When we moved to another state we rented for a couple of months before buying. We were somewhat familiar with the new metro area, having traveled here every summer for 9 years, but wanted to drive around the different neighborhoods and towns to see what they were like.

Unless you're familiar with DC, I would advise renting anyway, at least for awhile, to get an idea of traffic patterns and different neighborhoods. I know moving twice is a hassle, but nothing compared to the hassle of buying a house quickly then deciding it's in the wrong area and just having to live with it.

We had sold our previous house, fortunately - I don't know what we would have done otherwise. But we had dropped the price $25k below what we thought was the lowest we could sell it for, and for $27k less than the first offer, which didn't make it through escrow. Ouch.

If you are everyone's second choice, and you really don't want to carry the house for too long, I think you should cut your losses and drop the price again, which will put you as first choice for some people. Just get out from under it and move on.

Good luck!

Hi Jelly. We were in a situation where a house I had just purchased a year prior no longer suited our needs. Although I HAD checked out school districts prior to moving there, I didnt realize I needed to check out the special needs programs offered specifically in the area. I had assumed if the district was good, the program would be too. Unfortunately I was wrong, and we had to get out as fast as we could. This was wintertime, and I knew there wasnt too many people out looking at the time.

We ended up purchasing another house before even putting our first one on the market. We just happened to find a house in one of the best areas with a top of the line program that suited my childrens' needs. The first house had 130,000 in equity in it, so I took out a loan for 97,000 which I put down on the new house. Because I knew I would be paying it off as soon as selling my other one, I took out an interest only loan.

We closed and moved into the new house mid December, put the other one on the market January 1, and closed on it May 1. When all was said and done with fees and all, that extra mortgage ended up costing me about 2500.00-and for every month it took to sell the first house, it would have been another 600.00.

It was a scary way to go for us, but because the house was in a good location, and was lower priced then the other houses in the area, and offered thihngs many other houses didnt (central air, finished basement etc) I knew by the time spring came, it would sell.

Thats what worked for us. I am not saying it is a good choice, but it IS an option worth looking at if need be.

HTH
~Dawn

Thanks for the feedback.

Minet, we moved from the DC area 4 years ago so we are somewhat familiar with the area and have narrowed down our search area. Our concern is we don't want to rent in 1 school zone and buy later in another. But we plan to be in our next house for a while so need to but the right house.

Dawn, once your old house sold, then did you refi your new home with a traditional loan? I am glad it all worked out for you, but boy that would make me nervous!

Some more questions I forgot to ask originally:
our agent made a point of telling me during our last conversation that she is the listing agent, not a selling agent. What is the difference?!

Also, if we don't sell before our contract with her expires, and we use a new agent, would we list right away or would we wait a while? How does this look to prospective buyers?

FWIW, we listed our last house for 374 and got very little action. We dropped the price to 360 and sold it in a few days. My thought was that there were a whole bunch of buyers out there that were searching in the 360-and-under category. Now we're building a new house and bought an old house to live in while it's building. We have the old house on the market now with almost no lookers, but we're in a very rural area. We're considering renting it out if it doesn't sell; a difficult situation for you, probably, because you're so far from the house. Would that be an option, though? It worked for us once with a California-Colorado distance.

If your agent says she's only the listings agent it's time to tell her GOODBYE!!!!!!!!!

Seems she wants the commission without doing any work.

As soon as you can, get a new agent who will work for you.

Enjoy the journey.

eal51 in western CT

Jelly-Actually-No-The second house was over 200,000 so we took 1 mortgage out on that (30 year, 5 and 3/4 percent fixed), and a seperate mortgage out on the first house as the down payment on the second....I know it sounds confusing, but I wanted to avoid PMI on the new house, and we were paying back the second mortgage (the interest only one) with the sale of the first house.

My problem was the longer I stayed at the first house, the longer my children would be in a very bad environment. (They were in a classroom with 30 other children, and a teacher and 1 assistant-all the children had different special needs, so the teacher wasnt able to teach anyone anything-they were more like glorified babysitters). The new school they are in now never has more then 6 kids (2 of whom are mine), and all the children have the same type of special needs. There are seperate classrooms for the different issues the kids may have. My children are also getting much needed physical, occupational and speech therapies-which were not in the budget in the other school. They will also both be going to this school for the summer.

Because we moved the children when we did, my daughter has improved enough to begin regular elementary school in the fall. This never would have happened had we stayed in the old district-which was 30 minutes away from where we are now....

Jellyben- I hate to say the coulda, woulda, shoulda thing - but you did have a valid offer that you considered to be lowball, but was a very good starting point at 93% of list. I said in that thread that not countering was a mistake and that the first is usually the best offer. Now, you're in a position where you are on a tight timeline and may have to take secondary financing as well as a price cut in order to sell. I bet the price you get is less than the $525 you originally flat out rejected.

our agent made a point of telling me during our last conversation that she is the listing agent, not a selling agent. What is the difference?!

In Real Estate the listing agent represents the seller, and the selling agent represents the buyer. I know it's confusing, but that is the terminology.

Perhaps if you post the MLS in this post we can finally give you feedback?

I just did another search of your posts, one struck me that I didn't remember seeing Would you buy a house that had been hit by a tree??

I have to agree with sparksals, that 1st offer should have been haggled or something.

Jellyben, I'm really sorry you're going through this. As you know, I have BTDT. Although one month isn't really very long in *this market, I know how it feels to want it OVER. My advice is to drop your price below the comps and just get it done. Don't try to deal with selling a home long distance--the stress that you avoid will be your own!

The good news is that the inventory in NoVA is still waaaaaay up and you will have your pick of beautiful homes. Some sellers have finally gotten a clue as well (although some are still living in the Spring of 2005). I just looked at all the homes on the MLS in FFX Station (118) and there are some incredible deals!

Bite the bullet and get that Seattle house sold so you can start your life here. Dave is waiting for your call. :)

they DID try to haggle it. They countered, coming down $15k.

He came back w/ a verbal query about $540k, and their agent responded, "put it in writing, and get us a pre-APPROVAL" (very reasonable request--if you're going to take your house off the market for a lower offer, you want to know the mortgage isn't going to screw you up.

He never came back.

They didn't NOT haggle. They didn't NOT negotiate. They might have even taken that $540k, had he ever come back.

Dropping $40k on a $500+k house is a big drop. Yeah, yeah, it's only 7%. But it's still FORTY THOUSAND DOLLARS! (every ten thousand you give up in equity is $100 on your monthly payment. That adds up)

You don't do it the first time around. Esp. not when houses are moving for more than you are listed at. I don't know if those are comps, but it wouldn't surprise me.

The rental market hrre in NoVa is booming. If you all are military most property managers are advising their clients to be in line with military housing allowances. A lot of our military friends here who are renting are looking for one year leases because they are going off to a school and know they'll end up back here. If you haven't looked at www.militarybyowner.com it is a great resource for selling and renting.

Good luck. Definetly a buyer's market in NoVa right now.

Talley sue,

Not according to the link below. She received the offer and didn't want to haggle over a $40K price difference. The realtor discussed a higher offer with the buyer and they were willing to do $540K, but never put it in writing. It could be that the buyer saw that the seller was going to be difficult to work with and decided to bail.

Here is a link that might be useful: We've Been Lowballed!

Dawn, it sounds like you did the absolute best thing for your kids. In that case, a few thousand bucks and a little stress seems a small price to pay!

As far as the guy who offered, you are correct in that we didn't make a formal counter-offer, but he doesn't appear to be serious as we asked him after his first offer for his pre-approval and again after this verbal offer, and he hasn't done it. We would work with him, but there doesn't seem to be anything to work with.

As for her listing vs. selling agent comment, I am not sure what she was trying to say. She asked if there was anything else she should be doing for us and I joked 'yeah, find someone to buy my house' and then she said how hard she is working but that she is a listing agent not a selling agent. There is a home thst listed last week at 565(we are at 550) and DH commented that there was no way it would go before ours-it has an odd layout, no updates, no 4th BR, it's on a busy road-and sure enough it is under inspection. That really threw me for a loop.

sparksals-I am not sure what would make them think we would be difficult to work with-the fact that we need their offer in writing?? His agent called ours within 30 minutes of the price dropped so he clearly is still pretty interested. But if he is a serious buyer then why no formal offer?

jellyben,

You know it is so hard to try and rent when you are talking about kids having to start school...I feel your pain! If you rent, and then buy in another area, you have to uproot them again.

We went through this exact thing last year too, just like laura1202 and minet. Our CA house was under contract and then fell through days before we were moving to CO (already packed). We were trying to work it out with our original buyers...never did.

Since we had a child starting school, we decided to go ahead and buy in CO, since we already had house hunted and had a house under contract (though we had the sell-the-old-house contingency). We didn't want to have to move him in school twice.

We did a HELOC from the old place for the 20% down on the new house, and had IO mortgage on the new place. Once the old place sold, we refinanced to a 30-yr fixed.

The kicker is that the old place took 6 more months to sell. Never would have dreamed that it would have taken so long....VERY STRESSFUL TIME!!! Not to mention, our final sold price, was A LOT lower than we could have ever imagined with the market souring so quickly.

If I had to do it all over, I would say drop the price now to really generate interest and just get it sold. Carrying two houses (especially long-distance) is not fun at all. We seemed to follow the market down, which you absolutely don't want to do.

IMHO, taking a hit now to get it sold is better than dragging it out and more likely losing even more money.

Good luck with your move!

Jelly,

If you're serious about using a new agent, maybe you should try Larry Lohrman in Seattle. I don't live in Seattle and have never used his services, but I've been reading his blog and its pretty informative. From his blog, it seems like he's keeping up with all the latest marketing ideas so he might be do some things that your current agent isn't doing. At the very least, you'd be guaranteed some top notch pictures for your home.

And, I have to agree with the above poster regarding slashing your price to get it sold immediately. Better to take the hit now than to carry two mortages.

sparksals-I am not sure what would make them think we would be difficult to work with-the fact that we need their offer in writing?? His agent called ours within 30 minutes of the price dropped so he clearly is still pretty interested. But if he is a serious buyer then why no formal offer?

So there was no written offer at all, even the lowball $525K offer you posted about or the counter was not in writing?

My understanding from your lowball post is that you received an initial written offer of $525K which you outright refused and then the realtor verbally asked about taking $540K, to which no written offer was forthcoming.

My point is that you didn't even want to counter on the original written offer and had negative feelings that perhaps the guy wouldn't come up to what you wanted. Now, you're in a tough position to sell on a tight timeline when you could have negotiated with the original offer and probably come to an acceptable agreement for both parties.

The fact you weren't willing to counter at all to their initial written offer would be an indication to them that you weren't willing to negotiate at all and they just decided not to bother.

Did you officially drop the price to $550?

sparksals-I am not sure what would make them think we would be difficult to work with-the fact that we need their offer in writing??

In the We've been lowballed!! post, Tricia actually posted So far, all of your posts have contained some negative musings. I predict this offer will fail. Read the posts you made, trying to imagine you don't know the person posting. You came off as insulted; and didn't seem to want to try to get this person to come up.

I still wonder if you're getting bad advice from your realtor. Hard to know since we don't know the competition, nor what the house looks like.

We did have that 1 offer early on-we were listed at 565, he offered 525. When we dropped to 550 his agent asked ours if we would take 540. Our agent told her to put it in writing along with his pre-approval(his first offer included just his pre-qual) but they never did.

What if you would have said yes to the $540; once you say yes, the ball rolls, it gets put into a formal offer, no?

---------------------------------------------------------

I can't stress enough times how much I would like for you to post the MLS link or even a realtor.com search of houses in your area - you don't have to tell us which one is yours - it will give us a feel of what the problem is. You do need to sell the house, right?

If you want to maybe post some pics for us, that also may help. I just got a free photo album from picassa.com, my album maybe you'd like to get one?

I went back over your old posts and have some questions.

What should my realtor be doing?
Posted by linda117 on Sat, May 19, 07 at 21:39 - 30 showings and only 1 lowball offer? Thats pretty good feedback if you ask me. Would you feel better about lowering the price if you were on the market for 4 months and had 30 showings? Thats alot of people to come thru your house with no one biting. I have to agree you need to lower the price. It doesnt matter how long you've been on the market, it matters how many people have come thru. The buyers are speaking loud and clear. Houses that are priced right sell way before 30 people come thru. Most houses never even get to 30 showings.

Linda gave pretty good input IMO - especially after reading some of your other posts: This one below says you realistically should be at $545

Interpreting the comps
Posted by jellyben on Sat, Feb 17, 07 at 20:15 - We are going to talk with a couple more realtors to see what they say, but unless we are in a true time crunch I would rather price it higher than she suggests. A house with our exact floor plan(but on a busier street and without the updates we have) sold last summer for $565. I am not saying that we will get the same, but why not shoot a little higher than $525. And if we go off the avg price/sf we should be at $545. I am very interested to see what some other realtors say.

Next post:
Replace the carpet or carpet allowance? - We are selling soon and the 2 realtors we interviewed both suggested instead of changing the carpe that we just clean it up and offer a carpet allowance if it becomes an issue. It is now most definitely going to become an issue since my 6yo spilled latex paint on it!

Did you ever replace the carpet or just have it cleaned?

You also say I do have to say that keeping the home in show-condition with 3 kids and a dog is just about killing me!

When people are walking the house, where are you and the 3 kids & dog? What is the shape of the house?

our agent made a point of telling me during our last conversation that she is the listing agent, not a selling agent. What is the difference?!

Sounds to me like she will not be bringing people by to look at your house. My agent is not only a listing agent but a selling agent. She will be showing the house herself on Tuesday. Her husband works with her, if this person makes an offer, her husband will work with the buyer, she will stay with us (if I understood correctly)

I feel your pain, as do a few others that have been following all of your posts. We'd like nothing better then to give you advice on how to get the house sold, but there is only so much we can do. I don't understand if you came here to vent or to get real feedback? I think most of us are getting just as frustrated as you are for other reasons. We'd like to help but it's getting to the point where everything has been said and really, how much more can we say?

It's hard to know if the house realistically should be $525 or $545; at this point since a lot of houses got listed you are probably over priced. Maybe you need to ask about someone verbally making the $540 offer. If you accept in writing, what happens next.... Your realtor obviously isn't answering your questions.

Here is a link that might be useful: realtor.com seattle search $550 - $600 4br

I also feel your pain. But, I think I pretty much said all I could offer on the "Lowball" thread without actually seeing your MLS offer.

There's vast collective experience on this Forum from realtors, sellers, buyers, & lenders. It's quite possible one of us may have a beneficial idea that would help you sell. If you just want to rant...please tell us that & we will just acknowledge your pain; but not put so much personal effort into trying to problem solve.

I told you on the "Lowball" thread that your first buyer was going to read you as "difficult". That's what happened. No surprise. And no good comes from crying over spilt milk. So, get on with it & either allow us to offer suggestions or end your posts with, "No response expected!"

We tend to become rather personally vested in "our" threads & brainstorm collectively for solutions. So, we would all like for you to sell.

Tricia

Link below-be gentle. The big tree, well, it's a big tree in fron tof the house, but it hasn't come up as a negative in the feedback. I have thought that if we need to relist that maybe we should take it out.

I could hash out the lowball offer all day but the bottom line is we can't tie up our house with a buyer who has yet to get financing for the purchase.

Answers to questions above:
We did replace the carpet thanks to my son who spilled a gallon of paint on the old carpet!
When people come we are gone. We have met a few people on our way out but didn't stick around.
Our agent has shown the house to 2 couples who didn't have an agent. If they make an offer she would refer them to another agent in her office as she doesn't do dual representation(is that the term?)
As far as our price, when we listed 565 seemed entirely doable-houses are selling for that. Now our agent says we were overpriced for the age of the house and the size of the kitchen(how I wish she realized that a month ago) and she thinks we are where we should be now.

If we do not sell and her listing expires, how long until we relist? We had 3 second showings ths weekend(one family stayed 30 minutes according to my neighbor). Since we are pretty motivated at this point, is it ever a good idea for our agent to call them, feel them out and maybe let them know this? If they are on the fence maybe that would push them to our side? She said she will follow up in a day or 2 but doesn't want to appear anxious. Of course I get that she can't make someone buy a house they don't want.

Here is a link that might be useful: listing

The house looks great to me. It looks clean and very nicely decorated.

This is a hard question, but does it also smell nice and clean? I was in a house last week and the dog smell was completely overwhelming (and they had a tiny dog). Kids can be kind of smelly too! Ask friends and family to do a smell test and even if they tell you it smells great, fabreeze the whole place!

If there is no bad smell then there may be some other defect you are not considering or it is priced too high.

Link below-be gentle.

Be gentle about what and what took you so long?

The house is beautiful, not a thing wrong with it. It looks like a model home.

The only thing I can say is that maybe you have too many pictures online, but it isn't appearing to stop people from looking.

At realtor.com, the house isn't coming up using the MLS. I didn't try to search any other way as I'm in the middle of steaming my carpets. The house isn't listed for sale at zillow, I'd add whatever you could there also.

The house looks beautiful, very nice pictures. I think the tree out front is very pretty, I wouldn't remove it. You might have the front picture retaken from an angle that shows the front of the house better, though. A little trimmed off the bottom would be good, too.

Good luck!

I also wanted to address the tree and forgot - I wouldn't touch it either and would also retake the pic.

I have to say, the house front looks like an artist drawing and not a photo. I wondered if it was the actual picture.

roselvr - I thought the same thing about the exterior photo. It looks like it's been majorly photoshopped.

Jellyben - you do contradict yourself sometimes. You stated earlier that you knew the average selling price would be about $545K, but you wanted to list high against your realtor's advice. The problem is that houses last summer WERE selling for more, but here we are a year later and prices have dropped. You need to get out of the seller's market mindset.

I also suggest you listen to Tricia. I'm in total agreement with her because, to be honest, your posts are extremely frustrating because you come here wanting advice, but you don't take any of it! You have been told by your realtor to reduce the price, you were told never to refuse an offer and to counter and all you did was have a negative attitude that the first offer wouldn't work out.

Quite honestly, I bet your realtor is frustrated with you! She IS doing her job. She got you an offer that was 93% of list - which is a fabulous starting point to creep up in negotiations.

I suggest you reduce your price since you're in such a time crunch. And as Tricia said, if you're just venting, then say so in your thread because I know I'm frustrated and it appears others are too.

BTW, your home is beautiful. The only thing I would possibly change is to re-arrange your LR to move the couch away from the window. You are blocking what could be a beautiful view. Perhaps you could put the wing chairs there instead.

Are the pictures taken with a lens that makes the rooms (and yard) look larger than they actually are?

The backyard photo looks a little skewed and it made me really start looking at the other photos and they all look a little "stretched." If this is the case, you may be getting showings because the rooms (and yard particularly) look spacious, but you might not be getting offers because they are much smaller in real life.

sparksals-our original meetings with realtors were in Jan or Feb, and by the time we went on market 4BR homes were selling for 565-575, which is why we went from 545 to 565. Don't know why our realtor would be frustrated with us-she said list at 565 to generate possible multiple offers, we took her advice. She said lower the price to 550 and get it over with, we listened and are still waiting for an offer.

As far as the pics, I don't think the front pic was photoshopped. It was taken on a rather cloudy day which I think just created a really nice shot. I think the rooms look true to size. I have had several people smell my home since we do have a dog, but no bad odor was reported!

I think your realtor would be frustrated because you refused to counter what is considered an extremely good starting offer and the defeatist attitude you exhibited that the potential buyer wouldn't come up to your satisfaction. You don't know unless you try!

Sitting down resting once again. Last time I looked at the realtors site, I saw she has 2 listings, yours and one for $789,000.

Quite honestly, I bet your realtor is frustrated with you! She IS doing her job. She got you an offer that was 93% of list - which is a fabulous starting point to creep up in negotiations.

I suggest you reduce your price since you're in such a time crunch. And as Tricia said, if you're just venting, then say so in your thread because I know I'm frustrated and it appears others are too.

Do me a favor. Look here. Reading what she says, to me, she sounds like a big BS artist. I don't doubt she went in there and fed them a big line and when the market dropped, she turned it around on the seller. I used to hang out with a realtor like that.

Clients First
My approach to Real Estate is to provide you with the information you need to make an informed home-buying or selling decision. Whether that means providing you with an accurate market value for your current home or helping you research neighborhoods to help land your dream home, I do my homework so you don't have to.

Marketing Expert
I spent 10 years in the technology industry and served as the Director of Marketing at WRQ Software. As a result I know how to launch your home on to the market--resulting in a higher price and a faster sale. My background in market research means I will work with you to price your home correctly and make sure you don't pay too much when you buy a home.

As far as the pics, I don't think the front pic was photoshopped. It was taken on a rather cloudy day which I think just created a really nice shot. I

Honestly, I think the photo is hurting you. As I said, it doesn't look real. It's a beautiful image, but to me, I would wonder if it is accurate.

I really want to see you sell this house. I can see you are frustrated and wondering what is going on. I also think that everyone may be dead on price wise and that the agent probably misled you. You're now sitting here, dumbfounded as to why your beautiful, magazine perfect home is sitting.

Your agent IMO is not honest in what she says from the page I linked to. How is she marketing the house if it isn't even coming up on realtor.com? FWIW, neither of her listings are coming up via MLS search there. I also just did a search there using your zip & price range w/ bedrooms & baths - nothing came up. Is she so exclusive to herself that her office is the only one that knows it's for sale? Before I did a search of Seattle in your price range, houses came up, so I have no clue why it isn't pulling her MLS listing.

I went to Remax Northwest using the MLS, it did come up. There appears to be more pictures there then at her site, including one of the front from a different angle.

As far as the pics, I don't think the front pic was photoshopped.

I would bet that not only has the front been photoshopped, but so has a total of 4 pictures. What they do is select something to the effect of say making a photograph into a watercolor painting. While it's beautiful, in some parts I don't think it's allowed due to misrepresentation IIRC from other posts. I'd have her change them asap.

I think your realtor would be frustrated because you refused to counter what is considered an extremely good starting offer and the defeatist attitude you exhibited that the potential buyer wouldn't come up to your satisfaction. You don't know unless you try!

The agents comment about telling her she is the listing agent, not a selling agent makes me wonder if she doesn't know how to negotiate. Is there a reason why she only has 2 listings? She should have advised her back when they got the offer to try to work with it. According to the agents bio, she should be more then qualified to negotiate the offer and make the seller think they are getting a good deal; no?

roselvr - from what you posted from the realtor's site, I think you're onto something that the LA probably misled Jellyben a bit, but not on price. Jellyben specifically said in a post above that you quoted that she wanted to list higher than her realtor suggested and AFAICR, she didn't post any info about what the realtor's advice was per countering the one offer they did get. From what she wrote, she decided that it wouldn't go through no matter what, so why bother even countering?

Besides, when one offers on a home, isn't it standard to include a pre-qual letter and then in the negs, the seller counters with a specific timeframe to provide the financing approval? That's how it's always been done when I bought and sold. Jellyben didn't even give them the chance to do so because she didn't counter with that requirement. I also don't see any requirement in the listing that a formal approval letter has to accompany an offer, which I think it should since it departs from protocol.

I do think that the exterior photos make the house look "trumped up" and more like an artist's drawing of spec homes you see at those architectural plan websites. I think it makes the home look unrealistic and could be turning off some buyers.

I do have to say that the realtor uses fantastic descriptions with her photos. She definitely has a knack for the verbage to give a positive spin on the home.

I do agree that the realtor is misleading if she told Jellyben that she's a listing agent when her bio gives detailed descriptions of what she does to sell your home. That is a very good point!

I'd have to reread what I quoted tomorrow about the price. IIRC, The posts were before the market got to this point, so before when she made the posts, she may have been ok with it; but now the price isn't realistic. This is where that great realtor comes in. She should have sat her down and told her that the market changed and we need to act since you need to sell. After all, her bios states she will work with the client to price the home correctly.

Having a realtor that claims to have that much experience yada yada; she would be able to talk the seller into going after that buyer; after all, if you read the lowball post, some of the posters were able to change her mind. Why couldn't this experienced great realtor do that?

Rereading the posts, Jellyben knew in her heart the price was too much. The realtor technically should have been able to be straight with her saying, ok we can try listing at that "old" price for a few weeks, if we have activity and no bites, then we have to revisit pricing. Our realtor said almost the same thing to us, so we knew going in; plus I read here just like jellyben does, so I know it would have to be done.

I do think that the exterior photos make the house look "trumped up" and more like an artist's drawing of spec homes you see at those architectural plan websites. I think it makes the home look unrealistic and could be turning off some buyers.

Exactly, which is probably misleading when you actually get to the house. This is a used house, I highly doubt the outside looks that perfect still.

Jellyben How long is your contract for?

The problem with the current market is that there are a lot of agents out there that aren't familiar with the transition from a seller's market to a buyer's market, and they don't know how to price correctly. Even seasoned veterans are scratching their heads when it comes to coming up with the right price. Normally an agent will look at comps and come up with a realistic price. With an increasing number of homes on the market buyers are able to be choosier, and the law of supply and demand says that the larger the supply, the lower the price should be. The problem is that sellers are very reluctant to admit that in order to set their house apart they need to reduce the price. Compounding the problem are appraisals that are coming in higher than what sellers can really get for their homes.

sparksals, it was on our agents advice that we didn't make a formal counter offer to the low offer.

We have an offer, and we have agreed on 545. Hoping the inspection goes well.

Yay! That's good news. I hope everything proceeds smoothly for you. I think the house looks lovely.

The agent advised you not to formally counter? Seriously? In a slowing market? Wow! She certainly toots her own horn when it's not deserved.

OK I don't get the thing about formally countering when the buyer can't produce financial back-up that they can buy the home in the first place even with the lower initial offer. I can see if that is in place that it would be worth working, but .... Seems to me the agent was doing her job.

Yay on the offer!!

Great to hear about the offer.

And, I just want to add, I never thought jelly's posts were that frustrating. At least, she wasn't supposedly asking us questions, and then arguing with us when she didn't get the answer she wanted to hear. Maybe, I missed those threads, but she wasn't bringing that baggage into every other thread.

YAY! To the offer. I hope it works out. :-)

jellyben: sparksals, it was on our agents advice that we didn't make a formal counter offer to the low offer.

I am sitting here in shock. What possible reason could she have had to not offer any counter?

Wow, this thread has moved fast since I last checked in.

Jelly...your house is beautiful!

I agree with the business about the first exterior shot of the home...looks like an artist's rendering? Very weird. Jumps right out at you.

Does not matter. An offer's on the table! I'm very pleased for you. This time, I'm imagining that everybody's on board to make it stick.

When's the inspection?

Wishing you fair winds, smooth sailing, & safe harbor.

Tricia

PS You are more tolerant than I am. I would not have done well with your agent.

Jellyben, congrats and wishing you luck that everything goes smooth!

If you can find a feedback site (there's been a few links recently) to give the realtor feedback, I would do that. This woman needs a wake up call. I'm convinced she's been giving you bad advice. Thankfully you have this place!