As someone who thought they were a buyer but is now starting to wonder all I can say is its all about price and condition. Since I know I don't want to be here in 9 years when I retire, the downward spiraling economy and prices makes me gun shy. Will I be able to sell in 9 years? Only if I buy a super good deal and can pass that low price on later when times might just be turning around. Otherwise I'm scared to buy.

That's a good way to look at it, marys1000... but just another thing I forgot to add in my introduction-post:

-What do you think about the price in comparison with the condition of that house in my previous link?
-Do you believe it's a fair price? Or maybe we should higher it, or lower it? (...Also taking the 'downward spiraling economy and prices' into account before concluding your thoughts. Any further ideas?)

Here is a link that might be useful: Russel Real Estate

Since all real estate is local it's hard to know if you are priced right. Have you looked at competing homes? I have to say that the furniture arrangements in some of your rooms is a bit odd and there's no oomph in your listing. Your home looks like it could benefit from staging, which you can do yourself. I recommend you pick up a book like The Complete Idiot's Guide to Staging Your Home to Sell. Then have your agent take new pictures, preferably with a wide angle lens. Your front picture shows too much street. See how much better it looks when it's cropped a bit.

Before:
{{!gwi}}

After:
{{!gwi}}

Also, the exterior shot should be taken when the sun is on the front of the house.

I could tear apart your pictures for you, but if you look at them objectively I think you can tell they are pretty bad. If you are going to have furniture in the house, please do as terriks has suggested and stage it a bit. I would highly recommend a professional photographer if that is the best your Realtor can do. And then have the new pictures improved pictures swapped out for those.

Saying that, Ohio is not exactly a hot bed for selling real estate right now.

marys1000-"As someone who thought they were a buyer but is now starting to wonder all I can say is its all about price and condition. Since I know I don't want to be here in 9 years when I retire, the downward spiraling economy and prices makes me gun shy."

I feel the same.

One in 501 houses in America is in foreclosure. I am concerned about buying in an area that might be affected by this problem before things start to look up again.

EEEEEKKKK!!! You have green carpeting!! LOL I'm not criticizing -- I have green carpeting also in my family room and it is the one thing that seems to make some people turn their noses up. If we are unable to sell by Thanksgiving, the first thing I am going to do is replace that green carpeting (which is still in excellent condition but I'm tired of it too).

I think the pictures/staging that are bother people is the coffee table sort of over near the door and maybe the 2nd dresser in the bedroom. I can see cropping the street out of the picture but I don't like how the cropping makes the neighbors house seem closer or cuts out the yard and tree by the garage - the outside of the house is really important to me. If its a particularly large lot for the area, backs to a more open area etc. Are basements the norm for your area? If not and its a dry basement (hard to get here) I might highlight that.
How are the mechanicals? Plumbing? Electric? Roof? furnace air? If things have been kept up mention that - people automatically take those sorts of exensive fixes off the price of the house mentally.
Otherwise your price seems ok to me without knowing too much about the local - your about 96 per sq ft? That seems ok, but I would do a search and see what else comes up for comparable neighborhood/schools/sq ft.
Good Luck!

Thanks, marys1000 and everyone for all the good advice. I'll take everything into consideration and if anyone comes up with more advice/ideas, feel free to post them.

I agree the pictures are not good. The pictures don't seem to depict the house/room as much as they do the furniture. I'd remove the printed tablecloth, the dark drapes in the dining room, all the area rugs, the wallpaper border and re-arrange the furniture for better balance and flow. Good luck.

The first picture shows a bare tree so that dates it already. Also the whole front of your house is in the shade. It needs to be redone so that it is current and in the sun.

The other pictures aren't great either. Nothing grabs you and makes you want to see this house, nothing makes it stand out.

You need to research staging and make these pictures and your home more inviting.

My mom's house had green carpet and I sold it in 3 days, but it had nice tile under the carpet. What is under your carpet? If it is a wood floor you should take a look at it and remove the carpet if it's in decent shape.

Good luck!

My reaction to the pictures was also 'eh'. I couldn't get a sense of the floorplan or size of the house.

FWIW, I don't mind the green carpeting but the listing mentions wood floors underneath. You may want to remove the carpeting in at least one room (the living/dining rooms) and refinish the floors. My parents' agent removed the carpeting in their foyer and refinished the floors to show that their house was all wood flooring. It definitely made a difference.

The main thing to remember is that you want buyers not only find you but also want to see (and buy!) the house. So marketing, presentation, information and the pictures are key elements. Mary is right about the mechanicals - there should be information about them in the listing

I think the exterior picture is seriously in need of being retaken. It's so dark, I can't even see the front door.

Also, the spruce is looming in the front yard dwarfing the house. It's size is out-of-scale to the house & planting location. To minimize it, I strongly recommend a pot of colorful summer annuals near the side door & a hanging basket or pot of flowers at the front door. The hit of color will bring your eyes to the house & not that huge tree blocking the house.

/tricia

I think that in that price range you are going to attract buyers that don't have a lot of money to re-do things. They are also likely to be relatively inexperienced homeowners and nervous about having to make changes. Therefore the green wall to wall carpeting almost everywhere will be harder for them to overlook.

Depending on your overall financial circumstances you might want to consider tearing out the carpet and refinishing the floors. IF the hardwood floors underneath are strip oak. If they are that parquet stuff then you might want to install a neutral berber everywhere as cheaply as you can.

The kitchen seems pretty nice so I'd lose the fridge magnets and rug and retake that picture maybe in the direction of looking out the sink window. As others have pointed out the exterior picture is quite bad. The cover over the side entry screams "low rent" and the rest of the home doesn't. It seems to me that the picture should have been taken from the other side.

The house really does look immaculate.

All I see is a lot of work and I wouldn't even waste my time to go look at your house unless it was priced considerably less than your competition to make it worth it for me to do the work. I've been there done that with my last two houses and this 3rd house we ended up with new construction, which has been nice in that I don't have to spend every weekend working on the house. We can go back to normal hobbies now.

As others asked how bad is the floors under the carpet? I would rip it out if the floor is still in decent condition. Maybe see how much to fix if it needs a sanding.

Remove drapes and let the light in. Most people want a light filled house and not dark and drab as your pics suggest.

I'd also remove the border in the kitchen as it is a very personal choice and most people are not going to share the same taste and not everybody can see past things like that.

Some rooms look cramped with furniture and others seems to have it lining the walls with lots of open space. Maybe try to remove some and look at maybe floating some furniture to make a room seem more inviting.

Then as others said I'd have the pics re-done.

It does look very clean - but try to make it appeal more to the masses.

Who would be the typical buyer of your house? A young family? A young couple? First time home buyer? Move-up house?

I think you need to know that and see about staging your house to appeal to your most likely buyer.

I agree with Lyfia, you really need to understand who is the most likely buyer for this type of house and cater to their needs. I think when you sell a house your really selling a way of life or living.

Being brutally honest for your own benefit;

First impressions, the exterior looks very utilitarian, little or no landscaping, no emphasis on the front door, no curb appeal.

The interior to me, screams late-80s early-90s. Its probably the wall to wall oak that is giving the most vibe. But, so many other things support that feeling, the torchiere lamp, the entertainment center, VCR tapes, the fabric on your sofa. I had that exact same coffee table in 1990.

The oriental areas rugs don't go with the rest of the decor and seem oddly out of place.

I think if the target buyer is a young couple/family you have a tough sell "as is". I think some staging and updating can greatly improve your odds (depending on who the likely buyer is).

Sorry for the tough love. Good luck on selling your house.

Since you have hardwoods under your green carpet, you should remove the carpet. I notice the carpet in the master is beige and looks newer. If all the bedrooms have this carpet and it is in good condition you could leave it but make sure it is clean. Lots of people still like carpet in bedrooms.

In the kitchen remove the large area rug and take everything off the fridge. The picture is dark, can it be retaken and brightened up?

I notice on Zillow that your house value is listed as about $130,000. Now I know Zillow is often completely wrong, but could you be over priced? Also it says you only have one bathroom. If you have two bathrooms you can go in and fix the error.

You might also seriously think about taking that pine tree down. For some folks a tree, that size, that close to the house is a big turn off.

Thanks again for further opinions and tips, I'll make sure to meet with my parents and discuss ideas... truthfully, we already moved out of the house so now there's no much left to do about photography, but I'll check out other possibilities you listed. Thanks again.

So the house is empty? Most houses look better with some furniture, but this one might photograph better empty.

You could still take a new picture of the front of your house and a new picture of the kitchen with a little staging going on. If you pull up the green carpets you could take a new picture of the livingroom with the hardwood floors showing.

You might also seriously think about taking that pine tree down. For some folks a tree, that size, that close to the house is a big turn off.

But for others cutting it down would be a catastrophic deal breaker!

silent_auction, you moved out since yesterday?

If you are priced right depends on the comps in the neighborhood and in this economy, the turn over of homes in your neighborhood. No one here can tell you that if they don't live in your neighborhood.

What I notice from the listing is the house was built in 1965. What the listing doesn't say is, how old is the roof, the furnace and A/C? Probably original or the listing would advertise that before the deck and hot tub.

Because of that, I am not interested in seeing your home.

Get on your agent to fix the listing, a hot tub is not a main selling point, nor is a deck.

Also, it says "Tax Amount: $836.00" Is that really your property taxes?

We haven't put our house on the market yet, but are going to soon. In the meantime, DH sent an email around work since it is a close commute (less than 20 minutes- almost unheard of around here) and we have someone coming out this weekend to see it!

If you live close to a major business center, I would see about how to advertise directly there. People may not be thinking about buying, necessarily, but if they see your home and it is very close to work, in these times of high gas prices, they may consider it a move. Anyway, it's worth a shot.

Good luck!

I sold my house yesterday and put an offer on a house about two weeks ago so I see selling and buying from two perspectives. First, as a seller, you don't want to spend money for a house you are leaving. But, if you would rearrange your furniture a bit, take down the wall paper, also add a few decorative accessories-not a bunch of little things, but a few well placed bigger things with real impact. Also, I like you drapes, but modern buyers would consider that a bit dated. Everything now a days is sheer, light open etc. I got sheer material from Walmart and made simple drapes-$1.00 a yard. They look great-like silk. If you don't sew, you can use glue. Add a few flowers to your yard. A buyer wants to just move in these days. As a buyer, I was looking for a clean house, I didn't want to take on a bunch of projects. I wanted move in ready. I am not your normal buyer as I am willing to replace carpeting, paint etc. My new family room has hideous wood paneling, but I still bought it. The price was right. In a more expensive house I would have requested that the sellers provide a bit of money for this. I don't know if you are pricing aggressively or trying to get top dollar that makes a difference too. Watch designed to sell, they have great tips. I don't mean the crazy stuff-ripping out bathrooms, but furniture arrangement, accessories etc.

I agree with those who say the furniture placement is really odd. The masterbedroom looks over crowded with furniture on one side and completely empty on the other. Can you rearrange that room so that it makes better use of the space?

The kitchen photo screams 'no counter space'. If you could take it from a different angle, it may be better.

The house needs quite a bit of updating. Quite honestly, with the photos as they are, I wouldn't even look at it.

I have had luck selling my home last year by holding a bidder sale. I must have had about a hundred or so people come through over the course of a weekend. There was quite a bit of planning and work to get all the advertising and signs and flyers out but I got it sold in just a couple of weeks. There is a good ebook about the whole thing at www.12daysale.com.

Here is a link that might be useful: 12 Day Sale

Silent, anything new? I agree with the above posts that removing green carpet and rearranging some of the furniture would do a lot for a little. What is the economy like in your area in Ohio? Are people losing jobs or is kind of steady? Good luck with selling your home.

You are selling in Ohio. I just bought a house in Cortland Ohio. We are closing on August 21st.

Nothing has changed on his listing. The main picture with the house in the shadows should certainly be redone, I don't understand why someone wouldn't at least do that.

This house would probably be better with just the one main picture and none of the inside ones.