I'd want the price, too. I've seen both styles and I have taken them in the past out of curiousity alone. but, as usual, the bottom line for most things is price.

I've called lots of Realtors asking for price when it doesn't appear on a flyer. It's irritating though 'cause they're, of course, unavailable & I have to leave a message. Three days later, when the Realtor finally calls, I can't remember which house I was calling about! I much prefer the price to be on the flyer. I agree that leaving it off is just gaming potental buyers.

Tricia

Simplifying, take comfort in the hope that one of those walkers may know someone looking for a house "just like yours". While it is a PITA to have to refill the box daily, the more people that have access to your information the more likely you are to have potential buyers.

mar_cia for all the reasons stated, list the price.

Those fliers are about the cheapest marketing tool there is and even if they aren't terribly effective, what's the downside?

Also, you should never put obstacles in the way of a customer and therefore the price must be on the flier. I, personally, think that if the price is missing on a info page, the product (no matter if it is a house, appliance, furniture...) is usually overpriced.
Because a flier is there to advertise the product and if the price is missing, the price is obviously not an attractive part of it.

I look at it this way; if I walked into a store and none of the merchandise had a price, and I had to track down a salesperson to answer even the most simple question of "How much does it cost?", I would NOT return to that store. Too much hassle. I don't have time to shop like that.

There are a few instances where a flyer box is not a good idea, IMO. Gated communities where there is no through-traffic, investment properties that are total dumps that get snatched up by savvy investors before they're on the market long, extremely high-end homes that have neighborhood restrictions about yard signage, etc. There *are* instances where flyer boxes just aren't as effective, but for the 90% of homes that are somewhere in the middle of the road, I think they're a necessity. (At least in my market, YMMV)

I had my agent leave the flyers with the price in front of my property. My house is in a rural area-not too much traffic "just happening" by. One of my neighbors mentioned that the only people that were taking the flyers were other neighbors who were just curious.

As it turns out, the person that ended up buying the property was one of our neighbors who was tired of renting. You just never know...

Here's another example.

Last fall, we were driving around on a Sunday afternoon weaving through all of the little coastal lanes in our area admiring the beauty that is Stonington/Mystic. We saw a house for sale with a flyer box. It was really a nice looking house & the flyer said it had a deep water dock. Since we're boat owners that was attractive to us. So, DH phoned the number from the for sale sign. Turns out the women who answered the phone is a Realtor & it was her home. So, we were talking to her from about 30' apart. She was looking out her window at us. She said, "Come on in." We did. Beautiful home but not for us. Pleasant experience.

Fast forward 2-3 weeks. We're again out driving...this time home from church & notice an Open House sign. So, off we go. At the Open House, we met a women (doctor) who had just gotten a job doing research for Pfizer. She was from the San Fran area & baffled by the New England real estate market. I'm a native Californian. We chatted for awhile & my husband remembered the house we'd toured with the dock. He mentioned it to the doctor & we exchanged phone numbers. I phoned her later that day & gave her the phone number to call. She ended up buying that house & we made a new friend.

So, if there'd not been that flyer with a price...who knows if the house would have sold, or not?

Tricia

Thanks everyone. Thats what I thought and I appreciate your opinions. I would like to read more, and I suspect they will all be the same.

Maybe there was a time when agents could be coy about things, but for the most part, people want info straight up. Another vote for an info box and including the price.

Another way to look at it is that only serious buyers will pick up the phone to call their agent to find out the price.
At least have the agent place the MLS # on it, that way it can be pulled up on REALTOR.com or the local public MLS.
It also is good for the listing agent to possibly pick up buyers. Why not list the property at a reduced commission when your agent has the buyer?
Many properties for sale have no flyer boxes and they still sell, so having one with no price might irritate some buyers, but who cares? Deal or no deal, HA!

I'm prepared to be slammed for this, but so be it. No, I don't put prices on info boxes. Yes, I want people to call me because when I tell them that price I can also tell them a lot more about the property than I can put onto a flyer. I can actually do my job and discuss the benefits of the house etc. It's a lot easier to interest people in a house via a phone call than a flyer. I can also do a bit of prequalifying the buyer on the phone which I believe is another important part of my job. I know who the caller is many times and can contact them in the future about price changes, open houses, etc. Again, I think many posters here would agree that's part of my job. As someone pointed out, the MLS number should be on the flyer as well as the address. If all someone wants to know is price, they can easily look it up.

With that said, I don't use info boxes for most of my listings--typically only lots/land with a copy of the plat. I use a call capture system-sort of a telephone flyer-- so I have an email record of any party that was interested enough to call about it.

quiltglo said: "It's just a ploy on her part to use your property to get more calls and gain addition clients."

I agree. I'm all for the info box. If the realtor is serious about selling your house, they will make it as easy as possible for buyer's to learn what they need to know.

Not having a price is a red flag. To me, this is a warning sign that the agent is probably going to hound me with a list of nosy questions when I call. I don't telling perfect strangers how much money I make, do I have a house to sell, blah, blah, blah.

House hunting is hard enough without people poking their nose in your private business before you've even had a chance to look inside.

Our agent did an info sheet, including price, that featured great color photos. I provided him with a full page list of features, since we'd had the house custom built w/ lots of things not common in builder spec houses here even in higher price ranges. He had the info sheet printed on good quality paper w/ half a dozen pics on front w/ his usual sales text and on the back he copied my info nearly verbatim.

Our buyers later mentioned the info sheet as the reason they called to see our house. Had they not read about some of the features, they would have passed on it. Ours was a gated community, but as construction was still on-going there were a lot of potential buyers driving through on weekends.

Not all potential buyers will research houses online or will want to call agents for info if they have no idea whether a house is in their price range. I would not retain an agent who was more concerned with picking up another client than with selling my house.

Our realtor did not put the price on our info sheets, but our house is listed on realtor. com, so if you really wanted to find the price and avoid calling the realtor, you could. I think she left off the price for the reasons RRAH suggested. Plus, our price is negotiable...and I think our agent wants an opportunity to inform interested parties about that. Also, I think if people are really interested in a house, they'll call the realtor.

Whatever you do, make sure you put contact info on your flyer. We picked up a flyer from an FSBO that did NOT list any contact info...no phone number, no e-mail address, nothing. What a major oversight!

The price is the single biggest determining factor as to whether or not people are going to want to look at your house. Everything else is important, of course, but really it all comes down to, can the buyers afford your house? If that piece of information is not on the flyer, then they won't know if they should be interested in your house or not. And in this softening market, there are certainly plenty of other houses to move on and look at without having to play phone tag games with realtors to get a piece of information that should be on the flyer. Why put more obstacles in the way of potential buyers?

If there's an infobox and a house I like even a little bit, or an infobox and I can't see the house, I'm pretty much guaranteed to pull over and take a glance at the flyer inside. Most of the time I look at the price and put the flyer back! LOL I don't want to go through the rigmarole of chasing down an agent just to find out what the price is or how many bedrooms it has, the last time I did that it was like pulling teeth to get the price. This time around I guess I can just write the address down and call/email my agent and say "get me the info on this house", and I know I'm paying them to waste their time on this sort of thing, but I don't like it.

One thing I'm seeing beginning to pop up in my area is putting the MLS # on the sign itself! I like that very much.

simplifying, you say you're going through a lot of paper and ink - unless you have an extremely cheap or free source of ink cartridges it's very likely cheaper, and definitely a lot easier, to have the flyers photocopied at somewhere like Kinko's or Staples, especially if you order them in bulk (500 at a time). We have a friend who works at Kinkos so we might be able to get 'em free, which would please our agent no end - have to check. :-)

Our house is up a long, wooded driveway over a little hill, so you can't even see the house from the road. Most people aren't going to go up a driveway on a semi-rural road just because they saw a sign, because there are a dozen other signs on the same road within 3-4 miles (no particular reason for this, btw, there are usually several houses for sale at any given time). They'd be all day on one road! You can bet your sweet bippy I fought for an infobox - it'll go up in the next few days - how else are people driving by to know what a steal of a house is back here?

Put the price on the flyer, for crying out loud.

There are some buyers that might suddenly show interest in a property and might buy right away, IF they knew the price. If they didn't know the price, they might just set the flyer aside and forget about it.

I once found an ad in the paper, saw that it was a great price, made an appt to see the home in 1 hour, and put a contract on the place at that first showing. If the price was not in the newspaper ad, I would not have called and would not have bought the home. It was the price that pulled me in.

Also - put a bunch of flyers out there. You don't have to count them and put 6 a day like the above poster. What does that buy you? Instead, stick 25-40 at a time in the box.

It is neighbors that get them, and also folks that are curious and driving the area, and also potential buyers, plus realtors that are keeping a pulse on the comptetition.

When I was selling my FSBO recently, there were several showings to serious prospects that got the flyer from a friend that lived in the neighborhood.

Put the price in bold near the top or bottom.

**If the realtor wants the buyers to call for more info...instead, put that info (and more photos) on a web site and note the url on the flyer. Buyers are more confortable going to the URL than calling the realtor. Besides, they can go to the URL over and over to look at the photos. Buyers want instant access and 24/7 access on demand. A phone call to a person is outdated.

Realtors don't want prices on the flyers because they want potential customers to call ---- if the price turns out to be too high, the Realtor can show the customer things in another price range. Your house just became a customer-recruiting tool for that Realtor.

Frankly, those flyers are your best selling tool and the Realtor is not needed in todays web-based market IMHO. It is amazing how many reams of flyers you can have printed and not even make a dent in what that Realtor will charge you.

I also vote for putting the price on there, after all, I certainly don't want to bother with a house out of my price range; I'd be wasting everyone's time! I need to at least know where I stand from the very start and go from there.

I find the lack of price on a flier to be SO irritating that when house-hunting those are the LAST houses I will go and look at or call about. I will specifically ignore those houses because it makes me feel as though the realtor or seller is already playing games with me. I HATE that.

Funny you should bring this up-- when I bought this house a few weeks ago it was a cash deal, and I wanted something in a particular neighborhood and needed as quick a close as possible. I went down the street to look at one just coming up on the market and not on the MLS yet-- and there was NO price on the flier. (I always feel like that's a message: "If you have to ask, then you cannot afford me"-- like some fancy restaurant without prices on the menu.) Anyway, on the way back from that was a fsbo and the owner had put the fliers and sign out just 2 hours earlier, and we had a contract that day and a closing the following week.

That other house is still for sale, and I saw on realtor.com that the price is actually fine. I guess if it had been such an amazingly place that I was dying to own it I would have bothered to do more, and I would have called for sure if I had not found my little gem of a house, but if they'd had the price on the flier I absolutely would have at least tried to tour it. As it was I never bothered. I was coming out of a hideous divorce and just wanted to find a home and move into it!

Leaving the price off (or any other pertinant info, such as number of bedrooms or bathrooms) can come across as having something to hide, or as playing games, or as being controlling-- it puts potential buyers in the position of having to ask a "favor" right off the bat--- and gives the realtor all the power. (You might even wonder if it is a screening tool of some kind, and either way it is invasive since we all know they get our phone numbers and other info even if we just call and listen to something prerecorded. It's like standing by the mailbox and saying, "suure, I will give you the flier, but first I am going to take a photo of your license plate."

So if your house is so amazing and unique and desirable that you don't mind turning a lot of people off and losing some potential buyers for YOUR house just so that your agent gets a crack at more customers for herself, then by all means leave the price off.

On my street, I'd put the price because the houses vary greatly and I don't want to loose a prospective buyer who thought I was "out of their price range."

BTW, sounds like your realtor is the same as my old one! LOL! My only offer (but fell through) came from the flyer!

skatiero, good observation about the "controlling" stuff & putting a potential buyer of having to ask a "favor". I've always known that I was put-off by the lack of a price on something (house or anything) but was never sure exactly why...just knew it seemed like some sort of game. I think you hit it right on.

Tricia

(Sideline to Skatiero.....Long time no see! I'm so sorry to hear of your divorce. I hope you and kiddos are doing well.)

I disagree with rrah about fielding phone calls being part of my job as a realtor. To me, the most effective way to "pre-screen" buyers for my clients is to have the price clearly stated. That way I don't have to waste my time with question-askers who find out that the house is out of their range. The calls I do get are from those folks who are actually looking in that price range. The one time I did list a house w/out the price, I found to be the biggest waste of my time. EVERYONE called about that house, but no one who was looking in that price range.

Triciae, funny-- I had to think about why it madkes me so mad, when very little makes me mad! I actually discussed it with my therapist, lol. As a domestic violence survivor, I am particularly wary of power games! I know this is a minor point, I am overly sensitive.

Renofan, good point! And thanks for the welcome back-- I had a very rough few years there. But I ended up with sole cutody of the children and he ended up with the house-- I got the better deal by far deal, methinks-- though I am completely poor and my house really belongs to my parents-- I will be literally in their debt forever!!!

You guys have certainly made my point !! Thanks so much. Today the realtor brought the new flyers. They look great...colored picture and details the other one didn't have etc. But, no price and NO MLS either. I told her I was disappointed about that and she went on about how not one house she has ever sold was as a result of papers from a box. - And how she wants people to call her. She told me about one call she got from a person who was really ticked off. The caller said she couldn't believe she didn't put the mls number in the newpaper ad. My realtor said - but see, "I had her on the phone". Annoying. So....I got brave and handed her a copy of this discussion...up until about 4 posts ago.I printed it out for her and asked her to read it tonight and just try to understand where we are all coming from and try to see it from the sellers / buyers point of view instead of the realtors point of view. UGGHH realtors !!!

That other house is still for sale, and I saw on realtor.com that the price is actually fine. I guess if it had been such an amazingly place that I was dying to own it I would have bothered to do more, and I would have called for sure if I had not found my little gem of a house, but if they'd had the price on the flier I absolutely would have at least tried to tour it. As it was I never bothered.

To me, who has time to remember to search out more houses if it isn't already coming up? I'm so frazzled getting my house ready and trying to figure out where we want to live, plus the right house that I don't have time to make another phone call. If the price is on it, along with the realtors web site & email addy I'm fine.

mar cia,

Maybe, your Realtor has never had a home sell because of a flyer because she doesn't put the price on!

Tricia

Good point, Tricia!

Marcia, do let us know how it turns out!

I'd say, get rid of the signs and the flyer boxes, and this problem is solved.

mar cia, what's your realtor's first name?? Are you in AZ? I swear, my old realtor gave me the SAME line!!

I think you should take the fliers she gave you and write the price and the MLS number on each and every one of them. You could even do computer-printed labels with that info on them to save you time and make it look better.

When I was selling my house last Fall, I did the brochures both ways- with & without a price.
I went through approx. 160 brochures.

The brochures were gone like hotcakes, but no calls.
My buyers came from the sign & took the brochure, but they had their eye on my house for a couple of years.

The brochure did not make a difference. I thought that maybe I wasn't getting the calls because the price was on there, or maybe people saw the price & thought it was too steep. That was not the case. People were just nosey taking brochures.
I agree with others, I would find the No price thing irritating. I did it both ways to test that theory of not including the price so they'll call. It did not work. The market was dead, nobody was buying at that time.

I think the brochures are a necessary evil, just in case something on there catches a looker. But you want to eliminate calls if the home is out of somebody's price range. In fact, I would put my own Cell number for those people who HATE REALTORS & want to ask the owner questions. But that's just me. It's also true that when you call for some quick info, MOST realtors are nowhere to be found...

I was thinking along the same lines as likesdoilis - you could run the existing brochures through your home computer printer and add the info.

I think that most sales of Realtor listed homes come from the MLS, so in most cases having a flyer is not going to matter that much. However there are always going to be some sales coming from drive bys and so I believe that flyers should always be utilized, with as much positive information as possible, including price, should be on them. Agents should use every means possible to get information on their listings out to the public. Flyers are one of the least expensive forms of advertising.

You are the customer and you want the price and that should be good enough for the agent.

You should get a pen and get every flyer in that box and write the price on it. Do it now!!!

I agree with the other poster - of course she has not made any sales from her flyers. I wonder about the flip side though - how many sales did she LOSE because of her flyers?

Think about this - you go to a restaurant with co-workers -some you don't know so well. There is the menu and everything on the menu has prices. Then the waiter mentions the specials of the day, but does not give you a price. Something sounds good, but you don't want to ask the price in front of them. So instead, you just order something else from the menu because you know the price.

Mar_cia said: "So....I got brave and handed her a copy of this discussion"

Who is working for who? Your agent told you that a caller was "really ticked off" because the MLS (most basic info) was NOT in the ad. Then she told you she "captured" the callers number. If she is trying to anger buyers then it sounds like she is doing a beautiful job. Not the kind of marketing I would want on such a high ticket item.

Buyer's don't like to be manipulated. I don't appreciate being baited to have to call a real estate "telemarketer" so they can interrogate me about my buying choices. I am interested in the seller's house, NOT them. Your example is just one more reason why we are using a RE attorney, instead of an agent, to purchase our house.

If it were me, I wouldn't let my agent tell me I have to swim with one hand tied behind my back. I would tell her to either put this information on the flyer or you will find an agent who will.

OP, you wrote: "...she went on about how not one house she has ever sold was as a result of papers from a box." In your opening post, you wrote: "She said in all of her 16 successful years we are only the second box."
This agent has no track record with info sheets, no basis on which to reach any conclusion about their usefulness. Arrange to meet with her at her office, take the batch of sheets she gave you down to her and point out that since yours is only the SECOND box she's ever done, she has no way of knowing what works and since it is YOUR house and YOUR money at stake, you want the MLS number and the price put on the sheet. Then hand the batch over to her to redo them. Be firm. When she repeats her garbage, just say again that you want the price and the MLS number on the sheets, and then say something like: "Now, when may I expect them to be done; I'd be happy to come over here and pick them up; would tomorrow be OK?" Do not be tempted to argue her points or to defend your position.

Some of you all are braver than I am !! I don't want to lose our realtor. For all the frustrations about this , I think she is good...probably the best real estate company in this area anyway, so if we lost her we would have to go to a less desirable agency. I gave her the copied posts and the next day I called her and she said she was reprinting them with the mls and price. She didn't make any comments about the forum posts I gave her though. I told her just to email it to me as an attatchment and I would take care of printing them and said I didn't mind. I dont' have them yet so that is frustrating. I guess theres two sides to the issue. She is working for me and so I feel like she should do what I want but on the other hand, realtors feel like if you hired them (the extremely competent professionals they inflatedly think they are) you should allow them to do their job and you should listen to their professional opinions. Thanks for all your comments. I can't believe some of you are still following this and still commenting. I really do appreciate your support.

In the mean time, write the price on those flyers that don't have it.

BTW, the realtor should be printing those new flyers-using colored ink. It should not be your job.

Otherwise, you might as well get a flat fee MLS listing and do your own flyers and save some money for your work/effort.

Question for all these people demanding a price on the flyer:

What do you do when there is no flyer at all? Don't you wind up still having to call the realtor or seller?

What do you do when there is no flyer at all? Don't you wind up still having to call the realtor or seller?

If there's no flyer then it's a different situation. If you're working with an agent, you tell your agent and ask to see it. If not, you call the realtor.

BUT, given that there IS a flyer, not including the price sends a subtle message to the potential buyer. I don't want to waste time calling about a house just to find it's out of my budget constraints. House buying is tough enough without these little games some agents want to play to gain clients.

Mfbenson, the fliers serve a great general purpose besides advertising the particular house. They give people an idea of general pricing for the area. As for the houses without fliers, they either get ignored, or grouped with houses one might want to see at such point one enlists a realtor for buying a house. I would never call a realtor just for a price.
OP, congratulations on getting your agent to do what you want. You have a contract with the agent, so you really shouldn't be worrying about her dropping you.

Some of you all are braver than I am !! I don't want to lose our realtor. For all the frustrations about this , I think she is good...probably the best real estate company in this area anyway, so if we lost her we would have to go to a less desirable agency. I gave her the copied posts and the next day I called her and she said she was reprinting them with the mls and price. She didn't make any comments about the forum posts I gave her though. I told her just to email it to me as an attatchment and I would take care of printing them and said I didn't mind. I dont' have them yet so that is frustrating. I guess theres two sides to the issue. She is working for me and so I feel like she should do what I want but on the other hand, realtors feel like if you hired them (the extremely competent professionals they inflatedly think they are) you should allow them to do their job and you should listen to their professional opinions. Thanks for all your comments. I can't believe some of you are still following this and still commenting. I really do appreciate your support.

My opinion as a seller is, I'm not sure I want my neighbors knowing my business (price wise, as most neighbors will take them to be nosy) but at the same time, these days with the internet, they could find the info faster then walking over here to pick up the flyer. Most wouldn't come here if I'm home anyway, so hopefully if I get flyers, people that are interested are taking them.

As a buyer, I would want the price on it and if not at least the MLS as long as I can get the info from realtor.com. I've come across a few houses I liked where I couldn't get the MLS to give me data on realtor.com or my Remax agents web site. In order to get the info I would have to join the listing agents site or call / email them for it; which I will not do.

I do not want to speak to a realtor other then my own, and hate bothering her for things I can do myself.

Yesterday hubby & I went looking at land. We saw a Caldwell Banker sign and decided to turn in the street. There was an info box complete with price & MLS. Even though it does not have a basement, we will consider it (at least until I walk it) because the neighborhood was very nice. Since it has a garage and some land, we may not need the basement.

She brought a bunch of new fliers and put them in the box I guess this morning while we were gone to church. They have the price and mls # on them. Our 90 contract will be up with her in a few weeks. I was meaning that SHE may not want to renew the contract !! Hopefully things will go okay now that we got past this. Thanks all.

Congratulations! Glad your agent came around.

Hope your house sells quickly.

"Question for all these people demanding a price on the flyer:
What do you do when there is no flyer at all? "

Sometimes just write down the info/tel# with expectations to call the realtor later, but sometimes don't get around to it. Other times, call the telephone number and then leave a message. Then the next day when the realtor calls back, I don't remember exactly which house it was because I looked at so many.

*Tthe other reason for the flyer is so buyers can have a photo of that home - to differentiate it from the other homes since buyers look at many, many homes and they start to run together after awhile.

So if no flyer, then the home is waaaaay on the bottom of the list, and sometimes it falls off the list.

"Question for all these people demanding a price on the flyer:
What do you do when there is no flyer at all? "

Absolutely the same as Sweet_Tea. If I was really interested and not too busy with other stuff, I might remember to call the Realtor, and might remember the house when/if she called back.

But if I was too busy, or thought the price was probably too high, it'd drop off my radar.

"What do you do when there is no flyer at all? Don't you wind up still having to call the realtor or seller?"

I write down the address and look it up online. If there's nowhere to look it up, I might email it to my agent for him to chase down the info but I'm more likely to just blow it off, especially if there's a good chance it'll be outside my price range I don't see any point in wasting anyone's time trying to get more info on the house.

I've been shy all my life and because of the neurological effects of CFS, there's a short-circuit in verbal and auditory processing. I HATE talking to people, especially on the phone where I don't have visual cues to help me understand what someone's saying. Email is one of the best things that ever happened to me because it means I don't have to talk to people!

I'm pretty much a member of the "If I have to ask, I can't afford it" society..

The price is the FIRST PRIORITY.

I'm so happy that your realtor finally gave in on the price/MLS issue. My DH and I have casually house hunted for years out of idle curiosity. We probably visit open houses every other weekend. The one thing that can spoil our fun is a realtor that is over eager to sell us something, or to sell our current home. We've finally had to resort to just saying frankly "We're here out of bare curiosity and not in the market to buy." Why? Because if we say "it's a little out of our price range..." they respond "I have other homes, blah blah blah." Before we know it, they're trying to sell us a DIFFERENT house. That is pretty common and something to watch out for w/ any realtor.