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Be patient, price it right and be flexible. Hopefully, you are fully prepared whether you are listing with an agent or FSBO. Read some of these posts; they do provide both entertainment and practical value. Good luck!
Do not list with a price that you think may be a little on the high side. Start at or near your drop dead price! We listed 11 months ago and now have dropped $70K and still no sale. Had we listed at the price we are at right now perhaps we would have sold? But at the time our drop dead price was different???? And everything Nauntie says above!
Good luck!
If I were you, I would wait until spring time say around March would be the best time to sell. Traditionally, fall and winter are very slow.You will likely to see bunch of sharks in the water and less interested buyers during fall and winter.
People love to pounce on the houses immediately after listed, so make sure you have everything ready: besides pricing it right - do your homework!, you need to make sure you have thought about presentation. Do you need to paint? replace carpet? have it cleaned by professionals? Fix patches in the yard? Mow/trim, etc? Do you have good photos for your brochures? Do you need to have it staged by professionals?
Usually, you will get your best traffic when it is fresh. Good luck.
Good luck Kevin. I guess the first thing you need to know is almost anyone trying to sell in this market is already screwed! That's just the way it is right now and there's not a thing you can do to change it. List for less than you think it's worth because you will be competing with the REOs.
everything above, be careful with the photos, and do some simple staging: declutter, depersonalize, etc. and clean! you'd be surprised how many people show a home in what i call "living condition" (or worse). yes, the buyers have dust bunnies and laundry on their beds, too, but they don't to see yours.
good luck!
"If I were you, I would wait until spring time say around March would be the best time to sell."
That is rotten advice. I've been hearing the same stupid thing for a year now. Those that wait get hosed even more.
i agree with klarek. traditionally, spring is much better than fall/winter for sales, so in years past you would be better off waiting until march. however, prices have been in freefall for a while now, and if you wait 6-7 months to list, your price will have to be that much lower.
Could be Klarek but sales to usually pick up in the Spring and this Spring the election will be out of the way. Also, the durable goods orders for July came out today. Up 1.3% compared to market expectation of up .2%. That's up two months in a row. I'm not sure though if it's the result of the stimulous package.
ZUser
Zuser1, you are banking on the next president actually doing something proactive about our economy. The future is till very fuzzy.
Kevin, price as low as you can afford. Make sure your house is repaired and spotless. Make the yard attractive to buyers and the front door inviting. Take great pictures of the main rooms and the yard. A buyer's first impression is the most important one.
Assuming you have an agent, double check the facts on the MLS. Once my realtor entered the wrong contact information. Thankfully another agent spotted her error, but I am sure we lost a few showings.
Broker open houses work. Brokers who like your house will recommend it to buyers in your price range.
"Could be Klarek but sales to usually pick up in the Spring and this Spring the election will be out of the way. "
That has absolutely nothing to do with it. You are basing your assumption on the complete myth that a) The election has any impact, and b) we are in a normal market. Neither are true. Offering that kind of terrible advice is either being nefariously disingenuous, or completely ignorant. Ask anybody that took their listing off the market last fall because they thought it would be better in the spring. They are suffering big time from that mistake.
Greg1231: Not so much banking on the next president actually doing anything more that the uncertainty will be out of the way. Same with the Congressional election element too. You think they're irelevant?
ZUser
Klarek:
Klarek:
ou
ink
Elections matter for Wall St, not Main st. Changes in taxation on stocks and bonds, interest and dividends, THAT is where uncertainty lies.
you ok there, zuser1?
Klarek: Sorry for the false starts. Zillow seems to do its own thing sometimes. You don't think a lame duck president and an election deadlocked Congress has any effect on the present situation? If it does then it follows that after the election there will be change. Now whether the change will be better or worse is questionable. What isn't questionable is that the numbers show that sales slow in the autumn and winter and pick up in the spring.
ZUser
as for the election, no matter who wins (i am NOT starting that fight!), economic policy takes time to show results. the new president will be sworn in in january and there is just no way, no matter how brilliant he is, no matter how amazing the plan, that he will be able to do much to the economy by march/april. (and that's assuming that he had this brilliant plan completely ready the day he was sworn in and it was passed through congress the very next day)
also, read these boards. we're starting to see a lot of people who can afford their mortgage payments, but have lost equity due to the declining market, considering walking away from their homes. (a whole lotta references to the "albatross". had no idea "rime of the ancient mariner" was such popular reading) you better believe if a few people are floating the idea on this board, there are a whole lot more people thinking of it and doing it around the country. this is not going to help the market. and, what can the new, awesome, brilliant president do about it? this isn't about not being able to afford the payment, this is about not wanting to wait around to rebuild equity. no matter who our new president is, he can't magically restore housing prices to to the bubble era.
The incentive to walk away increases by the day. It will further dilapidate the market. But so long as the market is above fundamentally supported levels, that is not a bad thing. We can take the correction slowly, or quickly.
But one thing is certain: prices will absolutely without one shadow of a doubt be lower next spring. Pulling off the market now in hopes of selling for more then is a fundamentally flawed strategy.
you go klarek!
Really klarek? Then why has the Case SHiller Index for NY shown 2 consecutive month ove rrmonth price INCREASES? If this trend continues, then PRICES WILL BE HIGHER NEXT SPRING!
is the poster in NY? can we generalize from ny to anywhere else in this market? what did the CSI show for other areas of the country MOM?
Alpine, we're not talking about NY. Do you keep pictures of just yourself around your desk? The world doesn't revolve around you.
pointing out that prices MOM in NY have risen when we are not talking about NY is like telling me that plane travel is the safest when I ask you if a specific brand of car has a good crash test rating. true, but it doesn't answer my question.
zandanel : Talking about walking away from a mortgage committment and actually doing it are two different things. In the first place I'd like to think that the average American still honors his obligations. Secondly, walking away from an obligation could have serious consequences for one's future. I doubt many bankers would want to lend, or landlords rent, to a defaulter. Thirdly not everyone wants to be a renter.
It's true that times are a bit different now. But I'm a very old man. I've seen disasters where Wall St. has been responsible for some of the problems(including the Great Depression) many times. I have learnt that it never pays to under estimate the ability of Wall St to re-invent itself and to discount the resiliency of the American economic machine.
ZUser
It's Alpine. Typical NYC newbie attitude: we're the center of everything. Though I don't think he's a a newbie, just carrying their stereotype.
unfortunately, zuser, i'm not sure how much the average american values that type of commitment these days. you come from a time when a person would have been mortified to lose their house to foreclosure, these days if you ask people what to do when you've lost 20k in equity (but can still afford your mortgage) they say, "mail in the keys" like it means nothing.
a lot of people these days don't regard a house as a home, they see it as an investment. pulling the plug on an investment isn't a gut-wrenching emotional decisions, it's clearly logical and sensible.
and, given the number of people who took out no down payment option arm suicide loans, plenty of people in this country want something for nothing and aren't willing to put the slightest bit of effort into keeping it.
klarek: i grew up in indiana my mother wrote romance novels for a living. the two major publishers of those novels, harlequin and sillouhette had their big offices in nyc. her editors (people who had never been west of the hudson) would say things to her like "you have museums in indiana? really?" "you get tv in indiana? i had no idea!" they were serious.
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just about to put on the market
Kevin Mahaney, "KmahaneyII"
Contributions: 38
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are there anythings i need to absolutaly know before hand so i dont get screwed?
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