In February, a local real estate agent did an interview for Nightline and came off very badly. What his intent is to refresh the property so that the buyer gives it another consideration. He is correct that when buyers see that a home has been for sale for a long time, they immediately think something is wrong with it. However, counting simply days on market does not take into account these things that might have affected its previous ability to sell:
- Time of year – homes sell slower in the winter months
- Price – if the price was reduced 10% yesterday, it is on Day 2 of it’s current price
- Updates – seller may have done cleaning/updating/staging since first listing
- Failed sale – if it sold once in 45 days and the sale fell through, it is almost like starting over.
As a great friend of mine in my office always says: “the first time a buyer sees a house is Day 1 on the market for that buyer.” I have to agree in that homes are unique enough and in this market homes for sale are high enough that a single buyer makes all the difference. If a buyer has never looked at the home before, what difference does it make to them how long the home was for sale before they ever saw it? If everyone else didn’t like the house, they better not like it either?????
Next time you go shopping at a department store, ask the sales clerk how long that shirt has been for sale on the rack… and if it has been on the rack more than 30 days, ask for a 10% discount on the shirt! Maybe that shirt isn’t the most popular color or size or maybe it was priced too high and is now on sale, or maybe it wasn’t very visible on the rack at first. No matter it’s history, if the shirt is a color you like, fits you well, and at a price you’re willing to pay, I bet you’re going to buy the shirt. Same thing goes for the house!
While I fully support the concept of re-listing properties at the discretion of the seller/listing agent, but I also believe that any and all activity must be disclosed upon request from a buyer/buyer’s agent. Further, no agent should advertise selling a home in XX days when it is really XX + XX days.
The Minneapolis Area Association of REALTORS does publish market stats with CDOM (Cumulative Days on Market) so I believe we’re tracking correct numbers in the Twin Cities, so I do not believe it is hurting our market picture.
In the end, a number of days on market means nothing unless you fully understand how that number came to be… re-listing a home is simply another marketing tool used to get a buyer to come to you with enough interest to give you the time to explain the situation.
Hey, Aaron! I like the shirt in the department store analogy. A fellow networker in my BNI group asked me if I saw that Nightline interview. I had not. I had to explain to her what “days on market” really means. Since I didn’t see the interview, I can’t be sure if the agent was explaining himself the way he wanted to, or if Nightline edited it the way they felt it would best play to the audience. Some of us have been caught in that trap. It’s not fun and it is frustrating to be misconstrued by media. (Or anyone, for that matter!) Thanks for clearing things up for the consumer!
Oh please. The dept store analogy is way off. I don’t buy shirts that cost $250,000. I don’t care how long the shirt’s been on the rack — it doesn’t degrade in quality if no one wears it for a year. It doesn’t have a previous owner. The list goes on…
I’m a buyer right now. (Have been for years, actually; sometimes I think it’ll never happen!) I agree that relisting a house may not exactly be “unethical.” But in this market, I really do think it sometimes smacks of desperation. I know the houses in my target area pretty damn well because I’ve been doing searches on them for over three years. Yes, we’re patient buyers
I see a lot of listings come and go. I see a lot of properties get relisted when there’ve obviously been no material updates. I see price changes of $100 weekly in an attempt to ping would-be buyers. I won’t buy a house without knowing exactly how long it’s been on the market (in all its listed incarnations). And with the internet, I think it may be harder to fool anyone who tracks the market closely. If you know your market well, you’ll start to recognize relisted houses. To me, the relisting can be a red flag, although these days it’s usually because of an outrageous initial asking price.
And with a relisting, sometimes you can tell why it hasn’t sold by:
- clicking thru the photos – is the kitchen ugly? bad yard? check out the map of the area as well as a bird’s eye and satellite photo. maybe the backyard is a BNSF heavy rail line, but isn’t shown in the listing. maybe the neighborhood isn’t as great as the house (and price) would suggest.
- checking out the property tax statement – who owns the house? Is it John Smith or Deutsche Bank DBA INC of Santa Ynez, Alaska? that’s a tip-off that something’s up.
- checking Zillow’s estimate – obviously not always accurate, but sometimes it can give you an idea of a more “real world” price rather than a seller’s fantasy price.
In the Twin Cities core market, I think a good house at a good price still really won’t take that long to sell. Anything that gets listed and relisted repeatedly should raise eyebrows.
Disco,
I’m glad you responded! You’ve had some good comments here and I’m always happy to read your perspective.
While there are many houses for sale that are vacant, many that have been on the market for a long time have been and still are occupied so the premise that something that’s been on the market a long time is somehow in poorer condition isn’t a fair characterization.
Listing agents need to do everything they can to get their seller’s home to sell… relisting is one tool in the tool chest!
The rest of your remarks are why relisting properties can be helpful… buyers will re-evaluate the property and try to determine what has changed. The very fact that they gave it a second look is what we’re looking for as agents. While I believe that relisting without doing anything else does not help significantly, tying in a price reduction or some other inducement in conjunction with the relisting can be good.
With so many properties on the market today, it is easy for buyers to simply write-off properties at first glance and then dismiss it from their searches from that point on.
I agree that the listings priced correctly for their condition, location and amenities are still selling quickly (30-60 days) but that listings that have been for sale for much longer times could now be very saleable at their current prices.
No, I agree. The relistings are usually because the initial asking price was too high, not because there’s something necessarily “wrong” with the house. Thanks for the reply.