Problems selling my house- get a new realtor, if I can?

Don't worry, I'm quite happy to have the outside feedback. To a modest extent, the neighborhoods to heavily influence the price, but if there are equivalent places (at least as they appear in the listings...) nearby that are solidly lower than it makes sense I'd not get that much traffic. I can comfortably say, having gone and looked at some of the places nearby that are roughly equivalent (but have bigger garages...) that none I've seen are nearly as well-prepared for sale as mine is. Unfortunately, if nobody comes and looks at the house, that's pointless... and I guess so far the few who have haven't been able to overcome what issues they've had.

So, that leaves me with the question of what to do?

I will be taking new exterior pictures, and seeing if I can get any better-composed ones of the inside as well. I'm still internally debating whether to lose the bathroom pics or not- the reasons doing a have been put forth, but my mental counter to that is wondering whether people will be thinking there's skmethkng wrong with it if I don't have any pictures of the only full bath. Unfortunately there's really no way to take ANY picture of it without the tile, sink, or tub showing up. Maybe if I can get an artistic picture of it?

But, the bigger question lies in what I do about the listing itself, the price, and the realtor. You guys have only come up with even more things that she's apparently either done wrong or overlooked. It seems like adjusting the price down a fair bit from where it is would be a wise move, but at the same time I wonder if it would be better to try and break the contract with the realtor, have the listing drop off, and find a new one to relist it at the lower price vs just dropping the price on the existing listing...

Sachilles is giving good advice. If you knew nothing about your house and just window-shopped online, does your house stand out (in a positive way)? We made ours the best value in town in our price range, and we sold ours in 2 days for over 99% of the listing price. We had similar issues with location, and we had to drop our expectations right off the bat. In the end, we watched the market very closely and we felt that we made the right decision in pricing aggressively right off the bat.

A few things we learned: - Your first offer is very likely your best one. Serious consider it.
- In the end, the houses that were overpriced sold for less money than if they had priced it right from the beginning
- Pictures are huge (especially since most people begin their search online), our realtor hired a professional photographer (no cost to us) and it made a huge difference
- Have the photographer use a wide-angle lens
- Only have the pictures that show your houses best features
- You can take the neutral colors too far (we did initially). It helps to add some color back to rooms that seem too stark and bland.
- We spent about $200 in items for staging that paid off in spades

I spent a lot of time reading on this site before we sold our old house and bought our current one. His advice paid off in spades at many different points in the search:

http://www.searchlightcrusade.net/

Good luck with the sale!

Take it off the market, do some small changes to the house. (below) Get a new realtor, be prepared to rent it out in six months if this doesn't work.

• up-date pictures to "summer"

-remove date code from pictures

-paint the roof on the one shed, and the door on the other

-clean the mud off block garage or paint

-remove vines off the brick chimney on home

-remove vine from right side of home on corner of siding

-paint pink bathroom white, put up white shower curtain

-change sink and toilet to white color

-put strait board above kitchen sink

-paint kitchen cupboards a dark color

-put pendant lights over sink

-put on a smaller tile light color back splash

Just saying

re: the Realtor issue (your real question...pun intended). You have a contract, not sure you can just get out of it without the selling agent agreeing. Most agents work for real estate companies, so what you might be able to do is "fire" your current agent and have the company substitute another for you.

Back in my very first real estate transaction I learned to never sign a buyer contract. Agents only want to show you listings they have rights to, or ones their company has. I did far better searching for homes on my own. I also feel that, if I find a house I'm interested in, dealing strictly with the selling agent gives them more incentive to push a deal through since they get the ENTIRE commission.

Good agents aren't hard to find. They are the ones doing open houses every weekend and advertising like crazy. You might also try Dave Ramsey's web site and see if he's got an ELP in real estate near you. I've used an ELP for my refi and life insurance and both times I had great experiences.

Ok, some of this may sound silly, and some of it redundant to what's been said but here's my take.

Too many pictures. Looking at all those I feel I've seen all I need to see, I've made up my mind about the place without even setting foot in it. Pick the 10 best shots and leave a little mystery. And none of those shots are the 10 best, start over.

Definitely get better photos, and definitely something which gets attention as the "cover" photo. When I'm hunting on line for places (as I do often these days) I punch in my criteria and get back a list, I don't click on everything in that list, that cover photo needs to make me want to open the ad and see more.

Look for local service that can come in and properly prep and "paint" the tile and tub, then replace the toilet and vanity. When looking at rental properties in FL my friend down there who is helping me has used these services and it seems the average cost to recolor a bathroom is about $200, you could probably make that whole bathroom fresh and white for $600-$800 and it would go a long way.

It does absolutely look clean and well kept, but the minimal furniture looks less like staging and more like "flophouse" either stage it or leave it empty. The rooms look very bland, a little color to the walls or maybe even some cheap, neutral curtains would go a long way.

Empty rooms make houses look abandoned. Stage each room, heck borrow furniture if you need to, and take good photos of each room. One per room, showing the best features. The corner room with two windows for instance, will it fit a single bed? A king? And where are the sheds in relation to the house? How big is the yard? How far away are they? Don't let people imagine what a room could be, people suck at that. Show them!

The bathroom looks dated, but a nice shower curtain will hide the pink, stage with rolled up towels and flowers and such will make it pop.

And the MLS listing shows houses all around yours for $98 - $125K. You are the highest around, so you need to justify that somehow.

Talked to my wife at length about it this morning. Advice on your agent. Many come back with a competitive market analysis that supports the sellers notion of the houses worth. If you are shopping agents, who will you go with? The one that tells you your house is worth $140k or the one that tells you $110k? She says agents can be pretty lazy with that, and it drives her crazy...says it wastes everyone's time. Pricing it right is crucial. Dropping her as agent,.....sort of depends on the contract. If she only has one other listing, she either isn't hungry, or she isn't very good considering how many listings are in that area. If you can't drop her, make a few changes. Price, get a real competitive market analysis, and price accordingly. Based on what we see off the cuff you are high by 10-15k. Get it advertised. Do those apartments have a community bulletin board? Put a flyer there, they obviously can live in the area and maybe looking for an upgrade. Things you can't change....the neighborhood, that kind of is a tough one to mitigate. Concentrate on getting the message out as to why this location is good(walking distance to garden springs park)...is it close to schools, some large employer, downtown...you know the area better. Wife did say those apartments are a value killer. Bathroom. The cheaper solution is repaint the walls to a complimentary color. An Eggshell white with a slight reddish tint, rather than a contrasting blue. Google maps shows your neighbors houses are in good shape, so no harm in letting them be in the background. I think the money shot is taking pictures from the corner of the house, pointed at the front....but gets enough of the side to see your neighbors house is in good shape. Gives it the good neighborhood feel. As you face the pay phone, stand in front of the tree on the right or the driveway to the office building. People don't want crappy neighbors, so showing your neighbors houses are eye sores goes a long way. If you can not get out of the contract with her, you may need to be a pain in the arse to her. Ask how she's marketing the house, and how YOU can help. Get it on craigslist, facebook, area enthusiast forums, front porch forum. Many local papers have free online classifieds. Yup you are pretty much doing her job for her, and you don't have the time....and it sucks, but you either have to get this thing sold, or keep making mortgage payments on it. If you can get a new agent, the questions you'll want to ask are: I want this place under contract by date X, what price should it be at, and what should I do to the place to get it sold? How many places have you sold in this price range, in this area recently? Hope it doesn't come off as sounding harsh. Good luck.

Lots of good advice guys, I appreciate all of it!

Discussing this with the GF and mulling over it, I've pretty much come to the conclusion that the best thing to do is likely to start as completely fresh as possible with the listing. Though I don't at all look forward to having to do it, that will mean effectively firing the current real estate agent and trying to get out of the seller's contract and taking the house temporarily off the market.

We're going to have to weigh the cost of any modifications/improvements to the house against how much benefit they'll likely get us- will redoing the bathroom completely for $800 drive that much more traffic or improve the perceived value of the house, for example? Some things will be easy- taking new pictures is something I almost look forward to, for example, and we'll obviously be doing those.

The staging seems to be something of a mixed feeling from people... and I wrestled with whether or not it was better to try and stage it with what I had or to simply empty the house out completely. When I saw it when I was looking, it was completely empty, and that worked very well for me seeing how I'd use the rooms, but most people seem to think that staging is much better. I do have plenty of furniture that can be used for staging, we just emptied most of it out as it seemed to look more cluttered with it there than without it- about the only room that retained all of its furniture was the master bedroom. Unfortunately, all the beds I do have are queen-sized ones, which tend to make some of the rooms look rather small.

Of course, the biggest problem for me is going to be how to go about trying to 'fire' the current agent...

Ashyukun wrote: Of course, the biggest problem for me is going to be how to go about trying to 'fire' the current agent...

"I'm not interested in selling anymore."

Ranger50 wrote:

Ashyukun wrote: Of course, the biggest problem for me is going to be how to go about trying to 'fire' the current agent...

"I'm not interested in selling anymore."

One problem with this is that just pulling the listing would still leave another 2 1/2 months or so on the contract, and without it outright being cancelled the company would not be outside of their rights to sue for the commission if I do manage to sell it before that time is up. The other is that it's not the truth, and as much as it would make it easier I don't have any intention of lying to her about it...

If you can't "fire" the agent, I think it's a mistake to just take it off the market. Get the price where it should be, make any changes and go from there. If it's not for sale, it won't sell. Since you aren't living in it, there is no harm in keeping it listed until the agreement expires. The agreements here tend to be 3 months, so make sure you read your agreement fully.

In reply to Ashyukun:

Where are you lying? You aren't interested in selling anymore (until I make a bunch of simple improvements...). I would then go and rent it out. I remember trying to find a place to rent in Lex... What a big PITA. Find a decent rental company and you won't even hear anything ever until it breaks over your preset limit on maintenance. You will just collect the rent check minus the company fees. Make it cover the mortgage and forget about it.

sachilles wrote: If you can't "fire" the agent, I think it's a mistake to just take it off the market. Get the price where it should be, make any changes and go from there. If it's not for sale, it won't sell. Since you aren't living in it, there is no harm in keeping it listed until the agreement expires. The agreements here tend to be 3 months, so make sure you read your agreement fully.

It's for 6 months- it clearly says the listing broker has exclusive right for 180 days, starting April 15 and ending October 15 (that's actually 183 days looking at it more closely). Hopefully she'll just let me cancel the agreement- when going over it and signing everything when we got to the part about the length of the contract she did expressly say they were pretty loose on that, so I'm hoping she'll take it in stride and let us cancel it- if she doesn't really want to be dealing with selling it, hopefully she'll just let it drop.

sachilles wrote: Where are you lying? You aren't interested in selling anymore (until I make a bunch of simple improvements...). I would then go and rent it out. I remember trying to find a place to rent in Lex... What a big PITA. Find a decent rental company and you won't even hear anything ever until it breaks over your preset limit on maintenance. You will just collect the rent check minus the company fees. Make it cover the mortgage and forget about it.

That's still being a bit TOO nit-picky with the language or omissions for my comfort- if I'm going to let her go, I'm going to be up-front and straightforward about it even if it may not be pretty (will probably omit some of what the GF has said along the lines of feeling the agent would be ripping me off if does sell and she gets a commission from it).

Actually, that's one thing that if she doesn't want to let me out of the seller's contract that I would be pushing to do would be to shift the commission more to the buyer's agent- if I'm going to be doing most of the work in fixing the listing and getting the word out about the place and still have to pay a commission, I'd prefer more of it go to the buyer's agent to make it look a bit more enticing.

I'm still not convinced about renting the place out, even if I didn't have to deal with much of anything by using a rental company, the main reason being it means I would have relatively little in the way of a down payment on buying a new place. I'm also not wholly certain about whether I CAN rent the place with my existing morgage... I think the refi mortgage didn't limit that, but I'm not wholly certain.

Aaaand, email sent to the realtor asking to cancel the 'right to sell' contract. Really don't like doing stuff like this... but as much as I don't like it, it needs to be done...

In reply to Datsun1500:

Though I know most places say staging is far preferable, I just don't have the furniture myself (nor does my GF) to stage the rest of the house... my dining room table is MAAAAASIVE and makes the room look small (despite it being a very large dining room), and as I said all my beds are queen-sized, which make the smallest bedroom look even smaller. I could put a bed in the other large bedroom, but don't have much else I could really stage it with well, and I don't have a desk and such that could be used to stage the other room as an office. So, I'm more likely to just put the rest of the furniture into storage and have it completely empty. The other option is to have it professionally staged... that's going to be on the pricey side, especially if it's based on how long the staging is there and it doesn't sell quickly.

I'm going over to the house after work today to see if I can get some nice pictures of the outside as well as lots of pictures of the interior- not so much for posting, but for reference and discussion since I'm not over there as much. I intend to take the most of the bathroom so I can drop them into Photoshop (OK, GIMP since I don't have PS on my iMac anymore...) and play with the wall colors to see if it makes it look enough better to be worth the money/effort. Will probably also look and see what some hardware at Home Depot costs to see what it would be like to update the sink/cabinet/vanity. Found that there is a place locally that refinishes bathrooms... I may make an appointment for a quote from them for what it would cost to re-color the wall tile and bathtub (toilet I can replace myself- I know this for a fact from last Friday when I replaced the one in the half bath ).

There's only one 'real' shed- though there is the small metal storage-shed thing on the back of the garage. I'm kind of loathe to paint either of them without painting the garage... and I'm kind of worried if I paint the garage that the siding on the house will look even worse...

In reply to Datsun1500:

What a coincidence- they were shot with a cellphone (realtor's iPhone 5 mostly, a few re-takes were done with my 4S). I'll be using my solidly nicer point-and-shoot camera. Wish I had access to a DSLR, but all my photography nerd friends live too far away for that.

I'm not wholly certain how I'm going to get all the ivy off... historically I've kept it from getting nearly that high by ripping it down whenever it tries to go up the chimney, but for the last year and a half I've not been doing my own yardwork since I was out of town so often, and the guy mowing the lawn and edging didn't do anything about it. Getting it up off the top is going to be tricky (even moreso since I hate heights...).

It might be worth trying to rent a DSLR with a "realtor lens" (very wide angle zoom lens) for the weekend.

BoxheadTim wrote: It might be worth trying to rent a DSLR with a "realtor lens" (very wide angle zoom lens) for the weekend.

It may well be worth it... I tried taking new pictures yesterday and while they're a definite improvement over the current listing pictures they still don't look as nice as I'd like. Couldn't get a good shot of the outside of the house anyway since the sun was behind it, and I'd probably want a few hours minimum of working on trimming bushes and trees before I take a new one anyway. I'll have to look into if there is a place in town I could rent one from, or perhaps advertise for someone who actually knows how to USE one well

Have heard nothing back from the realtor yet, which is about par for the course- it regularly took over 24 hours for her to respond to emails despite the fact I know she has a smartphone and can get her work email on it.

Did some looking around yesteday, and am figuring that if I replaced the sink, vanity, and toilet with more neutral-colored ones it would run around $300 or so. Paint to repaint the walls (and the bathroom linen closet, which ironically would actually take more paint than the walls...) would only be about $50 or so. Doing that though would likely not be worth it without doing something about the remaining Blue Elephant of a bathtub, so I need to get quotes on having it re-glazed.

One other option I'm mulling around now that would be a bit less expensive is to get something like this and use it to refinish all of the PINK tile in the bathroom, repaint the walls to white, and leave the blue tub, toilet, and (probably, the vanity top has a lot of pinks in it too and might need to be refinished/replaced in some way too...) sink. White/off-white & blue would, I think, look worlds better than the pink & blue that it is now, and while most of what I've read has said that refinishing kits like the Rustoleum one won't work well for actual tubs and such, I'd think that it should hold up for a good bit longer just on the surrounding tile...

After 24 hours contact your Agent's Broker and tell them she's been avoiding you.

It's one thing to get them to release the listing, it's another to get them to allow you to list it with another company or sell it yourself.

You can always take your house off the market, but you can't always take the listing away and be allowed to sell it without still owing them a commission.

Ashyukun wrote:

BoxheadTim wrote: It might be worth trying to rent a DSLR with a "realtor lens" (very wide angle zoom lens) for the weekend.

It may well be worth it... I tried taking new pictures yesterday and while they're a definite improvement over the current listing pictures they still don't look as nice as I'd like. Couldn't get a good shot of the outside of the house anyway since the sun was behind it, and I'd probably want a few hours minimum of working on trimming bushes and trees before I take a new one anyway. I'll have to look into if there is a place in town I could rent one from, or perhaps advertise for someone who actually knows how to USE one well

I think some of the big mail order places (B&H?) are doing rental as well if you don't have anybody in town.

In reply to carguy123:

Yeah, I specifically asked to cancel the 'exclusive right to sell' contract for exactly that reason. Frankly I don't have THAT much of a problem with staying with the same agency if won't let me out of the contract but assign me a realtor who'll actually do their job. If they will let me out of the contract though, the GF hopes we'd be able to get her current landlord to handle at least representing us on the buying side if we need an agent.

If I've not heard anything by tomorrow morning I will be contacting the agency directly and taking it up with them- I've been working with the current agent for long enough to want to give her a chance to not have to go over her head and possibly get her into (more, I imagine my essentially wanting to fire her won't do her any favors :P) trouble with the agency. This whole situation has me wondering a lot more seriously why she's at her third agency since I worked with her when I bought the house about 8 years ago...

grumbles STILL have heard nothing from the agent. Am torn between calling the agency about it, or calling her up directly. I definitely don't WANT to talk to her about it, but am likely going to have to at some point and know it's entirely possible she just hasn't seen the email (which is in and of itself yet another strike against her, and entirely par for the course in terms of her being lousy at communicating with me).

Just call the broker and get it over with.

carguy123 wrote: Just call the broker and get it over with.

This. Suck it up, buttercup! I get it though, I HATE confrontational phone conversations.

bluej wrote:

carguy123 wrote: Just call the broker and get it over with.

This. Suck it up, buttercup! I get it though, I HATE confrontational phone conversations.

I'm guessing I'm not going to have any choice but to do so, I don't intend to just let this sit- though it doesn't matter a WHOLE lot over the weekend, since I will be spending pretty much all of tomorrow at a car show and can't get started on any of the things that need to be done on the house while the listing is down.

I REALLY hate confrontational conversations- be they over the phone or in person. I'm not very good at it, at all...