You’re Listed — But Do You Really Want To Sell?

Hopefully this post doesn’t come across too rant-like, soap box-ish, or otherwise disjointed…but here goes.

So you want to, need to, have to, or have otherwise chosen to list your home for sale…

You’ve completed those little maintenance things that require attention.
You’ve cleaned/ de-cluttered your home so that it shows it’s best.
You’ve interviewed several REALTORS® to ensure you have the best person on the job.

…right?

Judging by my experience this past weekend, some consumers are still either: a) willing to accept poor service (despite having hired a professional); b) not doing their homework ahead of time (i.e. reading my blog posts); c) feel as though they don’t have a choice; or d) don’t really want to sell.

So what happened this weekend that brought me to write this particular post?

I have Clients looking for their next home. They are looking for a home that is less than ten years old, offers 1,400 to 1,800 square feet, and is priced between $350,000 and $450,000. After wading through the tons of homes that fit their criteria, I narrowed the list of contenders down to fifteen homes to show this weekend.

Here’s where my “fun” begins…

Throughout Friday afternoon and evening I spent time building a showing schedule for the coming weekend, which included contacting home sellers and REALTORS® to schedule my appointments – as per the showing instructions on each listing. [Did you catch that? Contacting the home seller(s) to schedule an appointment -- what the...?]  Of the fifteen homes I wanted to show to my Clients, there were three of them we never did get in to see because either the home seller or the REALTOR® failed to return my repeated calls/ paged requests to show.

[Here's the soap box-ish rant-like part...] Suffice to say I don’t understand this at all. Why on earth would you hire a REALTOR® to sell your home and then personally field the calls from other REALTORS® to show your home? I know under certain circumstances it may (initially) make sense to take the calls yourself (e.g. shift worker, home-based business operator) — but isn’t that why you hired a REALTOR®; instead of going For Sale By Owner? I can’t believe how many of my colleagues have home owner(s) taking phone calls at home, at work, and on their cell phones to schedule appointments to show their own home.

Shouldn’t that be part of the service your REALTOR® provides?

[Back to the purpose of this post...] If 20% of home owners and/ or REALTORS® don’t avail themselves for scheduling viewing appointments (as was the ratio for my Clients and I this weekend), do they really want to sell?

If you really do want to sell your home, don’t you think prospective buyers need to be able to get in and view your home?

///…CP