listing

Is your yard fenced?

by John Rice

If your yard is fenced, do you know who owns it? Like 100% sure? If you are like most people with a fenced in yard, there was fencing on 3 side when you bought your house. Maybe you were told from the previous owner that all or part of it was your’s. But is it?

As a realtor, I advise my sellers NOT to make claim to a fence unless they are the ones who installed it or have some sort of documentation that they own it. I do not claim the fence as part of the property that conveys when listing a home. I simply state in the marketing remarks whether it is fenced or not. Absolutely zero claim of ownership, just that fencing exists.

WHY?

I bought my first house directly from a seller long before I became The LEXpert. I was a 20 something first time buyer who knew nothing. I was told by the seller, Will was his name, that the fencing belonged to him and would be mine with the sale of the home. I never thought about that statement from him again until I came home one day to find not only my dog missing but a large section of white picket fencing gone between my yard and the neighbor on the right. The owner of the home next door was a sweet little old lady who had lived there for 50+ years. When I asked why she removed my fence, she nicely told me that her deceased husband had put that fence up many years ago and she didn’t want it any more. (BTW, we soon found our little mutt named Edwina……which is not used anywhere as a password so no need for hackers to harvest this info.)

If I had any type of documentation that Will had told me the fencing was mine, I could have taken him to court to fill in the fencing void left when the rightful owner removed the fencing.

While I have never again had a similar issue in my 20 year career, I do not want my sellers to possibly be on the hook for buying the next owner a fence. Often being a good realtor is as much about what you prevent from happening as it is about what you make happen.

What to look for in your next Realtor

by John Rice

I had a friend contact me on Facebook about the possibility of finding a new agent to sell their house that is outside of my market. They were not asking me about listing it for them, just advice on what to do. Seems they have had a lot of showings, and obviously no offers yet. I though this would make a good blog post.  

“Sorry to take so long to get back to you. This isn’t an easy one to answer so I wanted to have time to give a thorough response.

I’ve got a few questions.

Question 1: Is your current agent presenting it well online? Go online and take a look at the listing. If the pictures and marketing remarks wouldn’t make you want to see it, odds are everybody else feels the same way. While you are there, double check that everything is accurate.

Question 2: Is it priced realistically? If you have had that many showings, it may be priced high. I don’t know the market where you live, but to have that many buyers look and not make an offer could mean that the price is too high or………Question #3!

Question 3: Is the feedback you are getting from showings that there is some fatal negative that buyers just can’t look past? If you keep hearing the same thing over and over again, you might have a big negative. Most big negatives can only be conquered with a price reduction.

So, if you do part ways with this agent, here is what I would look for next. Ideally, an agent that works with at least as many buyers as they do sellers. Most agents prefer to list. Agents that mostly only list houses don’t see as many houses. An agent that works with a lot of buyers has probably been in a lot of the houses that you will be competing against. That agent will be better able to tell you what your house offers to buyers that are out there right now! I’d also look for somebody that deals mostly in your price range. It always kills me when I see an affordable house listed by agents that deal almost exclusively in high end houses. What does an agent really know about a $250k house and $250k buyers when 98% of their work is over a million?

I’d also look for somebody that has a plan. Don’t go for the agent that spits out their average days on market unless they can specifically tell you what they did to acheive it. You want somebody that will do a market analysis and will show you how they came up with what they think your house is worth, even if you don’t like the number. Some agents will list a house for whatever price it takes to get the listing. Then they start hitting you up for price reductions. I kind of think it is better to deal with reality now, since you’ll have to at some point down the road.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions…..I may turn this into a blog post. (No names of people, places, things though.)”

Reading the tea leaves when your house isn’t selling

by John Rice

House not selling? Wondering how to interpret what is going on? Here are a few of my thoughts on some common situations. The following assumes your house is being presented well online with plenty of good pictures and marketing remarks that describe it with more than trendy generic AI generated verbiage.

The house that gets lots of showings but no offers

Assuming that you don’t have some negative that wasn’t obvious like backing to a highway, apartments, or having an Eiffel Tower looking electrical thing in your yard, this situation simply means that the house doesn’t live up to what buyers expected. The good news with this one is that buyers think the price for what they thought the house would be is okay or else they wouldn’t come at all. The solution here is to either lower the price or improve the house so that it meets the expectations buyers have. Whichever is easiest.

I once had a condo that got tons of showings. I kept encouraging the seller to paint. Once we did, it sold. I recently had another listing that was getting tons of showings. It was a nice place, but just felt like a 15 year old house that needed a fresh vibe. The seller did some painting and replaced the flooring in all the bathrooms. As soon as it was done, it sold. Both of these places looked great online, and just needed to match what buyers thought they were getting. Both were improved for far less than the price reduction we would have needed, so both sellers actually came out better by going that route.

The house that gets no showings

This one is easy, but hard for sellers to accept. The price is too high. If a house is presented well on the MLS, and still nobody comes to see it, all you can do is lower the price. Real estate is all about price, location, and condition. You can’t change the location, but the other two you have some control over.

Also something to think about is this: If you have a $400k house and you’re asking $475k for it, buyers are comparing it to other houses that are really worth the asking price. The buyers who are going to spend what your house is really worth aren’t even going to see it since the list price is over their budget.

The house that gets the same bad feedback over and over

This is the least fun thing that can happen to a seller. I mean, they get kicked out of their house for showing after showing with no offers AND get to hear what people hate about their house.

Several years ago I had this really cool older house that had been mostly remodeled. It had the smallest living room I have ever seen……must have been the smallest anybody had ever seen since that is all I kept hearing after the showings. I’d ask for feedback and the buyer’s realtor would go on and on about how beautiful the place was, how unexpected it was to have walk-in closets in such an old house….then they would say their client wasn’t going to buy it since the living room was so small.

We tried putting in smaller scale furniture, but that didn’t help. After that, all we could do was drop the price. A price reduction opens the house up to a larger pool of buyers as well as enticing them to overlook a shortcoming if they are getting a better deal. We got that one sold too.

If you have a situation that doesn’t fit into these scenarios, give me a shout and I’ll let you know what to do.