Perhaps you aren't experiencing the increased traffic flow that some posters are seeing,but if priced "right", you should see more then 1 showing in a month.My opinion is, it will get worse in the spring as other homes come in and back on the market..Supply simply outstrips demand right now..Best of luck to you..

I'm sympathetic to anyone trying to sell in the Detroit area. Through no fault of your own, you are in a really rough situation. However, your post shows signs of magical thinking. If there are 50 homes nearby at your price, you have to ask yourself, "What is it about my house that would make a buyer choose it over the other 50?" If you cannot come up with a convincing answer, you will not sell your house at its current price. The amount you "need" to make has nothing to do with it; it's market reality.

Your choices are to find an answer to the above question and use it to market your house, to lower your price, or to resign yourself to staying put indefinitely. Sadly, given the deteriorating conditions at Ford and GM, the Detroit market will probably worsen rather than improve.

My brother in law recently sold his house in the Detroit area. A very rough market. His house sat on the market for over a year and finally sold when he had reduced the price to well below other homes on the market. He had lived in the home for almost 20 years so he could afford to keep dropping the price til he hit the magic number for buyers. When his house was priced like the competition, he had very few showings. Once he lowered his price significantly, he had 4 or 5 showings in one week and sold it over Christmas .

I'm surprised you're not having more showings. Does the listing say that it's near a commercial property? What kind of commercial property is it?

My first inclination is that your home is priced too high.

I also think your realtor is a dud and you should fire him and get a new one.

Sorry to hear of your tough situation. I remember when you wrote about the businesses behind you. I guess my response would be the same as the others - you will probably have to lower the price, especially with that much competition around you. And it is a competition - you are competing with the other sellers so you have to do something extra to win.

In November in SoCal we sold our house at well below what others were listing theirs, but in line with the few sold comps we could find. I'm sure our sale price ticked off all the other sellers in the area but we were moving out of state and had to sell. So we bit the bullet, dropped the price and got out of there. Made a good profit but it still stung.

As far as your realtor ... I think I drove ours nuts. I expected a call at least twice a week, more if we had showings. I couldn't afford to wait longer than that. We had to leave, so if we needed to make adjustments to the house I had to know quickly. Our realtor (who had sold us the house 4 yrs earlier) said he would call us once a week with an update and I said that wasn't enough. He was going to make a good commission off this and I expected more feedback, even if he didn't have much to offer. How long does it take to write an email saying, "I had a couple of nibbles, just hang tight" or "Nothing going on right now, I'll keep in touch." Being a seller in a rough market is nerve-wracking and I was also ill and alone (DH had moved ahead of me) and needed the hand-holding. When he understood that then he became much more communicative.

I think you should be very upfront with your realtor as to what you expect from him. And call him if he won't call you! Every time I came home and found a realtor's card on the counter I sent an email to my realtor with the card's info on it, so he could follow up.

Good luck ... have some more Drambuie ...

My first thought was what kind of agent do you have? Some one who is busting his butt getting peeps in to see your place or is he waiting for a buyer to walk in to his place and tell him that your place is what he/she wants?
Did he have a realtors open house so other agents in the area know that your house is available and what it looks like?
Your agent is your first connection to the buyer pool. If he's not working for you find one that will or your home will still be up for sale despite having a lower price.

Fire your realtor and get a new one. His telling you a priori that he is "not one to call every week" is ridiculous. That, to me, says that he already knew that he would not be 'needing' to call you to discuss potential buyers, and he wanted to be able to focus elsewhere but still keep your listing. That is not too admirable of an attitude.

If you've had that few showings (Detroit or not) and he can't even call and give you feedback/advice, then he's a loser and he's not interested in working for you. Get someone who is actually going to work for you.

I think kaleberg said it very well. You are in a dismal real estate market at the moment, plus you have the added problem of location (with the commercial property near you). At least you know that when you DO show, you have a potential buyer who has looked past that as an issue (or they would not bother looking inside your house). If you need to sell, then you need to look at what you need to do to sell (lower the price? update the house? all of the above?) I feel for you - it is a tough position to be in.

Sometimes it's really hard to come to the realization that your home is not on an level playing field with others in your location and price range. Our neighbors from "you know where" were our "dreaded ID" and it was HARD to face the fact that no matter how nice our house was, it was going to sell at a lower price than other comparable homes because of something we had little (or no) control over.

That said, to get your home sold, it is going to have to stand out. It is going to have to be not only good but BETTER than most (if not all) of your competition. What will do that for you? Condition? Price? Seller concessions?

I am with the other posters in thinking that you need a new Realtor. Unfortunately, that is sometimes easier said than done (see my old posts on this subject). Maybe you can have a heart to heart with your current Realtor and tell him that you need concrete answers as to how you and he can work together to get your home sold. Because you need someone who COMPLETELY understands your local market and knows what it will take to get your home sold as soon as possible.

Oh, and one call a week is for the birds--I talk to my Realtor DAILY.

Good Luck!!

Where in MI are you? We sold in Brighton, closed Dec. 1. We were VERY happy with our realtor. If you're anywher near Brighton, I'll give you name of ours. BTW, you CAN fire your realtor if unhappy with him/her.
Good luck, Kathy G in MI, (retired up north and loving it)

kathyg_in_mi wrote: BTW, you CAN fire your realtor if unhappy with him/her

Maybe it's different in MI, but in VA, if you sign an exclusive right to sell agreement (a legally binding contract) it's a lot more complicated than that. Seller "unhappiness" is not an escape clause in that contract. And even if the agent agrees to withdraw the listing, his/her broker has to agree and that's where there may be a problem.

Everyone is always so cavalier about this but it's just not that easy.

(And yes, when we were in this situation I spoke to my attorney who told us we could sue to have the listing agreement declared null and void and we would probably prevail but there was a six month wait just to get on the court docket and the listing would expire before then anyway.)

Funny how people generally like to live closer to commercial properties like retail and restuarants and actually pay more to do so yet when it's right next door then that's no good. That's too close.

"He did tell us that he is not one to call every week, but 1 call in 3 1/2 weeks?"
That's what your agent told you, and you are surprised? Communication goes both ways and if you expect more of it, pick up the phone.

Thanks for all the input.
The house doesn't need upgrading as its 4 1/2 years old. We are aware that, in this situation, price is the only facter to get someone to make the decision to buy....basically we have to lower it enough so a buyer sees that its too good to pass up.
Kathy G : Thanks for the offer...but we do have a written contract, unlikely to be broken. We are also significantly east of you.

Berniek: "Communication goes both ways and if you expect more of it, pick up the phone."

Hmmmmm, yes I intend to pick up the phone! But it seems to me, as he is supposed to be the professional in this field and should know what the current local market is doing, that it would be good business to inform the owners what, if any, interest their house is receiving and if the price seems to be THE FACTOR in the lack of showings, or if it is just the local market conditions at play.

I beg your pardon, I hadn't realized that realtors don't initiate contact with the home owners who HIRED them to sell their houses once signatures were on the dotted line. ;p

"I beg your pardon, I hadn't realized that realtors don't initiate contact with the home owners who HIRED them to sell their houses once signatures were on the dotted line. ;p"
If there is any a concern or question on my sellerÂs part, I'd appreciate the courtesy of a phone call and not read it on the garden web first.