The Number One Reason Why You Have No Showings for Your House
February 15, 2008
It’s Too Hard to See!
Do I really need to say more? It’s not that your pictures are bad, it’s not that you offer breadcrumbs for a commission, or that the disclosures mention toxic waste in the basement. The number one reason your house won’t get shown is that I have to pass through a gauntlet to see it. With inventory so high in many areas, don’t make your house the one I pass by.
Take my experience with a listing today. I look up in the listing sheet that the property is a flat fee listing, meaning there is no agent or office to handle appointments, just a homeowner who has paid a fee to be listed in the MLS. No problem, except my sense that the property is overpriced was confirmed knowing that the owner set the price. I can live with that.
So, I call the number and the automated voice tells me I need put in a pin number. What pin number? I don’t have a number and nothing is given on the sheet. I try to press some buttons to see if it’ll take me to a main menu or a person but, no.
Next, I call the office number. Nobody there either. It’s 10 AM and no one is working. The message tells me to go to their website and send an e-mail.
I try calling the number a second time but don’t add a “1″ in front of the number. This time, I get a grainy voice-mail message I can’t understand. I leave a message but I’m skeptical it’s even the right number.
I want to look at the property TODAY. I’m going to be in the area, it’s convenient and the house is on the market, isn’t it? Is it really all that difficult to make it easy for me to see your house and rave about it to my client?
I sent an e-mail and left a voice-mail message and now must wait. Will I get to the house? Who knows. But if I can’t see it today, I’ll see it next week or possibly never. I have appointments at four other, better priced homes - appointments I made with a quick call.
Entry Filed under: Connecticut, Selling a House. Tags: Connecticut, showings.
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1. Hopkinton MA Real Estate | February 16, 2008 at 10:52 pm
That would certainly be very annoying! It does amaze you sometimes exactly what people are thinking.
2. Custom Real Estate Website | February 20, 2008 at 2:06 pm
The number one mistake of the FSBO is that they don’t understand how to market and maintain a line of communication with interested people.
Your should be commeneded for your efforts in trying so long. I probably would have given up on the pin number.
The number two mistake is the wrong price and we know FSBO price there homes by what a neighbor got down the steet 2 years ago and not todays market and comparabiles.
3. Athol Kay | February 20, 2008 at 9:45 pm
OMG I hate that game of trying to get a showing at low/no service brokerages. I’ve been dropping into 100% automated voicemail in the middle of a weekday. The call backs come days later sometimes.
4. Florida Commercial Real Estate | February 21, 2008 at 1:28 pm
This is a good example of pony express marketing. We have evolved to a whole other level. This home seller needs to come out of the house and see we are a information society and hooked to a quick call society. The sad part if they will sit with this house for probably 5 years and think that they are right and not gonna pay a commisiion.
Here’s to high speed internet, real estate web sites, cell phones and dropping in to view a home without a 4 week response and appt.
5. Joyce | March 16, 2008 at 7:47 pm
I have the opposite problem — I hired a requitable broker (I thought) who did everything on the computer. I did the few showings because he could not get here (I’m a broker - inactive now) and then - horrors! he absconded the State after I insisted the Board tell me why my phone messages to the office and cell were unaswered for 2 months!! The board would not remove the listing on MLS because “only the listing broker can do that” even though they knew he was no longer active…. how’s that for unfair - and of course no one else would even talk to me because the listing was still on MLS - sure, that’s real fair….this is on Cape Cod and I must sell my house and leave the Cape for medical reasons…..now I don’t know where to go and I’m real angry….wouldn’t you be?
Cape Cod
6. berealct | March 17, 2008 at 1:00 am
Joyce,
Try contacting your State Dept of Consumer Protection. If a Broker is inactive, then how can he be listing a property? I would call your local board of realtors, state board, your elected officials, your state atty general - you get the idea. Get the listing taken off with that broker and put it back on the market ASAP.