What do home buyers want?

Where are you seeing clutter.I hardly see anything on the walls and the rooms look nice and big.Other than books on the bookshelf which is what usually goes there I dont see anything.

kitchen and bathroom are to small...
although, everything else about the house seems nice...

I would not buy the house because of the small kitchen and bathroom, especially looks like a expensive task to expand...

lots of homes that have been lived in and upgraded by the homeowner, looking to sell their home, just so they can buy a nicer and newer home...

the buyers in the market are looking for the samething..NEW..not looking to buy an older home...

and I agree even though I posted a similar response. I'm wondering if it's the price.....you think it may be over what the current market will support?

I beg the kitchen is too small.....but bigger bathrooms ? You got to pay more for that. This home has been updgraded. so if people want to buy a NEW home, why the hell are they wasting my time and their agent's time, looking at a 35 year old home??????????

not supposed to be. My agent says it's priced right. My daughter who has been an agent, says don't lower the price any more.

I personally think it is a very nice home. Someone mentioned that some people can't see past someone else's work and that may be true. Our previous home owners had burnt orange walls in the livingroom and it was hard to look past that until we picked out what color we wanted.

I think you just haven't had the right person walk through the door yet. Someone will come along and like the home.

Saint Joseph is the patron Saint of real estate. If you bury a little statue of Saint Joseph on the property and say the prayer for his help, the property will sell in 3 days. Look it up. Works every time!

I have never tried it but have read countless stories about it.Just make sure you bury him facing the right direction.Easy to find info doing a search.

errr, thanks for your good intentions, but no thanks

The house looks fine, no clutter, everything is neat, clean and orderly. The pictures look fine to me, nothing wrong with your home. It's a very nice home.

I don't see anything else that you could do there. It's not the house, it's the market.

You're going to have to sit down and figure out a game plan. Do you have to move right now? If you absolutely have to move, you might consider dropping the price again or come up with creative financing options to bring in a new group of buyers. Offer some cash back at closing or something like that.

If you don't have to move, then just maybe consider staying and either take it off the market or wait for the right buyer.

Also, ask your realtor to show you the actual MLS listing and check out the pictures in the listing, how it's worded is very important. Does it say "Motivated seller" or "bring offers" or something like that to let people know that you're serious? Ask to see the MLS listing and review it. Don't be shy about telling her to change something in the listing because she is working for YOU. Not the other way around. Make sure the MLS pictures look good too, some realtors can't take good pictures. Make sure everything in the listing is accurate including square footage and all details.

Most of the time these days 90% of home shopping is done online first, then they narrow it down to a few to look at in person, so that MLS listing is VERY IMPORTANT! Realtors will email that listing to clients and they will look at that first and decide if they want to come see it or not.

If you keep it on the market, stop asking for feedback from your realtor. It's like asking to be abused and insulted and it will leave you feeling frustrated, angry and confused. No more feedback. Tell your realtor to just let you know if you get an offer and leave it at that.

Just know that God has everything under control if you continue to pray about it. His plan might not be the same as your plan.

Lisa, you raise some good points. Yes, my realtor has shown me the actual MLS listing, he has done everything i think that he can do, to market it. Maybe some more signs, more open houses. We have had one. but like you say, most people shop on line first, then come to view. So he is not a big proponent of open houses.

Having said that, if people look online first, then that is why I am amazed at some of the feedback we get. One was about the water gardens:

"Client was not impressed with water gardens. They are a young professional couple and do not have time for such things"

Hah!! Well, we are an OLD professional couple who have raised 4 kids here and we did just fine with it, hahahah!

Actually, we don't HAVE to move right now, we just really want to. Our kids are raised, just one left at home and she is a senior. We want to get away from suburbia and out to the country where we can have our horses in our back yard, instead of boarding them.

I also want to get moved out to the country before tshf.......

Yea, I can understand that for sure.

Do you owe anything on the house? If not, you might consider renting it out or lease/purchase option or owner financing.

It's just so difficult these days to sell a home. The people that have trouble getting a mortgage will be less critical of your home because they can't afford to be.

The qualified buyers are going to beat you into the ground. You just have to figure out how much of a beating are you willing to take in order to gain a new life somewhere else. Sometimes it's worth it.

But, that's for you guys to figure out. Do alot of praying about it.

Always heard, Paint the front door yellow..
Do you have any picture you could share?

pictures are above, maybe page 4?

It's not the paint, it's the market. She already posted pics.

Nothing wrong with the house, everything wrong with the market for sellers right now, and it's not going to get better anytime soon. I think it's going to continue to spiral downwards.

Better to get what you can get now and run. Just my opinion.

I see you do. Have you asked your agent about 'staging' your house? seems a little sterile.. for lack of a better word.. first impressions are lasting the ones. Landscaping is nice but a buyer can't see the house, from the curb..

Last Edited by ceawaves on 10/01/2012 10:14 AM

Thanks Lisa.....yes, it is all in the Most High's hands, for sure. We will be where He will have us.

We've talked about renting it out, but we decided we definitely don't want to do that. One, we need the equity out of this house, and two, don't want to deal with renters , I have heard some real horror stories.

I know...but that's what they claim, paint the front door yellow, and i don't even like yellow.. just passing on some things i've read an heard..

Well, then there isn't much else you can do at this point. Drop the price back as much as you can and just pray.

But keep in mind..........this time next year it might be worth alot less then it is now. Drop the price as much as you can now and try to bring in a buyer.

It hurts, but if things keep going downhill, it will be worse next year.

It's awful, I know. I hope it works out for you.

made an offer on a nice old brick home last year , about 5 k less than asking price. got laughed at.
fast forward a few weeks and price was dropped 10 k , so sent my prasier guy to take a look see, posing as a potential buyer.

the boomertards went on vacation . they had not left the faucets dripping during a brutal coldsnap and the repair costs were 20 k + due to water damage every where. Maybe even more due to dealing with historical society bullshit .
got the joy of telling them no thanks , laughed at them till they hung up.

Sold my house last year and needed to sell it in 2 months. It sold in time but I did quite a few things to get it sold. The paint in the house had rooms with different colors so repainted the whole interior a nice neutral color, I think it was called wheat and then accented all the trim and doors with an alabaster white. Also had the outside re-painted and recarpeted some of the flooring that did not look good. Reroofed the house with 30 year shingles because it needed a new roof.

Then I worked on staging the house by clearing out all the clutter and rearranged the furniture where three large bookcases several over sized chair were taken out of the house to open up the areas and help it appear larger. It would be helpful if you could go look at some model homes that builders have staged in your area and see how they presented the furniture and deco in the house. Besure to take down any personal pictures and anything personal that would have no meaning to strangers keeping decorations simple. After painting the house didn't put my pictures back up but if you have a wall full of pictures you might want to settle for a few and open up the wall more. I then set my table emaculantly as if the family was about to have christmas dinner (was selling in Nov. & Dec. at the time). If around a holiday decorated for the season in an appealing way not guady but very tastefully. Also bought all new bathroom sets for the bathrooms keeping the bathrooms clean but added an appealing plant for a nice corner on the vanity. House was emaculantly clean (especially the kitchen sink area), everything, all blinds were wiped down, fans were wiped down, light fixtures were all cleaned and replaced burn out lights, all windows were cleaned inside and out. When someone comes to look at your house open up all the windows and turn on all the lights. Keep the lawn mowed, weed the beds and keep the concrete swept. A place a really nice plant in an appealing pot right by my front door. Replace or fix anything that visually appears broke or worn out.

Even though my house did sell I did not get the amount of money that the house was worth. Since I needed to sell in a short amount of time I sold it for 10,000 less than it's market value. Did actually make money on the deal though since I had been in the house for 15 years.

It is real important who your real estate agent is because they are all not alike. If yours is not getting your house sold get a new one and ask around to find someone who will work hard to sell your house. This is really important.

Best of luck on selling your house.

I feel for you, I really do.......I am a lifelong renter but can still imagine how frustrating it must be for you.

Seems to me that today we have a lot of young people who want it THEIR way or else...

They have no foresight as to how, for example, it would take just a coat of paint to make that blue bedroom white or whatever color they wanted......and you, even offering to lower the price to allow them the money to do that!!

IN-frickin'-credible!!

I am certainly no expert on real estate, so aside from staging, as one poster on here suggested, I have no other ideas!

Maybe you could go thru your home with other family members, friends, etc., and see what they think could be taken away, etc. to make your home more 'commercial' to these goofy buyers today!!!

other than that, good luck.

just get a lot of other people's opinions on ways you can stage and re-stage it!!

Staging isn't going to help her because her house already looks nice. I don't see how you can improve on something that already is good and clean. Nothing wrong with the house.

The problem is the buyers...........and the market. It's just a terrible time to sell a house. Price is the bottom line here. People won't buy it unless they can steal it. Unfortunately.......that's the story nowadays. It just sucks. The foreclosures have ruined the market completely.

Banks should be real proud of themselves, they have ruined many lives.

you know something else? we also are looking....we also are going to places we are interested in. The difference between us and those who have been coming to tour our house, is that one, we have thoroughly checked the place out first and are certain we are interested in it....

and 2, we have never, EVER left the type of feed back we have recieved. And visiting places int he country, we have seen some doozies. If the place didn't work out after all for us, plain and simple - won't work. None of the

"the hit and miss updates only reveal how much MORE work needs to be done"

bs.

We had one house down from us on our street up for sale at the same time. They just finally took theirs off the market for the winter.

A couple of their comments were:

Not interested in a tri-level. --- really? Then why did you bother coming to look at it!!

and 2, this one's really good......... i was expecting a different neighborhood for the ___________ school district.

Um........ this isn't the ____________ school district.

oy vey.

just wanted to add, there is NOTHING wrong with our school district. We have one of the highest rated school districts in the state. Higher than the one the commenter in this post was referring to......

Last Edited by If You Only Knew on 10/01/2012 11:32 AM

I do appreciate everybody's input, and for letting me vent and rant!!!



I think my agent is getting tired of holding my hand......

An option is if you cannot sell your house is to lease it out.

Very true!

As for the water gardens, they look great. But if I was looking to buy and seen all that, I would think I bet the mosquitoes are terrible here!!

This type of comment is just to blow the realtor off. I'm not sure if you have dealt with an overly aggressive realtor, but most of the feedback is bullshit. Just a roundabout way of saying no we can't afford that or just didn't see ourselves in it.

And why you need every advantage when it comes to marketing a house.
No one's saying the house doesn't look nice..It's a very nice house, but she asking for advice on how to improve the curb appeal for any possible buyers..And staging most certainly does help,A lot, thought some other poster who sold their house was right on the money, what they did to improve their selling odds.. Only thing i would have added would be to light some scented cookie candles when there's an open house..

Last Edited by ceawaves on 10/01/2012 11:50 AM

I would create five or six different videos and key word them with titles of home for sale according to your area. Upload them to youtube and start promoting the link through social sites like facebook, linkedin, etc.