Well, where are you located? What is your market like there? What was your initial asking price, and what are you asking for it now? What is your house like? Are you working with an agent or trying to go FSBO?

I know some markets are really slow but a year seems like an awfully long time. Ours was on the market for about 3 months and it seemed like forever.

If you give us more information, we may be able to offer some suggestions.

i>Our asking price is now the price we bought the house for.

How long have you owned the house? If you bought it in the last three years, chances are that it is no longer worth more than you paid for it...and it might be worth less.

I feel for you as our house was on the market for almost 2 years. Rural area, mountains, dirt roads etc. First 2 realtors no good, one a "friend" and other insisted advertising in the "big" city. 3rd realtor, local gal--great person, knew the area and sold in a week. Also listed and sold 3 other homes in same area. Great personality and knew her clients and cared.
If you are in a small town, there could be other problems you are not aware of. Unless you really want/need to sell, pull it off until spring. Do some research as to why yours did not sell--colors, yard, neighbors, lay-out, etc. Take time to go thru one room at a time and pretend YOU are looking to buy. You might be surprised to notice things you don't see now.
Good luck

I really feel for you. We are in a similar situation. We have been trying to sell for 1year and two months. We have gone through 4 realtors plus two months of FSBO in the middle of the 4. We had 3 contracts fall through. We have lowered the price 10% already and it looks like we'll have to lower it again once we sign up with realtor #5 next month. The worst part is we've been paying 3 mortgages for the past 7months. I don't have much advice for you. We are extremely tired too. I hope things pick up for all of us.
al

We purchased our home almost 4 years ago for $160,000. We spent $20,000 to add a 3rd stall garage and some egress windows. Our asking price was $190,000 and now it's currently at $169,000. Our Realtor commission is 3-4% depending on which realtor sells it.

Our contract is with 3 out of 5 different realty companies and we also have the option of selling it ourselves. So no ideas in this area.

Custom homes start at $220,000 but the square feet is about 2,000 which is about half of ours. Our house is very old, but has been stripped down and remodeled by the previous owners.

Our market isn't very good to begin with and it just keeps getting worse.

I'm so glad we have not moved yet. I can't imagine having more than 1 mortgage let alone 3. When we have a solid offer that is when we will start looking. Till then, we will have one mortgage.

How do you go about doing research about why it didn't sell?

Most of the people that look at our house have not even got the job yet. They are here for the interview and want to look around at some possibilites. That way if they get the offer they don't have to come back to find a house.

Any help?

uniquecrafts2000 wrote: How do you go about doing research about why it didn't sell?

The best way to get feedback about your property is to talk to agents who have brought clients through your home. I never did this myself, our listing Agents(s) made the calls, but it sounds like you don't have a full service Realtor?

I know what you mean about not spending money, it's hard when you know you won't recoup it but sometimes in a saturated market it's necessary so that your home stands out from the rest of the inventory. We have probably spent $10K in the past month and we are not done.

You still didn't say where your home is located....with that information, someone may be able to offer better advice.

Good Luck....you're not alone. We were on the market in NoVA from April-Oct of this year, have been off for the past 8 weeks, and with any luck (problems with the floor refinishers, arrrrrrgh) we will be "officially" back on by the end of next week.

Hang in there!

If there are new homes half the size of yours selling for more then it's got to be the condition or location.

A "very old" 400O square foot house is likely to have some interesting details. 100 years ago it just wasn't that common to build such a large house.

Can you post a link?

RE: Motivation
Personally I'd say that you need to look inside yourself at what you want (why you're selling the house) instead of where you are. I'm trying not to be too cold here but you really need to get over the motivation issue and just "get 'er done" If you're suffering motivational issues then you need to drop the price and get the deal over with. For example, if I said I'd have your house sold in a month but you'd need to pay X amount out of pocket, what would be the maximum X amount that you'd accept....there's your number.

RE: House Condition
This is a problem, people are looking for a home in most cases, no a house (investors or single people would be the exception). Would you want to buy a messy home? Surely you've read all of the tips on selling and have implemented all of them. A few of the bigger 'violators' that I've seen: remove personal effects (photos, family heirlooms, etc)

RE: Showings
Keep in mind that you can say no. I'd be frank with realtors and ask if they've prequalified their buyers and why they want to look at your place. Be warned however that some realtors will be offended and might not show your place in the future. If you agent has it together they should be making follow-up calls to their showing agents and ask why their buyers didn't want the place and what would need to happen to get an offer. Our realtor did this with our place and he was one of the best I've seen. What does a market analysis look like for comparable homes in your area?

RE: Listing
If the house is as large as you say I'd look for homeschool or other groups that have large families in your area and ask if you could forward the listing information to their email distribution list or drop off some flyers. Some of these organizations tend to be close knit and information will get around fast.

RE: Contract
Make the contract time as short as possible. There are many buyers holding out for 'the big drop' and the longer you wait the worse it will get as people see longer times on the market.

Start of '07 with a bang and get it sold......

I think you need a fresh outlook and approach for the new year. If possible find a new agent with new ideas about how to market your home and also with fresh eyes as to what needs to be changed in the home. You'd be surprised at how many things are small cosmetic changes that cost little money but have a big impact.

I live in the Nebraska Panhandle, small town. We only have 5 realty companies and we are listed with 3 of them. We can also sell the house ourselves if we like.

As for organizations... I have told people in town, but being such a small town everyone knows our house is on the market, they simply don't need a flyer to tell them.

As for large families... they simply can't afford it. We have shown the house to many big families and they all say they would love to buy it. But they simply can't afford it.

Realtors in our town show houses first then qualify. They simply don't want to loose a potential client. If they show the house first then they get the commission. MLS doesn't exsist here.

I guess what I'm really looking for is some inspiration. Our first house we sold (not in this town) sold in 5 days. I can't believe it's been over a year.

As for agents giving ideas... they don't have any. We were thinking about tape recording showings. Is that legal? We simply want to find out what is being said. I don't think the realtors here tell us everything that's said. I think they all tell us what we want to hear or they make something up.

Some questions to help you and us work on your issue:

Why did *you* buy the house? Whatever good points you saw are probably the same ones you need to play up now to prospective buyers.

Why are you moving out of the house? Too small? Too old? Too far out of town? Those are the features you need to minimize.

When you say you live in a small town, how small? A few hundred people? A few thousand? 20 thousand? Are there enough people that someone who already lives there might buy your house or do you need someone who is new to the town?

What kinds of businesses are there to bring new people to the area? Is your house considered entry-level or is it something someone would move up into, from a smaller house?

I can't imagine how discouraging it would be to have your house on the market for that long, but with the holidays over and spring approaching this is a good time to start marketing it again. Try to look at your house as a prospective buyer would - look at it with fresh eyes - What's good? What's bad that can be changed? What's bad that can't be changed?

Good luck -
Minet

If familes can afford $220,000 then they can afford $169,000. Or are no houses selling at all?

I'm also curious about how small a town it is. If it's that small, how can there be five agencies? Why are you listed with three and not just one or all five? Also - you mentioned people looking at the house who don't have jobs in the area yet. Is there one big employer? What draws newcomers to your town? How many newcomers does your town average in a given year? Are they just sightseeing? Has anyone local looked at your house?

Can you put a sign in your front yard? If it's a really small town then that's all you need to do as far as making people aware goes.

If you are in a very small town with a stable population you probably aren't going to sell until someone's circumstances change. And my gut is telling me there are condition issues with the house.

It may be that your choices are to drop the price dramatically enough to make it affordable to a larger group of people or to stay put. If people have to put a lot of money into the house right away, then they are looking at the total cost.

I don't know if it's legal to put cameras or recording devices in houses to record prospective buyer's responses. I always told realtors what it was about a house I didn't like and I trusted in the realtor to let the seller know the thing or things that turned me off about the house, I don't know if those things were ever conveyed, I think some of them could have been very offended by some of my observations and not sure if a realtor would relay the offensive comments. (Sorry, but if a house stinks of pets, I'm gonna tell the realtor!!). Whenever we were selling a home, I always wanted to hear the negative comments, if there seemed to me a lot of negative comments about something specific, I'd certainly want to change it to appeal to more buyers. I wonder if there is some kind of survery form you could make up, if prospective buyers would even complete it, a form that gave them the opportunity to let you know what about the house was not to their liking.