Real estate advice

Diablos

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Selling to get closer to work. House has been on market for almost 30 days, 13 showings with no offers.

And go
 
What do the comps look like? What else is on the market in the area? By the way, my family used to have businesses in Rapid City. I’ve actually been there. :)
 
When we moved away from winters, we had a six month listing agreement. Lots of showings, no offers. And it was a nice house. Every single person who was invited inside immediately said, "I love your house." It was that nice.

When the agreement expired, we went with an agent whose value proposition was that for every showing, either she or her assistant would be present. That means someone who had skin in the game and a vested interest in selling our house.

With the old agent, the only ones present were the potential buyers and their agent. Their agent didn't care which house they bought, they are going to get a commission no matter which one they chose.

Once we had someone actually selling our house, someone familiar enough to point out all the features that the buyers agent might not have been aware of, someone to overcome objections, someone who is going to ask for the sale, we had an offer in short order. In my opinion, it made all the difference in the world.
 
Some grass fertilizer can help green up the lawn.
Agree with Howland, need a better agent who wants to move the property instead of a lazy agent.
 
Change agents.

Also, I love Rapid City, not been in a few years, but been a few times and love South Dakota - gorgeous
 
I agree with the above. Do something to add some basic landscaping because it adds curb appeal. What is happening with the competition? Are other houses in your price range or neighborhood moving? How are you priced relative to comparable sales?

You might consider if you can depersonalize the home more by removing some of your stuff. When it comes to closets, leave them half empty, which makes them look bigger.
 
If someone is home when the call for a showing is received have them turn on a bread backing machine.
Makes your house smell like "Home" with fresh bread baking, just like Grandma's.
 
I understand all of the showings, the fish eye lens makes things look larger but when they get there it's not larger, it's just an optical illusion and their dissapointed. But looking at the "real deal" it get's smaller. And as has been mentioned, landscape for curb appeal....
 
I don't know what the rules are in SD but lots of western states don't allow landscaping up against the house because of wildfires.
 
There are plants (flowering perennials), but it's minimal (and appears more so at the time of the picture as the snow had just melted) as soil out here is expansive. Dont want lots of water near the foundation, not to mention the fire risk. There are trees I've planted, but those are going to take years to come in, and i even opted for larger ones.

Feedback has been minimal. Complaints that the basement isn't finished enough, grass not green enough, just dumb crap IMO.

We're priced (according to our realtor) where it needs to be. Most other homes in the area are slightly cheaper, but are also on smaller lots.

Trying to decide if we should extend our contract or pull it off the market.
 
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This is most of south dakota, not the lush greenery of the east coast
Here are some things I've used to sell my last four houses myself. (Some of these tools didn't exist for some of them)

I Google Street-viewed your street and see that there are others like yours with minimal landscaping. I didn't look to see what any competing listings looks like. I'd do that yourself, just to know what yours looks like compared to other listings if nothing else.

Zillow shows 450 houses in Rapid City for sale. You can easily see what others like yours are listed for and their features.

Find your county's property tax records on line. Depending on how they have that database configured you should be able to see other houses in your neighborhood and anywhere else in the county you want to look to see what they sold for last, when they sold, square footage, lot size, etc.

I try to get the price right the first time. It gets folks' attention. There is this mindset that people will make offers even if it's priced too high, but I personally think it scares them off. Average folks are scared of negotiating.

Edit: Zillow will also show you how long other listings have been on the market. Its info is not always entirely accurate, and sometimes wildly inaccurate, but it is still helpful. You might find that the average time on the market is longer than you expected, maybe not. It's just good to know.
 
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I'm with @noway2 you need to have it staged not just clean. Let the people's imagination take over spaces. Pretty much pics 24 through 33 all need to have all the slop removed. Have nothing in the floor and take all small pictures off the walls if the aren't proportionate to the wall. Take the fooseball table and rocking chairs out make that space open. Rent a storage space and put everything you can in it. Sanitize the kids rooms by take the colors and toys out as much as possible. Take the tent thing off the bed and buy new gender neutral bedspreads. That look nice not older. The agent that put those pictures up pretty much need their ass kicked. The outside could use some landscaping but honestly I would leave it blank and offer a credit for people to do it like they want instead of putting money into it with no idea if people would want it.
 
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Just so everyone can get a laugh (and i can refrain from throat punching these idiot buyers) its really not spring yet here, and the grass will eventually come in.

In fact its snowing today, and they're calling for 10 inches.
 
Just so everyone can get a laugh (and i can refrain from throat punching these idiot buyers) its really not spring yet here, and the grass will eventually come in.

In fact its snowing today, and they're calling for 10 inches.

Not to get sidetracked, but since we talked about some of this before you took that job up there, what's your time line in SD? How many more years do you see yourself there?
 
We sold our house twice in 9 days last year. We got about 50k more than we thought possible with just a little work staging and a great realtor. Think about the staging as a pre move situation.
 
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Not to get sidetracked, but since we talked about some of this before you took that job up there, what's your time line in SD? How many more years do you see yourself there?

Truck would be blowing black smoke coming over the pass tonight if i could find a job to transfer into.

I honestly thought it would be much easier to move positions than it is, but its more like apply as a new hire.

I'll get home eventually though, my oldest keeps asking when were moving back.
 
Not to get sidetracked, but since we talked about some of this before you took that job up there, what's your time line in SD? How many more years do you see yourself there?

Honestly though, Looks like we'll be here until the oldest graduates. Wife just doesn't want to pull him out of school while he's in his final years, and i understand that. So another 3ish years.
 
Honestly though, Looks like we'll be here until the oldest graduates. Wife just doesn't want to pull him out of school while he's in his final years, and i understand that. So another 3ish years.
Makes sense.
 
Told yall there was dang trees, and we got snowView attachment 126469

That ain’t no tree! That’s a shrub. We wanna see some trees!

Staging is huge as said above. Curb appeal. And most importantly timing and location.

I’d really ‘interview’ agents. I found a huge difference in personality, energy and skills when I sold my last house.
 
Tagging this one as I’m listing my fathers home today. Similar price range and sq. footage but what I’ve found to be the hardest part was pricing the land. Pop’s owned one of the best views in the County, if not the best. The view is protected with the property running 3/4 down the hillside (20 acres total) making it hard to value as there are no comps locally to compare it to. Edit: I started a thread in the appraisal section so as not to possibly interfere with the OP’s questions.
 
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Good advice here- agents, staging, cleanout personal stuff etc. Might want to do something with the unfinished floor area, it could be down to something as simple as every other house people looked at had carpet or pergo down there already. People are weird, something as easy as that still seems like an obstacle they don't want to have to do.
That room also needs a focal point, its just a space now.

Not clear how fast you want or need to sell or what your situation is on the money side.
 
My wife has always been instrumental in selling a home we put on the market. One thing that always helped was that she created a binder with the manuals for every appliance, copies of receipts for all repairs and service, copies of all documents that the next owner might need.
When we sold in Lowell, the inspector told the buyers that the furnace had never been serviced and needed replacing. We had all of the service history and documents to prove he was blowing smoke and didn't know what he was talking about.
Helping your agent sell is key as well.
We'll be selling our house soon to move closer to me new job. Hopefully it sells quickly.
 
Honestly, this is more a move of convenience to save myself from commuting. Our contract expired yesterday, and i really dont know if i want to extend or keep the house on the market.

Flooring, paint, and grass are such small things that I think I'll sit here, finish them ,and reap the benefits of the additional equity.
 
As others have said remove personal items and get rid of some of the furniture such as that loveseat and maybe a dressing or two in the bedrooms. Make inside of house look as spacious as possible. Another thing you might want to do is offer a 3-4,000 dollar landscaping allowance for serious offers. Instead of you doing it they now have the choice of making it their own. We did all this with our house except we offered 1,200 carpet allowance. Our house wasn’t on the market 24 hours before we had over asking price offer.
Your house looks very nice inside. Change some things and agent and GLWS..
 
We had 13 showings in 30 days, and our agent took video for a potential buyer, i dont think he sat back and did nothing.

As to landscaping, its really not the same out here due to fire danger. You'll rarely see landscaping up against a home, unless the homeowner's are retards.

A carpeting allowance was offered, didn't generate any interest.


We said F it, pulled the listing today.
 
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It's overpriced. That's how housing markets work (seems obvious).

I don't need any more info than what you posted to know that it's overpriced for your market.



Don't look at what banks or realtors use for "comparable". They limit themselves to too small a scope of things (like house type, or square feet).


Look at every other house in the area that is near the price you think you can sell for. THOSE are your only competition, and "previous sale comps" only matter to banks and realtors, not buyers. If your house if a quarter million dollars, it should be the nicest quarter-mil house currently on the market.


If it's not, drop to 240. Now is it the nicest $240K on the market? Yes = it sells, no = price still too high.





Oh, and having looked at the pics, I agree with the people who say "do some staging". You don't have to uproot your life. Empty one room at a time, take pics, repeat.


I dont agree that its overpriced for the market, but I'll agree that housing market is overpriced. I honestly wonder how people afford homes out here.
 
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Seems like a lot considering the area. Is it in line with comps? I like Rapid City. Don't know the local market there obviously...

Down here if it's on the market for more than a couple weeks, it's overpriced and probably by a good bit. Just saying. Of course we live in a bubble in the Triangle...
 
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