Expert: Jessica Bryan - 7/30/2006

Question
Our house has been on the market for over 2 months in Sacramento, Ca. We have had 8 open houses and only 3 people have shown up. We have a georgeous 2 year old home that according to our agent "shows well" and it has been staged, but we are not getting any calls to see the house & we have not goten one offer. We have not heard from our realtor in almost 3 weeks and she has not suggested a new marketing plan. Do we have a bad listing agent? This is our first time selling a house and we just do not know what to expect. We know that the market is bad right now, but we jsut are not sure if our agent should be doing more or even what more she could do.  

Answer
Dear Chris;
Let's not blame the agent just yet!  First of all, when you listed the home did the agent make a suggestion of the price of the home based on current comparable sales?  Were there lots of other homes on the market in your area and if so, how many have sold?  If you are priced correctly for the market and other homes have sold before yours, then I would say that you need to look at what and why those have sold.  

Your listing agent should spend less time with open houses since 8 in two months is not doing any good at all.  Take some time to sit down with your agent (call and schedule an appointment) and discuss your concerns with her. If you haven't heard from your agent in almost 3 weeks your agent may be afraid to call you.  Sometimes people don't realize how difficult they are with their agent.  If their home doesn't sell right away they blame the agent and can be uncooperative or not open to suggestions.  After a while the agent stops calling.  The other possibility is that the agent is more interested in new listings and has moved on.  If that is the case then this person needs a 'friendly' reminder that she is supposed to provide you with the service you deserve.  Call and let her know that you are disappointed with her service and see how she responds.

You agent should stage a broker's open house and invite the brokers to a walk through of your home to give suggestions and feedback on the price of the home and any suggestions that will help get the home sold.  If that has already been done, then it may very well be that this market is just very slow and you will have to either lower your price or take the home off the market for a while.  If you must move, then think about leasing out the house for a while.
Good luck,
Jessica Bryan