Kind of late to be questioning this. How long is the contract for? 6 months?

This is a very slow time in most parts of the country, just before Labor Day and the start of school. Lousy time to list, IMHO. And yes, top listing people with assistants are not used to giving personal service, Forget him, ask the assistants who you can talk to, get in touch with.

Sorry you have to go through this but one thing that's important to remember is that the Realtor did not price the house -- you did. He may have made a recommendation but the seller always determines the asking price not the realtor. Also if he doesn't respond to your email you need to call his cell phone until he picks up.

I have a lot of questions, so bear with me. If you are willing to post the URL to the listing you'll get a lot of feedback so you'd know what to talk to the realtor about.

Is the house in the MLS? Do you have a lock box on it? Do you have any restrictions on showings? Do the pictures look professional and show the house with its best face forward? Is it on the various real estate websites (Zillow, Trulia, Redfin, Realtor, etc.)? Are they doing weekend open houses? How is the house priced compared with recent comparable sales (not listings -- close sales)? How busy is the "busy street?" Is it a standard residential street with a lot of traffic coming in and out of a development or is it a major road (such as 4 lanes)? Because you are on a busy street you might find that your house might sell for 10-20% less than the same house if it was located on a quiet street. Are there commercial businesses nearby?

If the problem is the busy street no amount of marketing will overcome that. Only thing you can do is lower the price. The house is only worth what someone will pay for it. If there are any great features such as school district, short commute, nice yard, etc. make sure the write up on the websites reflects that.

In my area, a suburb of Los Angeles where most houses sell within a week, agents always do open houses for other agents. The top producers do not delegate the brokers' open house: they show up early, they make the house ready (lights on, windows open, slippers or shoe covers available), they offer snacks or lunch, they hand out full color two-sided information sheets, and they chat with the other agents. They occasionally delegate assistants or new agents to staff the public open houses. They call after every showing to get feedback from the buyers' agent, then they call the seller. Often they will have a stager or agent who specializes in staging who will be the "bad guy" in telling the sellers what they need to change for showing the house before it goes on the market.

Phone calls are usually returned within 24 hours, sometimes 48, but if it is a holiday weekend, they may return the call later or delegate it. They are not nearly as prompt with reading and responding to email, IME, but they are much better at texting.

Have you asked your listing agent what he is doing to market your house? With my listing agent after the first severeal weeks without many showings I asked her to send me an email weekly letting me know what she was doing to market my house. I found that useful, because I found selling my house horrible. I had very little control over the situation and knowing what my realtor was doing behind the scenes helped me control my anxiety. When you listed did your realtor give you an idea about how long it would take you to sell your house?

But, the other thing is that when you are next to something undesirable, a busy road, commercial activity, and in my case a convenience store the price of your home either has be viewed as bargain or you have to wait for the right buyer. So even though you are priced lower than many houses, it may not be enough for a quick sale (if that's what you want).

But, I would encourage you to ask your realtor about what they are doing to market your house, even if the response is from an assistant. And then if you feel the response isn't adequate talk to the realtors broker.

The commission on a $500,000 house is going to be in the $10K-15K range. For that money the realtor should be jumping through hoops and responding quickly. You should establish and maintain high expectations for the amount of money you are paying the realtor. Keep in mind if he thinks the house is overpriced he's not going to put a lot of personal effort into it.

You are getting some good advice. Be sure to carefully inspect the MLS listing for correctness. If something is incorrect, have the assistant correct it. You would be surprised the things in a listing that get messed up and no one sees it. It pays to double check. Make sure the listing pictures are attractive, have good lighting and show your homes best qualities.

I sold a house once in a cookie cutter subdivision a few years ago. My agent was a huge listing agent. She explained that there really wasn't anything special about my home that couldn't be found in 100 other homes in the area. She was correct. She would make sure the listing was correct and we will price the home together, every time it was shown she would have an assistant call for feedback, a feedback document would be generated every week for me and I probably wouldn't see her until the closing when she would appear to pick up the commission check. The commission was lower than anyone else because she listed and sold more houses than pretty much anyone else. She said it sounded cold, but that was how her system worked. /she was the #3 listing agent in the state.

We had a contract in two weeks during a recession. We had a closing in a month. We didn't get or need a lot of TLC, but we did get results.

Be nice to the assistant and be a pest to the listing agent.

Thanks everyone for the great advise!

Jn3344, when I hired the realtor, I didn't expect him to disappear. That changes things, to say the least. You're right, contract is for six months.

Sushipup1, I agree, the target date was for sometime in May. I did the painting, cleaning, packing, hiring handymen, plumbers, etc. I lost a few weeks, due to a broken foot, the flu, more repairs than expected, and those delays turned it into August. One thing I've learned about prepping houses for sale, is that things take twice as long and cost twice as much as you expect.

Stan Z, the answer to your questions is yes, lock box, it is a four lane road, must have appointment so the dogs can be removed. No commercial properties in the general area though.

Lily'smom, thank you! I agree about the Brokers open, but have not heard back from the realtor about having one. I also agree that open houses are more for the realtor, although when we did them last year for the MIL's house, the buyer came from one.

Homechef59, sounds like you hired the perfect realtor! That's what I want too, a realtor to get the job done, with a minimum of stress and fuss. This realtor sounds like she found the perfect system for sales. She should market that.

Elpaso1, a two year wait is way more time than I'd ever spend, but Phoenix is on a grid, and many streets are busy. It shouldn't be a big issue here. Great idea about the comps on this street. I'll ask his assistant to do that.

In my experience, a well know agent with multiple listings and a majority of expensive properties in his list of listings, is the worst you can have. I've found them to be "know it alls" who don't utilize any input from the seller or they are so busy with bigger fish to fry, you can be neglected. I would say the only exception to the rule are those who have positive reviews (recent) from clients in all price ranges. Have you thought about talking to another agent to see what the rules are? It may be that you can cancel, but if you sell to someone who looked under his listing dates, he still gets a commission.

This is not a slow season for Great Phoenix. The weather is getting more gorgeous each day goes by, people are out house hunting, rate is so attractive, and snow birds and Canadians are coming soon.

Around us there are many new houses just came on the market. Some expensive ones sold within two weeks. A house priced at $1.5 million that sit on the market for over one year, it was sold two weeks ago.

We'll be looking at homes in the price range of yours--and won't even consider one on a busy street. We'd take a lesser house to be off a main road--I'm sure there are lots of buyers who are thinking that, so you may have to go even lower :-(.

I agree with homehomegal that you never use the Realtor who will put your listing at the bottom of his priorities. Regardless of what anyone tells you, whose name is on the sign makes very little difference in getting the house sold. It is all about desirability and location. But a "hungry" agent will do everything he can and at least keep in touch with you.