The past week or so has been filled with looking at listings that have uhmmm "matured" in the "Days on Market" category. The buyers I'm working with are interested in houses with character and 
personality and while there is something to be said for brand new and probably worry free houses, they often do lack in individuality...especially in the $200,000 or less price range. We've seen some incredible houses...some are incredibily cool, some are incredibly awful and some are just pure head scratchers. Many of them however have shared a common and unfortunate tag line in the very old (275 to 1100 days on market) write ups..."Won't Last Long".
Ouch.
This is proof that once the seller signs the Listing Agreement with an agent, they never glance at their listings after maybe one time. Lots of them never do that either. Personally, I can't think of any house that I would use "Won't Last Long" on. We've certainly sold our share of houses that didn't last long on the market but using language like "Won't Last Long" looks very silly IMO at any time but really looks bad for the house and the agent when the prediction didn't come true.
Here's the weird thing though, some of these houses have had price changes, gone under contract, come back from pending and even been renewed but still the agent exhibited unshakeable faith that their listing "Won't Last Long".
Sad, very sad but a positive for the savvy buyer. In our case, the buyer is looking to find the gem amongst these shopworn abodes and they are there. Some of the listings are just too unfortunate for even the most brilliant wordsmith to wax poetic on but some of the listings we've been looking at are really, really nice houses. The buyers stand a good chance of being the dominant in the negotiations because the seller has probably given up hope of ever selling so we'll go in with the upper hand. Of course, we could be shot down and quickly find out that it wasn't only the tired write up, bad photos or quirky house keeping the house on the market but the seller themselves...and that's okay. It isn't like there aren't other choices!
To make it easier on us Buyer Agents, wouldn't it be nice if MLS offered as a search criteria "Won't Last Long"?
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