we have stainless steel appliances this always cracks me up as a justification for a higher price. Sure, stainless-steel appliances *cost* more, but they're not necessarily in and of themselves more valuable, unless their *features* are high-end. You can get a "stainless appliance" package for $2,000 or less. (In fact, sometimes I think if we go back on the market, I should buy one of these packages, just to increase the odds of getting a buyer, even though our white stove has many more features than the stainless ranges in those packages.) Even if you spent $4,000 on appliances, why would that bump your price up by anything but a fraction of that? But the point is this (and I have tried to make it several times, but never so succinctly than c9pilot): But, the buyers should have known (or been told) and made a conscious decision to spend more on house if it had the more valuable features they wanted. THERE is where their agent messed up, and he has no one to blame but himself. Even if he deserves to win the lawsuit, he ALSO deserves to have to deal w/ the angst, but basically being a stupid person. As BernieK has said several times: He would make sure his buyers knew WHY they were paying MORE THAN THE ASKING price.

I was perusing my kane county illinois codes and I came across this and thought of this post. Maybe your area has a similar ordinance you can trump up to solve your problems: Codes: (8) a. Notwithstanding any other provision of this code, to operate or permit operation of any sound amplification system in a vehicle or on property, or to perform lawn mowing or utilize power or nonpower tools, or to operate off road vehicles, including, but not limited to, off highway motorcycles, minibikes, all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), snowmobiles or other like or similar vehicles, on private property where the noise from such vehicle or activity is such as to unreasonably disturb, injure or endanger the comfort, repose, health, peace or safety of reasonable persons of ordinary sensitivity; and when after written or verbal warning from law enforcement personnel the owner or operator fails to cease and desist from such operation or activity. The terms "motorcycles", "off road motorcycles", and "all-terrain vehicles" shall have the same meaning as in the Illinois motor vehicle code. "Snowmobile" shall have the same meaning as in the snowmobile registration and safety act. b. To make, continue, create or cause to be made or continued any loud or raucous noise. c. To make, continue, create or cause to be made or continued any noise which is harsh, prolonged, unnatural, or unusual in time or place as to occasion unreasonable discomfort to any persons within the neighborhood from which the noise emanates or as to unreasonably interfere with the peace and comfort of neighbors or their guests or operators or customers in places of business, or as to detrimentally or adversely affect such residences or places of business. d. Factors for determining whether a sound is unreasonably loud or raucous may include, but are not limited to, the following: 1. The proximity of the sound to sleeping facilities, whether residential or commercial; 2. The land use, nature and zoning of the area from which the sound emanates and the area where it is received or perceived; 3. The time of day the sound occurs; 4. The duration of the sound; 5. Whether the sound is recurrent, intermittent, or constant; 6. Any violation of section 12-602 of the Illinois motor vehicle code; 7. Removal or modification of adequate sound suppression equipment as set forth in section 4-1(E) of the snowmobile registration and safety act.

I've asked my agent repeatedly about advertising and she says the listing will be in one of the upcoming homes magazines, evidently she missed a deadline for the previous month's issue - she also stated that the bulk of interest lately is online (!) Regardless, I've been adamant about it and have yet to see it anywhere on paper. I specifically mentioned the local papers, too. I want her to deluge the market with my home - visibility is important. FWIW, most of the mags can be accessed online. If she told you which mags she'll be advertising in, look them up online, then do a search for a house like yours in your area. Does your house show up? Can you see if agents can log in online to upload and edit their listings? Depending on where you are, she could be right. Do you have a good retiree's house? If so, more paper advertising may be necessary as a lot of older people I know don't have computers. With online advertising, I've said this before & will say it again... What I always suggest to someone selling their house (I do this myself) is I will sign up at all of the major real estate sites (this will be c/p from a post I made elsewhere) Major real estate sites Realtor.com main search - click advanced search to get more options Caldwell Banker Century 21 ReMax ReMax find an office Prudential Fox & Roach Weichert Yahoo Real estate You can check foreclosures there also. It's a pretty decent list. You can also find an agent through their Home Gain. Make an account at all of the sites. Put in your search criteria (which is similar to your house on beds/bath, give a generous price range for high and low) then save the search. You will get emails when new listings come on as well as price drops. Every site is different and in order to find a house, you may have to sign up at all of the sites so that you can see what buyers see. For someone selling, you then want to put your MLS number in their search box, if your house comes up, save it to your profile. This will allow you to see every time your agent does something, such as price drop or new photos. You will now see what other buyers searching in your area sees. This is especially helpful if you are not getting a lot of traffic, because now it becomes a question of why. My favorite site is Remax for ease of use. I actually save all homes I'm interested in from other places in my Remax home finder. I will copy the MLS # searching at Remax. How much longer is your contract? Does your agent give you the option to cancel due to not being happy? If so, you might want to consider it. You should also go to realtor.com and do a search of your area / similar homes. You want to see what your agent is doing for your house there (a lot of people use it to look at houses) as well as seeing what other agents offer. If you truely are not happy, you can use it to find a new agent. My agent didn't want to do an open house, but when pressed, did. Surprise, no one showed up. She said she advertised for the open house but suggested after the fact that I check the paper to see if it was there (ummm... isnt that her responsibility?) There could be a few reasons for this. Open houses are not popular in my area. If anyone shows up agents are surprised. With our Open houses (old agent) they were not advertised to my liking. The 1st one was rushed, I don't recall it being advertised on the MLS and it was only in the Sunday paper. If I were to do an open house again, I would do 2 weeks notice, have the agent add it to the MLS, and since I have an agent with enhanced listings on realtor.com, it will show as open on the online page. I would also ask for weekend advertising, Friday to Sunday in the newspaper. I would also advertise on craigslists. Her lockbox has scraped some paint from my front door & I asked her 3 weeks ago to please place a rubber pad under the lockbox. She said she would - hasn't. (Minor, I know, but Im irked.) This is the reason we don't have it on our door. Do you have a bench outside? Ours is attached to the bench, there is nothing to get ruined with it hanging like that. I asked about a brochure box for the front, she stated that shed prefer people call her. I agreed to that (shes the pro, not me). Two days later, theres a brochure box in my yard. *shrug* What is on the brochures? Our front page is nicely done with a bulleted blurb about the house, and a few photos. The listing agents info is on the 1st page. Our 2nd page is the MLS print out, which can easily be changed if there is a price change. It's very important to have the price & MLS number on the flier as people will throw it away if it is not. This is a peeve of mine. I can't tell you how much time I do not have to look information up online only to not be able to find it, or to find I have to join an agents site just to see the info. Forget it. I also do not have time to call an agent, I do not want to give them my name / number just to find out how much a house is. I detest some of the pictures she's taken Have to agree with everyone, if you post your MLS number we can give you feedback on the photos. You do not have to link to the agents site, finding the house on realtor.com is fine. Re an agent caravan, she told me that agents and brokers are innundated with them and she gets so many email notices that she merely deletes them - hence, she wouldn't do one for my home Depending on your area, agents may or may not come. We had 3 agents come to ours, hardly worth the time / effort / money to even have one. Price-wise, I feel it's where it should be. It's priced under what I paid for it 1 year ago and I also dropped about 15K into it (fencing, painting, etc.) So I'm taking a hit coming out of the gate - I paid 250K, it's listed at 235K. I know my agent has an issue with that, she continually remarks, "I can't believe you're willing to lose 30-40K and sell the house. You should stay in it for a couple of years..." I figure that's my concern, not an agent's. The house still may be over priced depending on what else is out there. If you don't know your MLS, you can give us your zip code as well as price, beds & baths. Unfortunately, I cannot figure out how to upload pictures - I did a quick search of the threads here for help, but was only directed to picasa. Is there a simple way to merely upload a couple of pictures? Picasa is easy to use. All you have to do is make an account, upload the photos, then link to your public album.

I don't think most contracts spell out who is going to do the inspection - mine never have - so you can have a friend do it if they have expertise in that area. Where the contingency comes into play is when you present the seller with a list of real or imagined deficiencies of the house and say, "Fix this stuff or else I'm not buying this dump." If the seller agrees to everything the buyer wants, then the inspection contingency wouldn't let the buyer off the hook. But every time you go back and forth, if someone says "no," the deal is off. So if the buyer asks for $12,000 in renovations and the seller tries to compromise at $11,500, the buyer can say no and walk. I don't know if the buyer can simply say after the inspection that he/she simply no longer wants the house no matter what the seller does to fix it. Maybe if there's a health or safety issue, or something that just couldn't be fixed.