It is funny how the world comes around sometimes. Or does it? A couple at our church has “religiously” tried to sell their Athens home FSBO for about the past year with little success. They have done more than any other FSBO Sellers I know. From listing it at fsbo.com, where it has sat now for 233 days (the current listing), to having Sunday afternoon Open Houses just about every week over the past year!
On the Web they have six (6) photos, no virtual tour, no slideshow, and no video. The property had no extras listed on Zillow.com, Yahoo Real Estate, or Trulia either by the way, but they must have just about “Open Housed” themselves to death about now.
This morning I get an email from the husband that said, “As an Athens native, I have met or known of you by reputation for your integrity and determination in real estate. My wife and I have been more or less casually (my comments here – except for weekly Open Houses as noted, that’s not too casual) trying to sell our home by owner during the real estate downturn because we were not in any great hurry. We have decided it is time to entertain agents to represent our listing. I would like to get an honest assessment from those interested on our home and your strategy to get it sold.” Sounds good so far. They emailed me and six or eight high rollers in the Athens real estate scene.
He continued, “As a heads up, I have used agents on spec homes in the past, yet because we have sold our homes by owner, my wife is still skeptical about agents. Be prepared to demonstrate the proven value of agent representation.”
Now this is where I must smile, and more than a little. Basically “we know we need some help in selling our home, and we are going to interview Realtors,” but “be ready and you better come with both barrels loaded because “my wife” is skeptical about agents.” He’s not skeptical after all. It’s just his wife.
Is that a backhanded compliment or a backhanded insult? Not sure.
After looking up his home on fsbo.com, I noted that he has been asking in the $375k range in an Athens neighborhood near Timothy Road. He told me a year ago when I first spoke with him, back before he needed help of course due to his lengthy Open House schedule that was sure to succeed, that he needed $325k to sell.
Today after getting his email I looked up recent sales (all two of them) for 2009 and before committing to a listing appointment I asked to confirm that he still needed that $325k range to move. Truth be told, and since I know this guy personally, and since he had a negative taste toward Realtors I wanted to make sure he heard the truth. His home will not sell for over $300k right now. The two sales in his subdivision in all of 2009 had a high of $285k. I told him that if he still needed $325k he should wait another six months to a year before selling. In my opinion it makes no sense to tell someone a pie in the sky price just to get a listing, sit on it for a year and not be able to sell it yourself and then confirm these people’s thoughts about Realtors. 
In the end, he hasn’t sold his price for two reasons. Those two reasons are the two that I preach over and over again to Sellers. In order to sell your home you must have 1. Exposure and 2. Price. He has neither.
Talking exposure for a minute, did you know that Realtor.com ranks by the number of still photos you have online. Realtor.com is the #1 Website in terms of real estate listing traffic. Not an advertisement, just fact. They rank all listings with the ones that have the 25 photo maximum first and then those with 24, 23, 22, and so on. They also don’t do slide shows and virtual tours anymore because video technology online has become so fluent. This fellow had just six photos online. By the way, fsbo.com is not even in the top 100 as far as listing traffic is concerned.
Regarding price, I told him the truth. He was too high. Way too high.
It pains me, and while I would have loved to have told him that we could achieve $300k’s, I had to tell him what he needed to hear and not just be another one of those sales people that he apparently dealt with in the past. Please note, I didn’t say I could do any better than he has in selling his home while asking $75,000 too high. Even with the right exposure, if you don’t get price right, you are not going to sell.
