of people to see is what you need to do! With our second house we had a two-realtor team (husband and wife), which I liked because I feel like we were well-covered- the wife was really good with the paperwork and other legal things, etc., while the husband was a good 'schmoozer' with other realtors... they were in their 50's or early 60's and had been in the business for a long time and knew a ton of other realtors so the little realtor open house they had at the beginning (right before we went on the market) was very well attended... they had a lunch at our house for the fellow realtors (just simple stuff like bbq chicken sandwiches, chips, fruit, bars, drinks, etc.) and had all the other realtors tour the house and fill out little comment cards, rating certain aspects of our home like curb appeal, price (if they thought it was appropriate or had a diff. recommendation, as well as what they predicted it would sell for), improvements to be made, etc. It was good for us to be able to read through those, even though they didn't have much negative feedback, but it was good to see what others thought of our house and stuff.
We also went with the biggest, most well-known realty company in our state (or at least metropolitan area)- it may be shallow, but I think that name and sign recognition is a big thing when looking at houses, and I wanted the best of the best (especially since we'd be giving the same commission to another realtor or company; may as well go with the most reputable and well-known company from the get-go).

Granted, the housing market was much different (better) back then, but in '04 we sold my town house in 7 days, and in '07 we sold our house (3 BR) in 12 days, I think, for over asking price. The open houses were a big part of it, as well as timing it right (put both on the market right at the end of March, I believe... we have a long winter and I think buyers don't seriously start going out until then or early April). I wanted flowers out at our front step, and the only thing available at that time was pansies. ;)

Best of luck for a quick sale!
:29: <- There's some mojo for lots more visitors to your house!

[Giantbear]

I would do an open house for another reason, many times area brokers will go to the open house to scope out the house for their clients. The more brokers who can view your house, the better off you are.

[vdrake71]

I was told by a realtor that if you increase the percentage that you give to the realtor that it can really make a difference. He told us that just 1% more could make a big difference. It gets you more people in the door and it typically sells faster.

[lucybabymamma]

[QUOTE=stinkyfeet;3411798]DH and I are putting our house in the market next week. I'm not sure if this is expert advice as this is our first time selling a house. Our realtor did a lot for us. Like others have mentioned, the professional stager and photographer did wonders for our house. It really looks like a model home now. He also suggested for us to give the buyer's agent a 2K-5K bonus in addition to the full 3% commission. He said that not all agents in the industry are 100% motivated by client interests (he said in a very nice way). He said this monetary incentive will probably put your house at the top of the list of houses to see for the day. It will also probably keep the buyer's agent from killing the sale by pointing out "problems or issues" with the house. He suggested that the bonus may be particularly attractive to the buyers agent after the holiday season when his/her credit card bills from the holiday season are coming in :)

:yeahthat:


For our remax realtor, this % was built into his overall percentage and mentioned in the contract. I also think it helped to use an experienced realtor from a large company like Remax because he had lots of connections and could spread the word.

Good luck!

[MoJo]

A simple thing I haven't read here yet is just make sure EVERYONE you know, knows you are selling your home. Tell all your co-workers. . . post it on Facebook. I sold my last home to the daughter of a co-worker, and bought my current home from a co-worker who was re-locating. A friend of mine just announced her home is going up for sale today on Facebook. It might not make a difference. . . but it might.

Best wishes and home-selling mojo to you!

[WatchingThemGrow]

still working on bringing them in... We beefed up the "walkability" and images on our .info website, put it on CL with a link to the MLS and our website.

Hoping something happens soon. May drop the price before we go out of town this weekend.