If You Are Going to List Your House, Get Serious!

June 4, 2009 by Donna Anderson.

I can not tell you how many homes I see in the upper price ranges in the Catalina Foothills that are very over-priced and have been on the market for a long time. To top it off,  some are tough to show or preview. You see, many high-end clients prefer  that their agents preview homes and weed out the ones that do not appear to meet their needs. Many of the agents who market houses listed for sale that are priced over one million demand that you meet with them at a time that it is convenient for the listing agent. Some listing agents will not open the house to preview it and will only make it available if you are accompanying a buyer.  I also find it interesting that when I do show these expensive homes,  some listing agents do not  call me for feedback.  It has been my experience that most Sellers appreciate feedback and many times learn from it. As a result, some reduce the sales price or make changes to their home to make it more appealing and the listing agents also learn a lot from the feedback, too, and may modify their marketing strategy, as a result. When an agent does not call me for feedback or makes the home hard for me to preview it, I call this unaggressive marketing. 

If you have a home that is not priced to sell and is listed with an unaggressive agent who has too many listings to offer you personalized service, your home is unlikely to sell.  

 I notice some of the top Tucson luxury home real estate agents are carrying listing inventories of 60 or more houses. How on earth can they give personalized service with so many listings? My message to these agents is ”Cut your losses, and refuse to list homes that are obviously over-priced. Make the homes easier to preview and show.” After all, the more people who see the house, the more likely it will sell.  Even if it does not suit the needs of one buyer, it may suit the needs of another future buyer of the previewing agent.

To Sellers — I say, “If you are not serious about selling, take the house off the market so the market is not flooded. If you can not stomach the lower prices of the present market, sell at another time when the market appreciates.” If many not so serious Sellers  would take their homes off the market, the  inventory would lessen, and as a result, prices would increase. It is all about supply and demand. In homes priced over a million in the Tucson Luxury Homes Market, the supply is quite a bit higher than the demand.

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