Home won't sell? Some cancel and relist

[ckramer]

To remove the stigma attached to a house that won't sell and make a fresh appeal to home buyers, some real estate agents reset the clock on the number of days a property has been listed -- a practice critics liken to resetting the odometer on a used car.

Agents can cancel a listing and create a new one for the same house in the central database of Massachusetts homes for sale, the MLS Property Information Network. The ''new" listing is then dispatched, electronically, to agents who generate a ''hot sheet" for clients of new houses coming on the market.

''We see it everywhere," said Patrick Lashinsky, vice president of California-based Zip Realty Inc., which makes regional MLS databases around the country available to customers, including home buyers. ''Agents know that if they're at the top of the list as being a new listing, that's when you generate the majority of your client traffic for the home you're selling."

The number of canceled listings in Massachusetts has nearly tripled since 2001, a sign that one of the hottest real estate markets in the country is beginning to cool down, said real estate specialists. It ''tells you is the market is softening. Demand is declining," said Karl Case, professor of economics at Wellesley College.

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[bluestateguy]

1. My parents did that 3 times

Their old house was on a busy street, and they listed it during a sluggish market in July of 1994 at $249,000. By Christmas time it had not sold, and few realtors were showing the house anymore, so they took it off for a few months, but it still did not sell. So they took it off again, and again, until it finally sold for $218,000 in February of 1997.

A few years later the neighborhood took off and they recently learned that the old house is now probably worth close to $400,000. :mad:

[phantom power]

2. it's a bit funny to compare relisting to resetting an odometer.

Re-setting the odometer of a car obscures important information about that car.

Re-listing a house does not obscure anything important about the house. If I'm a prospective buyer, and I go to look at a re-listed house, I will see exactly the same house as a buyer who looked at it previously.

[rinsd]

7. Bingo! (nt)

[barb162]

3. Relisting doesn't bother me a bit. Some people put their

houses on the market at bad times of the year like right before Thanksgiving and of course it doesn't sell. Might as well take it off for a few days and relist in January.

Also this reminds me of stores where a shirt is a different price every weekend

[ckramer]

4. Look at the chart from the first post

this house was put on the market on March 2005, supposed to be a good time for selling and buying. Yet...

[barb162]

6. I wonder how long the house would have been sitting at the last

price if it hadn't been relisted. There can always be something happening in the local market, like a new development being put up near your house and your house may have been priced well before the new houses went up. But the new houses come on line and you have to keep repricing

[progressivebydesign]

12. No, March is a bad time to sell a house everywhere but super warm climates

There is still lots of snow on the ground, and kids are still in school. March would mean escrow closed in April, during a school year. Best time to list is May through August, then Autumn through Thanksgiving (depending upon your weather).

We had a house in our area that was priced at 329k and listed in March. Nothing happened. The short listing expired. It was relisted a few months later at 367k, it sold the first day. In cooler, wetter, or snowier, climates... timing is everything.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

5. Like me...

I list it, then come the bombings, hurricanes, horrendous heat/humidity, increased media coverage of housing bubble burst, WW Bridge lane closures for re-paving, you name it. Timing IS everything.

[progressivebydesign]

14. I was wondering about that today.

Our house is for sale, and I empathized with folks that had their house listed for sale around 9/11, especially in the New York and New Jersey areas.

I really wonder why the housing bubble is being pushed so hard. It's a self-fulfilling prophesy, as it is purely a psychological phenom; It's all perception that drives a market.

Our market was firecracker hot early this summer, and is slowing down slightly because everyone is on vacation, and the rush to get houses bought and sold in time for vacation and then school, has slowed a bit.. but I'm very hopeful!!

I do interior decorating and preparing homes for sale as a career. I have pulled out ALL the stops!! This thing had better sell!

Best of luck to you!

[WorseBeforeBetter]

17. Good luck to you as well!

Things were really moving in spring and early summer, but since the 4th activity seems to have come to a screeching halt. I'm hoping it's just a summer slump and things pick up again soon. In contrast to the doom and gloom "burst" articles, I recently read one about how the DC area will need 800,000 more housing units by the year 2030 to keep pace with job growth. So which is it, people?! Housing bubble burst or not enough supply to meet demand?

Yep, timing and perception.

[Gregorian]

8. MLS keeps historic information.

If I'm right about this, and I am not an agent, the mls shows what previous prices the property was listed at. You can't get away with much, in this computerized age.


I'm one of those people. I just pulled my property from the market. I had it at 3.5 million, then dropped it to 2.65 million. It's amazing that a tiny house on 5 acres in the SF Bay Area, that was built in the fifties, can go for that price. I saw one like that sell a month ago. Crazy. But get away from that area, and the interest drops significantly- I have creeks, shops, acreage, nice house, but I pulled mine because I believe the end of the real estate boom is here. I would continue to gamble that the next place would eventually lead me to a better one of my dreams. So I tried, and got little response, even though mine is far far nicer than that little shack on five acres. Prices are so crazy that the gamble isn't worth losing such a beautiful property over. I don't know why people would spend so much on so little. Having watched prices for fifteen years, I can only say that they cannot go any higher. It is impossible. So here I sit. I'm done. And I think it's going to hit the fan. But like everything in real estate, that fan is running very slowly.

[SlipperySlope]

9. Buyer brokers know about this trick

For our last house, we worked with a buyer broker. Buyer brokers represent the buyer's interests, all other brokers represent the sellers.

Anyhow, for the houses we were interested in, she was able to pull up old MLS listings and show when houses had been relisted in a desparate attempt to keep the price high. Ethically, a normal broker would have been forbidden to do this since their duty is to help the seller get the maximum price possible.

[IMSA]

10. Forbidden by who??? Get your facts straight

I'm an agent, a listing agent for over 20 years and this is the first time I've ever heard of pulling up an old listing as forbidden. Sounds like a case for a law suit if the purchaser's ask if the house has been listed before and the agent is "forbidden" to disclose that information. Purchasers are very smart these days and will almost always throughly research a home they intend on making an offer on. The MLS will show the listing history of a property. When it was listed, if it was re listed, price reductions, and so on.

IMSA

[SlipperySlope]

11. She did it of her own initiative - unasked - NT

[progressivebydesign]

13. Every place is different.

I cannot speak for every area, as each State and each Board of Realtors has different rules. Perhaps there are rules, in some areas against that.

In our area, you cannot take a house off the market to relist simply to get the buzz back on a house. I know this.. I work in the industry and have worked with realtors who have me prepare homes for sale after they have not sold.

[msongs]

15. the problem = houses are OVERPRICED in the first place ->

greedy owners and greedy real estate hucksters (oops I mean agents) are jacking up prices.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/political-shirts.htm

[barb162]

16. I am not sure what overpricing means anymore. I think people

pretty much look for what similar homes sold for recently in their area and adjust a bit for better or worse features if their own houses. Don't you think the comps pretty much tell the story

[serryjw]

18. Bushit.....NO IT'S NOT!

a practice critics liken to resetting the odometer on a used car.
The house is not any older and worn because the 'clock' has been reset. This is only a marketing gimmick. If someone wants to buy the house they still will. If a car is reset there are potentially many more things that are worn and are much older Silly ! Silly!