Sandra:  Offering a bonus to the selling agent is a good idea, but having that bonus be only $500 is not very effective.  Add that to the buyer's incentive and offer $3,000 to pay buyer's closing costs.  How much is the house listed at ?  That gives me more information to help me make a better recommendation.  Also... I don't know how long you have until the listing expires, but you might want to extend it right now, rather than wait.  Perhaps a six month extension would be in order.   Take care...

The house is listed at $229,900. 

Hi Sandra,

Have you considered getting the sellers or yourself to hold a second mortgage and help the buyer get into the home for less out of their pocket?  There are many ways to go about it in structuring a deal like this that makes it attractive for a buyer and financially better for your client the seller and even for you as sometimes the selling price can go higher.  I don't know whats going on in your market or any of the guidelines around these investments in Texas but the advantages can be many.  If you search this site I'm sure you'd find stuff on seller financing deals.

It would not mean much to offer $500 to a buyer's agent. Honestly do not think agents search on homes to take their clients to based on the agent getting a few more bucks. But giving money to the buyer for closing costs or carpet upgrades or whatever it is the home needs is a good thing. But in this market, even if you offer incentives, the offers will still come in lower than the list price. So the easiest thing to do is simply lower the price of the home. The market will buy it when the price is low enough. Until the price is low enough there may be little you can do to make it happen, regardless of what you try. Our 2 cents.

Sandra:  One thing that always helps sell a home is to do something that will turn a non-buyer... someone who likes the home but for some reason is unable to buy... into a buyer.  One of the easiest way's to do that is to have the seller pay the buyer's closing costs instead of making an offer on the home... asking the seller to drop their price.

On this home, listed at $229,900... FHA closing costs for the buyer should be in the ballpark of about $7,300.  If your seller can pay that for the buyer, then all the buyer would need to do is come up with a 3% down payment.  That would make it much easier for more buyers to be able to get their loan approved.

We never understood why agents do that. It's the clients that decide which home to look at not us. The motivation to show the home is if it fits our clients criteria not if there is a bonus for us.

In the comments portion of your MLS listing (that the clients read) if it said $xxx in closing costs paid by seller, that might get the clients interested. How about not dropping the price yet, trying a closing incentive for 2 weeks and see what happens. Then if you don't get the activity drop the price.

A really good question to ask all of the agents that have taken clients into the home. What would it take for your clients ot put an offer on this home? By asking this question you can root out the objection so that you can overcome it.