I need opinions (re: house selling)

[emoflamingo]

pandce.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=homegarden&action=display&thread=23741

I mentioned in this post that our realtor told us to consider dropping our price before our open house coming up this weekend. H asked him if we could get into a house we looked at the day he brought it up again, maybe this coming weekend, to see if we could get my GFIL to tell us if the foundation was good and the one wall we had concerns about was load bearing and could be removed easily/cheaply.

I guess he told H that we weren't ready to go look at a house a second time yet because we could only put in a contingency and didn't want to "inconvenience the sellers" if we weren't quite ready yet. Okay, fine. However, he continued and said that he couldn't really go to the seller's agent and tell them that we are "motivated sellers" since we opted to not drop our price $3k (reasons behind our decision included an open house that had 3 people through because there was an "issue" with getting our open house onto Zillow, realtor.com and the local realtor's associaton website, we have been on the market only 30 days and 2 of those weekends were big holiday weekends AND we have had only positive feedback with no mention of our price being a factor in not getting an offer -- one has a house to sell first, one is divorcing and cannot buy just yet and the other went with the cheaper, fixer upper to please their husband).

My H and I are irritated. We aren't children, we discussed it and decided to not do it because of the above, it gives us a smaller wiggle window to negotiate AND because it was presented as an option. If we were told we HAD to do it, we would have.

I'm drafting an email to the realtor (and his wife/partner) to ask them if we misunderstood and to kind of explain our reasoning behind why we didn't want to drop it just yet, but I'm highly irritated by the situation. Of COURSE we're motivated sellers, we're just not motivated to lose $5,000 so they can make a sell and we can live in an apartment until we found "our house" in an area that houses generally sell quickly in. I'm 7 months pregnant, I need a plan set in place! (The apartment complex we would move into has a wait list and while we are on it, we would have to wait until a notice to vacate was submitted to the office AND beat the other people on the list over there to get our deposit in so we can get the apartment since it's first come first serve.)

This is probably all over the place because I'm at work and multitasking.

[ssmjlm]

How long is your contract for?

I would probably be shopping for a new realtor or requesting a come to jesus talk before the open house.

ETA: I completely agree with your thought process above, which is why I suggested what I did, if that wasn't clear.

[emoflamingo]

Contract until November. My email to him (and his wife) is basically a "this is why we made the decision we did, we were under the impression that it was an OPTION and not a requirement and if we were wrong, we apologize. We aren't looking to lose our pants in this, so if you have an comments, questions or concerns you can either reply to this email or you can call me at my work number as I will be here until 5 p.m."

Usually, my H can call and leave a VM, text OR email and we will get responses hours and hours later. Sometimes the next day. He wears his damn iPhone on his hip AND his wife has an iPad with her at all times. I get we're not big fish in our price range, but we are still a fucking fish here.

[kaylie]

Can you mention in the email that if you're giving them too much work you're happy to use a different agent to purchase your new home?

[emoflamingo]

We've basically already decided that they're not going to be our buyer's agents and we will probably not recommend them to people if they ask. We went with them because a friend spoke highly of them and they were great until the ink dried on our contract. Then, it was hard to get in touch with them for any reason, be it "do we have an open house this weekend because you said we did and we have NO idea what time or why it's not online" or "can we go see this house?"

I'm not sure if it's factoring in, but said friend decided to back out of a contract SHE placed on a house (and we both think she's bonkers for it) because a new one came on the market she thought she might like. She didn't like it and is now closing on Friday for her old house with no plan for a new house other than bunking with her parents so they can find a rental.

[thewop]

I think it's time to be done with that realtor. They're clearly not working for you and lack important communication. You guys seem really unhappy with them. I would move on.

[emoflamingo]

Where is SJH? Can I break a contract with no penalties if I'm not happy?

[kaylie]

I think that's a good call- if they suck this badly now it can only go down hill from here. You might want to consider calling the managing broker for their office to discuss your concerns as well.

[lmdbww]

I didn't even read the entire post, but your realtor is an asshole. (I'm sure you are aware. lol)

First, there is nothing wrong with going to look at houses now before you are under contract on your own house. We started looking at houses and had a top 3 before we even listed ours. Then we just had to wait it out until we went under contract before we could put an offer in. It seemed totally normal and other realtors didn't even give it a second thought.

Second, if you dont want to drop the price, that is up to you. That does not mean you are "unmotivated" to sell. And it might or might not even have any effect on getting an offer or increasing foot traffic. We waited 4 months to drop our price. Our realtor asked a few times, we said no, and she was like "ok no problem". No lectures or talking down to us. When we did finally got an offer, it had nothing to do with the price drop, the people just happened to come along at that time. Dropping our price also did not increase our foot traffic at all. That's not to say that it wont result in an offer for you, but everything is unpredictable. Your realtor should know that.

[jenjen]

It's probably too late for this (I assume your email has already been sent) but I wouldn't appologize. You didn't do anything wrong. If you've been on the market for 30 days, I'm not sure a $3,000 price drop would make any difference. $3k in the scheme of buying a home is nothing. I think it would be better to note "$3k closing cost allowance if accepted offer by 7/31/12" or something like that over a $3k reduction.

Also, I would call the managing parter or office manager and see about your contract. If you are unhappy, they should assign a new realtor to you. You shouldn't feel pressured to do whatever they want you to do - they should present the options to you and H and let you make your decision. Also, glad to hear you are not going to use them as buyers agents.

[emoflamingo]

Nope, we aren't sending it until after our open house because we WANT to sell it, so we don't want to do anything to make them not want to push it hard this weekend lol.

$3,000 in our price range is a good difference. Our house is completely move-in ready while the few in our neighborhood at that lower price may be slightly bigger (>200 sq ft of an extra bedroom but more awkward of a layout or a worse location on a main street), they are not move in ready. They need paint, updating, new carpet, deodorizing (empty houses) and don't have some perks we have (like vinyl, which isn't an upgrade but it requires no maintenance, a new roof, deck and privacy fence in the back, shed, etc.)

[slug*bug]

Jun 27, 2012 13:28:43 GMT -5 emoflamingo said:

$3,000 in our price range is a good difference.

We just bought one of the few move in ready houses in our neighborhood.

While I understood the rationale for the seller's asking price (the house is lovely and shows extremely well), the asking price was just too much for the neighborhood, given the larger homes that were for sale down the street. They weren't as nicely finished as ours, for sure, and we certainly offered more b/c it will need less work overall. But we still weren't willing to overpay for the neighborhood just b/c it was the most esthetically pleasing house on the street, kwim?

I'm sorry if that sounds harsh...and I agree that your REA sounds...not good. I'd question his/her advice, too, given the problems you've had.

ETA: Clarity.

[emoflamingo]

We aren't overpriced. We went with what THEY wanted to start at. So after 30 days, I'm not sure why the big rush to drop the price $3,000. Is it because the other two have lowered their prices? We would entertain offers as low as like $64,000 plus all closing costs, but lowering our price to $65,000 gets no wiggle.

[emoflamingo]

Yeah, we're done asking them to show us houses now after that phone conversation. And we'll be discussing it with them after the open house this weekend. If it sells, great! 30 days in our market is pretty low (I think the average these days have been about 90 days?). We are motivated to sell, we just aren't motivated to lose a lot of money. My H has it mapped out if we accept offers for anything between our listing price and like $7,000 less on an Excel spreadsheet how we will fare. It gets more and more sad as it goes on, but we'd still be willing to do it to be able to move onto the next house and phase in our lives. I just don't want to cut $3,000 off the top of that right at 30 days.

[sjh722]

Hey there, I just got home. I will PM you my email address. Send me an email so I have yours and I can answer a few questions for you.