Last summer, my two sisters hired a real estate agent to sell our father's house. The agent had a 6 month contract, showed the house something like 60 times, she says, and now her contract is expiring, tomorrow. Over the weekend, she sent us an extension for another 6 months, with no comment or request, just a contract.

I know the market is soft, and the house is a little unusual-- a rural farmhouse--but I think if she hasn't been able to sell it in 6 months, we should give another agent a chance to sell it. Any thoughts? The house is rustic, but the property is beautiful with an ocean view and apple orchard. I never dreamed that it wouldn't sell quickly. In the town I live in, a similar house would sell in a week; not a year.

One of my sisters doesn't like our current agent and for sure wants to switch or even go with a discount broker. The other sister (with whom I have issues) is insisting we stay with the agent we have "because she's worked so hard." She did help us sort out a title problem--although only with some major nagging on our part and us doing half the work. But I've been disappointed that we got only one offer in 6 months. She set the asking price very high, to get one my sisters to sign with her. Then brought us just one offer that was 150K lower than that. The other agent had evaluated the house himself at 150K over that when he was trying to get the listing. In any case, whatever I say now, one sister or the other will be mad at me. I am the default swing vote and just want to hide under the bed.

Does it matter that this agent has worked hard and knows the property? Should we reward her for taking so long but putting up with things like broken plumbing and gas leaks? She wants 5% by the way and I had to push hard to get her down from 6%.

She also claims to have a buyer in the wings, but that he needs more time to put together an offer---which would be half cash and half seller financed. We agree to this in principle. But this guy first saw the house in mid January and still no offer. He says his wife is sick. I am wondering if he exists. I thought if our agent wanted the listing she would have got an offer from him by now. He is also a real estate agent. Is he maybe waiting for her contract to expire (tomorrow) so he can come to us directly? How should I react to this situation?
Thanks!
Just Asking

I would go with a nonexclusive listing

1. In today's market I would be surprised if a house sold within 6 months unless it is priced somewhere around 20 to 30 percent under appraised value in general. Has any of them done comparison of other properties that have sold. He could be, if so, I would not want to deal with him at all, since this shows very low morals on his part.

I would say if this person has worked hard, they should get another extension.

If you really can't decide to stay with this realtor or try a new one, and you really want to keep the peace with your sisters, why not try a compromise? Tell your sisters to offer the realtor a 3 month extension. If she really has a buyer then 3 months will be enough time for them to make an offer and sign a contract. If the buyer is not a real buyer then you're stuck with this realtor for only 3 months rather than 6.

And I strongly recommend that you speak with a real estate attorney before you agree to do any seller financing.

Thanks, all! A non exclusive listing is not something I had thought of or really even heard of before. I will run that by the sisters. I think I will propose a 30 day extension for the realtor to come up with the mystery buyer (who is himself supposedly a realtor and shouldn't find making an offer that challenging if he's serious).

Then after that she can have a non exclusive listing possibly. And I guess I'll just ask our realtor if she thinks he's trying to wait her out. Our agent listed the house at 20% over its appraised value (not my idea!), so I wasn't surprised that it didn't sell at the listed price , but I thought we'd get some offers at the appraised value. Or at least somewhat under it. If it's so popular to look at, you'd think someone would make an offer. Or maybe they just like to have picnics at the house.

Thanks again!
Asking

Just one comment and I am sure it varies by state and company. The person we purchased our house from had had it listed with a realtor for six months, then decided to sell it himself. His contract with the realtor specified that he couldn't sell the house for 90 days (or he had to pay the orig commission to the realtor). We had looked at the house through the realtor right at the time he discharged them so he couldn't sell to us for 180 days. This was a natiowide realtor. This was for his--for sale by owner. I don't believe the clause applied to use of another realtor. Varies by state I'm certain.

I will note often over pricing the house will seriously hurt your sale, first people who are in that price range will not buy if it is not up to that standard, and in the US anyway, few houses ( unless you are in a few select markets) are not selling anywhere near their apprased value right now) *** actually appraised values are going down, but since they are based on sale of homes in same area, they are still effected by some sales from last year and so on. If you needed to sale the home its price should be set a price that would sale, with the idea that you would not bargin much on that price, And houses prices right, will get more traffic of people looking at it, those over priced don't even get viewed often.

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Originally Posted by Fr_Chuck

If you needed to sale the home its price should be set a price that would sale, with the idea that you would not bargin much on tht price, And houses prices right, will get more traffic of people looking at it, those over priced don't even get viewed often.

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Fr. Chuck, I completely agree. I tried to suggest to the realtor that she lower the list price, but she and my two sisters outvoted me. Since I'd made an offer on the house myself at the appraised value, everyone felt I had a conflict of interest--so I couldn't say much. (It's a good thing my sisters turned down my offer because I never could have afforded the loan that WaMu was begging me to take.) I guess I'm vindicated, since we got no offers at the higher price. I would not have minded being wrong! I also wish they'd set the price reasonably. Maybe if we pull it off the market and relist in a month at a more reasonable price we'll do better.

We gave the same realtor another 30 days and she still hasnt' sold it...
asking

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Originally Posted by asking

We gave the same realtor another 30 days and she still hasnt' sold it....
asking

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I'd say pull it off the market for 30 days, then list it (non-exclusive) with a different realtor trying all the while to convince your sister that overpricing in a down market is the same as deciding not to sell. If it really needs to sell, it really needs to be priced competitively.

Yes, I just closed on one of my last ones, it went for 70 percent of the appraised value and it was only one of four offers I got in 7 months and two of the other ones could not get the money.

Interesting. So you are a real estate agent?

We got only a single written offer in 7 months, although many "discussions," including about 3 in the last month, one supposedly for full price if we could carry. We said yes, but then no offer. I understand the market has been awful, but I think my sisters and I would have been happy to come down if the agent had proposed it. She didn't seem to want to, which seemed odd to me. She listed the house at 20% over two different appraisals--one done in 2005 and one in late 2006. I found the whole thing bizarre. What was she thinking? I'm begin rhetorical; I don't really expect anyone to know what was in her head...
asking

Well I am a "real estate agent" I do have a license but I have it for my own personal usage on the most part. But I guess she wanted to list high, and when someone made a "offer" it would still be closer to the actual price wanted. There are a few markets still selling high that the fall in market has not got to. My trouble is the properties I owned was in a town of 5000 that had the three major companies close over the last two years, Plus several smaller companies went out of buinessness
*** including my business, which is why I was selling off my properties.

My lower cost properties, actually all sold within 5 percent of asking price, ( guess I under priced them but I needed to move them) and they all sold within one month of listing.

But my main home, was to the top end of what anyone in that town could afford. After I closed my office, I started looking for a "good" job, everyone recommended Walmart as the best paying place in town??
I ended up with one that was paying about 12 dollars a hour plus they furnished healh insurance, no one in town that knew me, believed I could have gotten such a great paying job in our town. Sort of gives you the picture of a place trying to sell a brick three bedroom on a acre in a major subdivision.

I agree with ordinaryguy about pulling it off the market for 30 days. Listings get stagnant and potential buyers get tired of seeing the listing all the time. Perhaps it's time to get 3 new agents to come in and give you their suggested selling price and list somewhere in the middle. MLS is the way to go if you want more people to see the house. Many will browse listings on the internet before contacting an agent. Exclusive listings are harder to find online. It sounds to me like your agent didn't want to share the commission.

Wow! Fr. Chuck, I'm really sorry to hear that your business went under and you had to sell those houses. Glad you were able to get that job and I hope things are stabilized now.

Thanks, flossie! I am going to follow the advice of taking our house off the market for 30 days. We'll either rent it out or try again with a more experienced agent and a lower initial price in April.

This firsts agent has done lots of good things but she's been promising offers any day now for more than two months, and not a single one has materialized. I'm really disappointed.