We had about 10-15 showings of our home before getting an offer and were able to get feedback from nearly all of the buyers agents. I think the key was that our listing broker contacted the buyers' agents by phone soon after the showing (like within a few hours) and worst case they were contacted by the end of the night. When you have someone on the phone it's hard to skirt the issue, even if the feedback is not all that substantive the buyer's broker would at least be able to say "I don't think they're going to make an offer, they commented about the location" or somesuch.

I think feedback probably varies a lot from area to area and is also somewhat based on the local politics in the realtor community. If, for example, your realtor or their office hasn't been all that helpful in the past with other agents listings, perhaps other agents wouldn't be that helpful on your house. That's something that would be hard for you to know as a seller though.

Buyer feedback is not always worth its weight in gold.

There are as many reasons for liking or disliking a house as there are buyers. However, there are things that buyers will overlook if the important aspects are to their liking.

IMO, best bet is to heed the advice that you have been given here..especially about screening your messy neighbors yard from sight....and, adjusting your price in accordance with what your local market will bear.

Your home could be absolutely lovely unto itself,...but if the view is a mess, and it is not competitively priced, those two major issues will continue to be the focus of potential buyers...generally to the exclusion of all else.

I think your agent is full of beans! If she wants to get feedback, she will get it. Stop leaving messages, and emails. She needs to call and get them on the phone. I had a phone call yesterday from the homeowner of another agent. I had shown her home. She (the homeowner) was calling me for feedback. Her agent NEVER called or emailed me.I gave her the feedback.

Its time to reduce your price. Maybe the feedback is, the house is nice, its not for them. Thats it. How does that help you? 25 showings and no offers only means one thing. Your house isnt competing.

JJellis, I would suggest to your agent a stronger follow-up plan on feedback. If the agent is not collecting that information in a timely manner, then that speaks volumes (to me) of his level of professionalism. Why do YOU think that thus far you have not had any offers??

The feedback you're getting is loud and clear for anyone who will listen. You're overpriced for what you're bringing to the market.

Hey Hollysprings: Really?!?! Wow, you must be really good, knowing what my house is worth all the way from internetland...bravo!!

And I AM listening...but only if someone makes sense. Did you read the part about us having over 25 showings now...do you think we would get that kind of traffic coming through if we were overpriced??? Not to mention the fact that the PRICE and LOCATION of our home is clearly stated on the listing...not like we're suprising these people with the price. They know full and well what the price is before coming to see the house.

You know, I'm not one to usually get defensive...BUT, I've posted several threads on this site just to get the opinions of others about selling my house and until now I haven't said anything in return to the responses I've received. There have been several of you that have been VERY helpful with your advice. HOWEVER, there seem to be a group of people that just come on here and love to be rude and post rude comments and not even give any advice. Why?!?!

I don't understand why people do this, it must be nice to sit behind some fake screen name and say the things some of you say. I am a real person trying to sell my house and just looking for some advice...if you don't have any real advice, or some constructive critism, don't post a comment!! The comment from Hollysrings was not the only one of it's kind, it just happened to be last straw for me.

And by the way, I'm not just talking about this thread, or any of my other threads. I'm talking about threads that other people have posted asking their own questions. It seems like I can't get past one thread without some "know it all" making a rude comment. For the most part, everyone on this site is helpful and gives good advice, but there just seems to be the ones that come on here to be rude and unhelpful. I don't know, maybe it makes them feel better about themselves...how SAD

My Mother's house is on the market. One thing I have to say about our realter that impressed me was his "quickie" request for feedback that he has setup on his blackberry. Each time our house get shown a multiple choice questionnaire get emailed to the showing agent:
1.How was the curb appeal of this home?
Excellent
Good
Fair
Poor
2. What was the appearance of the interior of the home?
Clean and well-kept
Average
Improvement Needed
3. Are there any features of the home that need improvement or updating?
No Improvements
Exterior
Interior
Carpet
Appliances
4. How is this property priced in comparison to similar properties in the area?
About Right
Somewhat overpriced
Substantially overpriced
5. Is your buyer considering this property?
Yes
No
Not Sure
Takes two minutes for them to do it. The agent then emails it back and it goes automatically to the listing agent and homeowner's email. Works really well so at least you know SOMETHING. (We only had 1 agent refuse to fill it out)

I'm curious what has the feedback been that you did get? Also how is your Realtor soliciting it? Is it immediately after the showing or a day or so later. Some may not respond unless it is immediate because by then they've seen so many other houses with clients that they can't remember anything about yours.

Not all people tell their Realtor what they thought either other than saying not interested. Not all Realtors asks why. Some people feel bad saying negative things and may not say what the real reason was either.

Honestly I don't think hollysprings comment was rude. It was direct and straight to the point they wanted to make, but not rude. However it may not have been accurate and it that I agree with you.

We don't know your local market. What is the DOM in your area. Maybe you need to be a little more patient. How many showings are other houses getting? Maybe they have the same number as you?

One thing that it all tends to come down to is price and that is why it is mentioned. If you want to sell fast a lower price is needed unless you are in a hot market. If indeed the neighbors behind you is a reason people pass on your house then only a lower price will make them start thinking of it vs. moving on to another house since you don't have anything screening the view.

I know if I had to deal with what you described of what is behind you, I'd want the house to be much much nicer than what else I could get for the same price. OR I'd want it to be a really good deal to even consider it.

And I AM listening...but only if someone makes sense. Did you read the part about us having over 25 showings now...do you think we would get that kind of traffic coming through if we were overpriced???

Jjellis,you seem to be getting very defensive and people here are only trying to help. Unfortunately, yes, you could get that many showings even if the house is overpriced. Buyers don't always know its overpriced until they actually see the house. Typically buyers are looking in many different neighborhoods. Buyers generally dont know a house is overpriced by seeing the address and listing price, unless they are so familiar with your neighborhood and have been following what has been for sale and sold. The fact that you have had so much activity in this market, the fact that you have posted before and many of the people on that thread did the research for you and looked at the homes in the surrounding area could see that your price was high, that you were competing with new construction, that there are bigger, newer homes for the same money lets everyone know you are overpriced. You are looking for the buyers to say, the house is overpriced. Feedback will not be "the house is overpriced". Feedback will be, the kitchen is too small, (because they are seeing bigger for the same money), the neighborhood isnt what we're looking for, (because they are seeing better neighborhoods for the same money), the updates arent as nice (because they are seeing higher end updates for the same money), the house is nice, but... this is how you know your house is overpriced. They can't quite put their finger on what they arent liking, just that there are nicer homes out there for the same money. This is where you are at. This is blatently obvious with 25 showings and no offers.

Ask your realtor to do another CMA. Waiting until your activity drops off to reduce the price will only mean a lower price in the end. The longer a house sits on the market, the lower the offers come in.

Did you read the part about us having over 25 showings now...do you think we would get that kind of traffic coming through if we were overpriced??? Not to mention the fact that the PRICE and LOCATION of our home is clearly stated on the listing...not like we're suprising these people with the price. They know full and well what the price is before coming to see the house.

When I was house hunting, I toured houses that based on my knowledge before walking in were overpriced. Why? Because I wanted to see everything before making a decision. And because I could then watch the house and wait until they became desperate/reasonable. A couple houses were so overpriced that I didn't make lowball offers, so they had no idea that I would have bought the house for a lower price. I ended up buying a house for which time and desperation had brought the seller to today's reality.

If your agent is not calling the buyer's agent after every showing, then you need to be doing it. When you get the call for the showing, ask the name and agency of the showing agent and then call them an hour after the showing. Don't only ask them what the buyer thought, ask what they thought of the home and price.

It is wonderful that you've had 25 showings. The marketing is working. However, feedback or not, it is obvious that something(s) is(are) not right for the price you are asking. I've not read about your situation on other threads, so I have no more opinion here than this: whatever it is you have, it is ALL about price. In order to sell, you've got to lower your price to offset the perceived problem(s).

For example, I put my home on the market in late January. My husband is a realtor and we have excellent comps for where the house is priced now. We could have gone higher. We could have gone lower. We thought we'd priced the property on the high-side of "reasonable,"if that makes sense. It is a wonderful multi-acerage property; great, private location with views. However, it has one caveat... a weird floor-plan. We've had good showings from serious buyers. And, every potential buyer has loved the property and the location, but couldn't make the floor plan work. So, the floor plan issue must be addressed. We'll be dropping the price $30K. And, if enough time goes by, we'll do it again. I'm not happy about it, and it impacts what we can do down the road, for sure. But, this is the reality of the market today.

Even if your house is PERFECT, if you are showing against new and newer homes, it is particularly difficult to compete. You have GOT to offset with a significant price difference.

If there are some open houses in your area this weekend, if you haven't already, why don't you browse and check-out the competition yourself? You've just got to be brutally honest about how your own home stacks up...

Linda117,
A perfect response. You are right that Buyers rarely say that the house is overpriced in thier feedback because they don't specifically realize that it is, but they can feel that it is based upon the things that you mention.
I have said this a lot on this forum. I hope the poster doesn't think I am rude.

If you are getting a ton of showings and no offers, your house is a bit overpriced.
If you are getting a few showings and no offers, your home is a bit overpriced,
If you are getting no showings and no offers, your home is way overpriced.
If your home is priced right, you will receive many showings and at least one offer.

Twenty-five showings in a month and no sale. The US housing market is hardly afire. It's not unusual.

I've bought and sold dozens of homes. And was also a broker for many years. No surprise here.

Of the 25 tour groups through your home, perhaps one was really a "buyer." Like it or not, touring homes is a fun hobby for lots of people. Of the several hundred prospects that saw our last home for sale, only a handful actually bought anything in our neighbourhood and price range.

Most feedback from visitors isn't much use. They don't even honestly tell their own agent why they're on tour: "We're thinking of selling our home in a few years and we just wanted to see what was on the market. Besides, it's a nice day and we wanted to get out."

Better feedback would be from the agents themselves. But since the advent of buyer agency, they share precious little with their competitors.

Good luck. Don't panic.

Your home has an incurable defect (messy neighbors). No matter how nice you make it look, it will still have that incurable defect. Homes that have an incurable defect (like being next to an airport) sell for a lot less than their competitors. You have to give more for the money, or ask less if you want to sell. To paraphrase a previous poster, "What are you bringing to the market?" If your home is priced similarly to others in your neighborhood, then why should they pick yours, which has the incurable defect? If you're priced higher than new construction, why should they pick yours, when it's older and has an incurable defect?

Price cures everything. You could sell a shack next to a swamp or a well known murder home or one next to an airport runway if the price was right. The market is impersonal and doesn't care what anyone "needs" to get out of a house or what they "think" it's worth. Your price isn't right, or you'd have gotten at least one "fishing" low ball offer from an investor looking to flip. You've gotten nothing. Your price is wrong. And you're compounding it by taking it personally. Selling your home is a business. Depersonalize yourself and cut your losses. IF you want to sell.

We are in the process of selling our house and I have posted a few times on other threads. On the plus side, we just got an offer after being on the market for almost 11 months. We have accepted it, and are supposed to close in a month. I got some good advice from many people on this page, and the one that was hardest to hear but probably most accurate was that our lovely home with its gorgeous back yard was not going to bring in the price we thought we deserved. Unfortunately, our first realtor did not hammer this home to us - nor did he tell us to do more updating and wallpaper removal and fresh paint. In fact he didn't advise us to do much at all, so we finally signed with someone new. I did ask forum members for advice on this and there was one person who said something along the lines of "But you haven't followed our advice so far so I doubt you will now" - and that was hard to hear. I do think selling in this market can be very emotional, and we do get attached to our homes so I do believe it's important to be as positive as possible when posting to other people. I, too, felt like someone was being unnecessarily critical and judgmental, and consequently didn't respond or post again on that thread.
Having said that, I'd encourage you to consider what some of the folks have suggested, especially as far as lowering your price. Here's how it went for us: - we signed with our new realtor, spent a week stripping wallpaper and painting 3 upstairs rooms, changed out brass fixtures in our entry way to modern fixtures, and lowered our price by $20,000. We had our offer within the next week. We could kick ourselves for leaving our house on the market and carrying the extra cost for almost a year because we thought it was worth more than we eventually got. AND, people who gave feedback almost NEVER said that the price was too high. They said the kitchen was too small or the lay-out was wrong - and as someone else has said, this often means that they like it but it's too much money for what you're getting. The people who put in the offer on our house had seen it earlier and said there was too much updating needed for the price. They jumped at it once we came down. And, fingers crossed, we now have an offer with no contingencies, financing lined up, and a quick closing. So there you go.

Marybelle,
Your post should be the last one needed for this thread!
Congratulations and good luck.

As I wrote earlier, unlike the OP, we got feedback on our property for sale, and our goofy floor plan is the problem. We were going to cut the price of our home by $30K. Instead, yesterday we lowered the price by $55K. We want to show buyers and realtors that we understand the floor plan is an issue, we want to give enough so that people may have financial wiggle room to make any upgrades they desire, and we want to be in lower "price bracket" altogether. We've seen other properties with acreage sit around for YEARS because sellers stay the asking price. We'll see what happens. I am disappointed, but not crushed. This is not personal, it is business and this is the reality of the market today. I am excited to see if we can get anywhere this time around. I want to sell my home and I think, as EVERYONE has written here, PRICE is KEY, no matter what your circumstance, feedback or not.

Marybelle had some important points and I would have to agree. From the first day on the market until it sold we had to drop our price $49K!!! It is a business and you have to really separate yourself from your property; it's difficult. The feedback we got was never about price either! Our house just "sat" and that is a bad sign!!

Good luck to you!!!

marybelle_2009 I am sorry that was hard to hear ('cause I can almost guarantee that I was the one that said that), but in the end, you sold. Congratulations! I hope your closing is uneventful.

I'm dying to know what's weird about your floor plan - because mine is a bit weird, too.

Ahahaha, my house is more than "a bit" weird. The house was first an Earth Home Shelter, ie, an octagonal "bunker" under the ground. Then, the original owner/builder added a main floor over the lower level with crawl space in-between. The central octagon shape, with three-story tower, spiral stair and skylights, is still the center of the house. The other rooms radiate from the center. Octagon equals oddly shaped, angled rooms. There is only one rectangular room in the entire house (the great room with windows on three sides and stone fireplace). The house is done in wood paneling, including beautiful ceilings, with wood and tile floor and local stone accents (walls and hearth). There is a covered deck wrapped around the entire main floor.

We have instructions for other realtors to call my husband before showing so that he can explain the house and its quirks before they view the 20-acre property. As one realtor said, "It is weird enough that it is extremely appealing."

The acreage and the unusual house definitely put this property in a specialty market. We expect to have fewer showings than "normal," however, they should be active buyers. So far, we've been surprised (positively) with the number of showings.

BTW, my husband had a call from another realtor just hours after reducing the price, and someone will be viewing the property tomorrow. They knew of the property before the reduction and called BECAUSE of the price change.

Is that weird enough for you? Originally, When I thought about marketing the house, I considered the headline, "Not for Everyone." Of course, it IS for SOMEONE out there...

Well, I'm glad to say everyone was wrong about the house being overpriced, because we sold it last week without having to lower the price (only on the market 1 1/2 months) and we close in a month.

I knew we had priced well, and I should have just listened to my agent instead of getting on the message boards. I understand that everyone means well when they give advice, but it's so hard to give advice when each area is so different and someone in California might not know the midwest market and vice versa. Anyway we sold so all is well.

Thanks to all of you that gave me encouraging words and constructive criticism. There are many good people on this site and I appreciate their advice.

As far as the comments by "Live wire oak", you in particular are the kind of person I was talking about when I mentioned people just being outright rude. I don't mind constructive critism but does it make you feel better when you say things the way you do. You could have made all of the points in your comment without being absolutely rude...I guess the "incurable defects" in this our house weren't so "incurable" after all. I'm happy that my house sold and I'll be moving on, you however will stil be trolling these sites leaving messages for perfect strangers and being a "know it all" Good luck, have fun with that.

Congratulations, it is encouraging to hear your wonderful news. I am excited for you, and wish you the best during and after your move!

jjellis, that's wonderful. Must be celebration time at your house!

Incurable defect is a phrase often used for some quality of a property that is undesirable but you can't do anything about, like your neighbors. Live_wire_oak didn't make it up.

trinkette, you could be on the show Extreme Homes. I'll bet it is a wonderful place.

I'm sorry you took such a personal exception to a technical term. You shouldn't have. This message board is read by many more people than the original posters of the messages and has the opportunity to reach many many lurkers who have the chance to learn from your problem and translate it into their own situations. Dispassionate technically oriented advice isn't personal or rude. I'ts impersonal and broadly oriented. I think the biggest takeaway any lurkers can find in this thread is to depersonalize the process. It lowers your stress level, and it creates more opportunities to sell when you are open to suggestions about a house rather than your home. A house for sale isn't your home anymore, and you have to view it with the eyes of your market.

Congratulation on the sale.