What should I honestly expect from my realtor?

[Anonymous]

We've been on the market 2.5 months with plenty of visitors and no offers. Every time a visiting agent fills out one of those electronic feedback forms, they always say their client loved the house but nobody ever comes back. A lot of the feedback forms say that the people are just starting their house search and we are one of the first homes they visited.

It would seem to me our realtor should be actively following up with these agents to see how their searches are going and encouraging them to come back, and reporting back to us on what he's trying. Instead it seems like all he's doing is sending the initial feedback form request and then not doing anything with them again.

He's done a lot to list the house on multiple sites so it's at least getting some visitors, but I don't feel like it's enough when he stands to make multiple tens of thousands off this sale. Am I expecting too much?

We are in the Gaithersburg area if it matters...

[Anonymous]

Have you done a price adjustment? Our agent personally followed up with each agent that came through our house and got feedback. We heard the same thing, "great house" with no specific suggestions for changes. We sold in less than 3 weeks in N. Virginia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have you done a price adjustment? Our agent personally followed up with each agent that came through our house and got feedback. We heard the same thing, "great house" with no specific suggestions for changes. We sold in less than 3 weeks in N. Virginia.

OP here, yes, we dropped the price once and our agent contacted each agent that had been at the house prior to the price drop to tell them about it. He's also been personally following up with each agent who comes through to get the initial feedback, but that's it, so people who came through after the price was already dropped have only been reached out to once. What I'm wondering is if I'm being unreasonable to expect he would follow-up with those agents multiple times, especially the ones whose clients were "just beginning their search," to find out whether their clients have any interest in coming back now that they're further along in their search. Kind of reminding them the property is out there, KWIM?

[Anonymous]

If people don't like your house, they know it. No amount of following up is going to change their minds. Dropping the price substantially might, but even that won't work if they think the house isn't for them. Seems like your realtor's job is to get some good traffic of people in to see the property (which sounds like it's happening), then figure out what it is that people don't like about the property if it isn't selling. Maybe your realtor should focus more on that last part.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
It would seem to me our realtor should be actively following up with these agents to see how their searches are going and encouraging them to come back, and reporting back to us on what he's trying. Instead it seems like all he's doing is sending the initial feedback form request and then not doing anything with them again.

He's done a lot to list the house on multiple sites so it's at least getting some visitors, but I don't feel like it's enough when he stands to make multiple tens of thousands off this sale. Am I expecting too much?

Your expectations are off. If your home is in good condition, staged nicely, and PRICED RIGHT-- it should sell. My guess is that it is overpriced, or not staged nicely. In today's market it is apparently difficult for buyers to purchase a house, and get the financing to renovate the kitchen and knock out a wall (didn't used to be the case). So, either your house is in move-in ready condition, and is the right price to reflect that--- or else, it needs "updates" in many buyers' minds and needs to be priced to reflect that.

If I were a buyer, no amount of calling or cajoling would entice me, in fact it would get on my nerves. The right price is what people go for.

[Anonymous]

Could it be that "just beginning search" is house hunting code for just looking to see what is out there, and not actively looking at all? I've thought of house hunting now, for neighborhoods in my possible preferred middle/high school areas, even though my DC is in 2nd grade, and the move is potential and literally years away. No great house / great price could get me to move now, see thread on money saving tips.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It would seem to me our realtor should be actively following up with these agents to see how their searches are going and encouraging them to come back, and reporting back to us on what he's trying. Instead it seems like all he's doing is sending the initial feedback form request and then not doing anything with them again.

He's done a lot to list the house on multiple sites so it's at least getting some visitors, but I don't feel like it's enough when he stands to make multiple tens of thousands off this sale. Am I expecting too much?

Your expectations are off. If your home is in good condition, staged nicely, and PRICED RIGHT-- it should sell. My guess is that it is overpriced, or not staged nicely. In today's market it is apparently difficult for buyers to purchase a house, and get the financing to renovate the kitchen and knock out a wall (didn't used to be the case). So, either your house is in move-in ready condition, and is the right price to reflect that--- or else, it needs "updates" in many buyers' minds and needs to be priced to reflect that.

If I were a buyer, no amount of calling or cajoling would entice me, in fact it would get on my nerves. The right price is what people go for.

OP again - Thanks for your honesty. My house is completely move-in ready and staged professionally (to the point where many of our own things are in storage). It's priced competitively with the other houses in the neighborhood that have been on the market for at least as long or longer. I guess it comes down to the fact that the current market for where we are sucks, even though it seems to be improving elsewhere, and people don't want a townhouse when they could afford single family, and don't want to be this far north when they could be closer in. It was expressed a bit more harshly on another thread but I won't get into that.

I appreciate all the viewpoints becusae this is the first time we are selling a home and I honestly didn't know what to expect.

[Anonymous]

It's priced competitively with the other houses in the neighborhood that have been on the market for at least as long or longer.

Which leads me to believe that the whole neighborhood is overpriced. If everything's sitting for 90 days without traction, that's a signal that the market isn't as crazy about your location/neighborhood/home as you are. When your agent showed you pre-pricing comps, did he show you recent sales? Or just show you that X, Y and Z were on the market for a certain number so that should be your number too?

Has your agent held a broker's open? Often the honest, detailed feedback from other agents will give you an idea of what the sticking point is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

It's priced competitively with the other houses in the neighborhood that have been on the market for at least as long or longer.

Which leads me to believe that the whole neighborhood is overpriced. If everything's sitting for 90 days without traction, that's a signal that the market isn't as crazy about your location/neighborhood/home as you are. When your agent showed you pre-pricing comps, did he show you recent sales? Or just show you that X, Y and Z were on the market for a certain number so that should be your number too?

Has your agent held a broker's open? Often the honest, detailed feedback from other agents will give you an idea of what the sticking point is.

I second this... the right comparable price are other home SALE prices in the neighborhood-- not what people are listing for, when the homes stay on the market. (Sorry, this stinks.)

[Anonymous]

"just beginning search" = they didn't like it and want to see what else there is and if there is nothing better they will come back...

My house was "move in" ready also ... to a point. Because it depends on whose moving in. No cosmetic work needed to be done but they house needed new windows and it really need a significant part of the deck replaced in the next couple of years. I knew this and so did other realtors and buyers. The price reflected it also and we did sell in NOVA in 2 weeks last year.

My agent used a feedback site that allowed me to view the feedback and I found that realtors left very specific feedback while using that site.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It's priced competitively with the other houses in the neighborhood that have been on the market for at least as long or longer.

Which leads me to believe that the whole neighborhood is overpriced. If everything's sitting for 90 days without traction, that's a signal that the market isn't as crazy about your location/neighborhood/home as you are. When your agent showed you pre-pricing comps, did he show you recent sales? Or just show you that X, Y and Z were on the market for a certain number so that should be your number too?

Has your agent held a broker's open? Often the honest, detailed feedback from other agents will give you an idea of what the sticking point is.

I second this... the right comparable price are other home SALE prices in the neighborhood-- not what people are listing for, when the homes stay on the market. (Sorry, this stinks.)

OP again - yes, we based our pricing on recent comps (which is to say, we were lower than the few that had sold). We have all made price adjustments but nothing has budged in months. The people across from us are on sale since February - same house, only ours has recently-updated everything and theirs doesn't. I should add that all of these prices are at least $60K less than what we paid - hooray for buying in 2005. OK, now I'm just feeling sorry for myself!! We have a baby due in October and I was really hoping we could move and be settled somewhere else before then but it's hard to feel optimistic right now. Thanks for all of your input.

[Anonymous]

Do you need to sell now? It might make sense to hold off a year.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I think it is your neighborhood unfortunately. I'm 19:04 and in Burke, so not close in, but houses in our area are moving, in the $500-$600,000 range. We also bought in '05 but also were coming out of another owned property and had a large down payment, so we're OK since we're also leaving the DC area.

14:53 has a good point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you need to sell now? It might make sense to hold off a year.

Thanks everyone - no, we don't *need* to sell now. We're just outgrowing this townhouse with baby #2 coming and DH often has to travel into VA for work so the commute is wearing on him, so we thought we'd take a chance on this crappy market to see if we could land a single-family home closer in in a better school district for a lot less than we'd pay if the market was good. But we can certainly take our chances in a year if this doesn't work out. In the meantime, our older child isn't of school age yet and we like our community and feel it's safe, and close to a lot of good things for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:we thought we'd take a chance on this crappy market to see if we could land a single-family home closer in in a better school district for a lot less than we'd pay if the market was good.

You can do this, of course, but just as the seller of that single-family home would be getting less than they would have back in hotter time (i.e. 2005), so would you be getting less for your townhouse.