Although we as Realtors are doing all we can to get our seller's homes sold in this economic client, I've noticed an interesting trend with sellers lately.
I've spent the last 4 weeks with 3 different buyers in different sections of the Raleigh Cary Apex area. What I'm seeing with sellers is amazing me. Things weren't this bad even in the old days of a few years ago when it was a seller's market.
I'm talking about not being able to show homes that are listed for sale!
When I talk to my potential sellers, I always explain to them what they, as seller's are responsible for and are expected to do in order to sell the home.
1. Condition of the house- keep it clean, keep up the staging.
2. Price- follow my advice and the comps I send you to keep the home priced right.
3. Convenience- for the Buyers to see, NOT for you to show!
You would think that #3 would be the easiest thing for the seller to handle. When a buyer's agent calls to view a house- LEAVE!
Generally, if I'm showing houses on a Saturday, I will try to make appointments by Thursday or Friday.
This week was no exception. I had a list of 9 homes to show a client on Saturday. One house went under contract between the time I looked at it on the MLS to the time I printed it out.- Okay, good for them. Now we're down to 8 homes.
5 of the remaining 8 homes were "appointment only". I had to wait on hold while Centralized Showing Services confirmed the appointment (wasting all my cell phone minutes). Of those 5, 2 wanted me to schedule my appointment for later in the day. Apparently 11:00 am on a Saturday was too early for them! One seller suggested we come sometime after 3pm, as she had a meeting going on in her house that day. Well, by that time I would be long done showing homes! And really, if your house is on the market, don't schedule a Saturday morning meeting of your club there.
Last weekend- same type of thing. Only one house was perfectly accommodating. That house happened to be the home that was immaculate & staged beautifully. And priced right. Guess what? It's still on the list of possibles.
We arrived approximately 3-5 minutes early at another home. The seller was rude and made us wait outside while he finished vacuuming. (The house needed a lot more than vacuuming!) One other homeowner declined showings for any time on that Saturday.
The weekend before last- different buyers, different area. These buyers were slower lookers, so we ran a few minutes late. Got to our last house 20 minutes late. I rang the bell, apologized to the seller for being late, and asked if we could still see the house. He checked with his wife and after 10 minutes the family came out. The wife was obviously furious! She walked right past us and refused to look at us or acknowledge my apology. The house was gorgeous, but we decided we could never negotiate a deal with that seller!
As Realtors we know that selling your house can be a nuisance and to some extent an invasion of your privacy. BUT, you knew this when you signed the listing agreement (or should have anyway). You've surely heard that it's a Buyer's market out there.
As a buyer's agent, I spend a lot of time and work very hard picking out homes for my buyers to see, then mapping them out and arranging appointments. When sellers ask me to come back hours later, I just can't rearrange my whole schedule to accommodate one seller. So that home is off the list. There are a lot of other homes available for us to see.
The moral of the story is:
If you want to sell your house, you have to let the buyers see it!
Please make it easy for me to show my buyer's your home. I want to sell it for you!
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