If you sold your house...

-How long did it take?

-What did you do to sell it? Realtor, anything else? Anything creative like posting it somewhere? Sending a flyer on a listserv? Posting a flyer somehwere?

-Any helpful hints, thanks!

ETA: It's only been 4 days but I'm already getting antsy

Message edited 10/4/2012 12:04:33 PM.

Re: If you sold your house...

If you use a real estate agent, they should handle all marketing for you as a component of the services offered. The true value of a real estate agent is not just marketing, but that they manage the entire sale for you, from the time they take the listing until the time it closes (coordinating showings, negotiations, inspections, appraisals, etc.).

As far as marketing, online marketing -- exposure on all of the major, popular real estate sites (both national and local) is really the key. Buyers are very internet savvy and most of them like to start their search online, and will continue to use it in conjunction with the internet even after they start using an agent. But if they are working with an agent, then we find everything off the internet! So it's essential that the online marketing makes the property as attractive as possible (great pictures, ample description, etc.).

I have some unique and innovative technology tools that I use to market listings beyond just the usual websites.

As far as other forms of marketing, extensive research has shown that print advertising (ads in newspapers, etc.) doesn't yield results. The only time I consider print advertising is if I am trying to target a specific demographic (seniors, boaters, etc.) and put an ad ina publication aimed at that group.

It never hurts to use flyers.. I've distributed flyers to select areas (apartment buildings, hospitals, etc.) when it was appropriate, but most times the response to the flyers will wind up being potential customers for me, but not really a good buyer for the property I am advertising. This also holds true for mailings I've done (i.e., "Just Listed" postcards and the like).

If you want to sell quickly - you should definitely focus on pricing the home in line with market values. Homes are really selling now - there's a huge demand - and the ones that don't sell quickly are overpriced.

Your home will also sell more quickly if it is in good showing condition - decluttered, neutral decor, clean, everything in good working order.

Let me know if you have any questions, and good luck!

Re: If you sold your house...

Yep we're using a realtor.

It's on MLS, we have a sign out front with flyers, I can see it's on the major realty websites and zillow, trulia, yahoo homes etc

Everyone has commented how great it looks, everything is pretty much out (we're closing on a new house regardless), all pretty neutral colors...except DD's room is lavendar but we're living in it and it would be hard to re-paint her room with crib, etc.

We had 3 showings the first day...and now I'm just waiting for another phone call. I wouldn't say our realtor is bad, but I was hoping for him to be a lot more aggressive...like giving us more ideas, creative ways to get people in.

It's priced right in the range of what houses in this area are selling for. And also $15k below what we bought it for in 2006.

I don't know, maybe I need to be a bit patient

Message edited 10/4/2012 12:37:56 PM.

Re: If you sold your house...

Well, one thing that you should ask your real estate agent to do, if he isn't doing it already, is to try to get feedback from the agents who show the house about what they (and their buyers) thought of it.

It helps to know what people like and don't like, if they think the price is right for the area, if there are simple changes you can make to overcome some negatives people raise (e.g., simple staging techniques, things you are doing or not doing when buyers are there, etc.).

It's not always possible to get the feedback - some agents don't return calls or respond to emails - but I always try to seek feedback from everyone who shows my listings.

Re: If you sold your house...

I had my house on the market for a year and got NO offers. And our house is pretty nice. That was almost a year ago (we took it off the market) so I hope things go better for you

Re: If you sold your house...

Posted by CaseyGirl

I had my house on the market for a year and got NO offers. And our house is pretty nice. That was almost a year ago (we took it off the market) so I hope things go better for you

Message edited 10/4/2012 4:18:13 PM.

Re: If you sold your house...

2-3 months...

Re: If you sold your house...

How long did it take?

We listed right around our anniversary - so, about September 9th (just last month) and we had about seven appointments lined up within the first 24-48 hours of listing it. Then, day three, we had (at about the same time) TWO offers of about 9 thousand off of asking. We listed on a Friday, all this happened by Monday - but the open house was scheduled that Saturday and Sunday so we told the offers we wanted to see the open house results first, we didn't want to settle on less than asking since we priced it to sell, right on the money... Cut to the open house, we had a TON of activity and bam, TWO full price offers - at the same time. We asked each couple to come back with their highest and best. We settled on three thousand over asking price without any engineers report and a quick close of about 30 or so days. It could not have worked out better, we are blessed.

-What did you do to sell it? Realtor, anything else? MLS and a Realtor, yes, this is key - since I have my real estate salesperson license I listed the home myself but every single person we got, we got from MLS and you can't do that without an agency - so, I would go with someone you trust, someone who will PRICE and market your home correctly. To me, when I sell homes, everything is in pricing it correctly - it is a fifty/fifty market right now, even though the economy is tough, fifty percent of the homes go and about fifty, give or take, sit -- and the difference? IMO, it's price. If you price something right it will go - some people say they want a certain number so they price it above that, hoping to settle on that, when - in my experience, you are better off pricing it aggressively and then you have faster results, better offers, and more serious buyers. That's what happened with us and when I listed another home in our community a few months back, same result.

Anything creative like posting it somewhere? Sending a flyer on a listserv? Posting a flyer somehwere? Nope, just good ol' MLS - I think it depends on the home and the area.

-Any helpful hints, thanks! Yes, clean the house like to the point of obsession - I'm already a very neat person but I cleaned our home so spotless that people actually asked me if we were LIVING there at the time! LOL I said, yes of course! I also got rid of a lot of things - like personal stuff. I minimized it to just a few pictures here and there and they were mostly of like, our nephew or our dogs - nothing with us in it. I took a lot of decorative pieces and boxed them up - we would have had to do this anyway during the move, so I just organized and got rid of clutter -- minimized EVERYTHING. I lit a couple of "cookie" smelling candles for the open house - I'm old school, I like how this works.

We are already in contract - had the accepted offer with the home being on the market for just about one week, went to contract that following week. Closing date should be end of this month or mid November. This is our first home, so it is bittersweet - we love it, but we want a detached home (this is a townhome) and we want a ranch or a cape in St. James - that's our target area (we are in Smithtown now) so, same schools but we just like the community of St. James for having kids... on to the next chapter!

Pics in my album but they're not all there -- this will give you a better idea:

http://www.elliman.com/long-island/23-paddington-circle-smithtown-kpkrfoq

That's the listing from my agent website - and if you click on the picture of the front of the house, it will scroll through all the pics.

Best of luck!!!

Message edited 10/5/2012 2:19:02 PM.

Re: If you sold your house...

Thank you so much!

If anyone has free time (haha) and wants to critique my listing/pictures, please let me know and I'll FM it to you. TIA!

Re: If you sold your house...

We listed in mid- Sept and have yet to even show it yet We are probably going to cut the price after this weekend to see if we get any activity, but if we can't get what we want we won't sell. We are using a realtor, he had an ad in the local paper last week for us, we are on zillow and trulia. We can not have a sign out front so that makes it a little more difficult. It's definitely frustrating! Good luck to you!!

If you sold your house...

We listed in April, had an offer by April (it fell through), another by end of May and another a few days later for full asking. We sold in August.

Re: If you sold your house...

We got 3 offers within one month max.

Re: If you sold your house...

Re: If you sold your house...

Bottom line is, it needs to be priced right to sell. IF you are in a hurry to sell.

Our agent, told us NOT to aggresively look until we were in contract with our home. We can't afford to carry two mortgages.

Re: If you sold your house...

Re: If you sold your house...

If you sold your house...

Our neighbors had their house on the market about 2 months before finding a buyer. But they weren't up to date with their COs, and that's holding up their sale. They were supposed to close in August, but they are still there.

Check on your COs now if you aren't sure that things are up to date. You can request a copy of your buildings dept. file. Common issues are lack of COs or permits for heating and cooling, finished basement and the lack of egress windows, driveway expansions, patios or decks, fences, home expansions. If you bought a few years ago and nothing popped up, don't assume this is the case now. So many people I know who have sold had issues that delayed their closings.

And yes, pricing well helps. That's why my neighbors sold quickly.

Re: If you sold your house...

We sold our house in 2010 in 44 days (buyers from open house). My real estate agent had it own craigslist, etc.
I think the main reason it sold (besides the whole house was renovated) is we put $6000 towards the buyers closing cost. We had a price we would not go any lower than with concession.

Just another thing I thought I might point out is that when we wanted to look at other houses to buy the real estate agents were very lazy and did not want to show them. I know this for a fact because with one call the agent was on speaker and she did not want to get out of bed at 12 noon to open the house up.

Re: If you sold your house...

^Ugh, how annoying (re: the realtor)


I asked my realtor about posting in on Craigslist but he recommended we don't
He said we'll get random people then knocking at the door etc I wanted to post it but am following his advice...I hope he is right

Re: If you sold your house...

Posted by brownie

^Ugh, how annoying (re: the realtor)


I asked my realtor about posting in on Craigslist but he recommended we don't
He said we'll get random people then knocking at the door etc I wanted to post it but am following his advice...I hope he is right

Re: If you sold your house...

^Thanks Christine