Deborah Jones

This response is to Donna.

What do you mean by "give more information than your competitors"? Information such as what? - Wed Jul 9 2008, 08:04

My home looks great, Chris. We are really big on all those home shows on TLC so we've got the staging done in every room. We do have a dog, but because we're also clean freaks, you wouldn't know it walking in the door. We have asked the agents to be really blunt and it's kind of embarrassing trying to pry information out of them, but we're not sensitive. We need to know if there's something that we can do better. Most agents have said the house doesn't need anything - the only thing we were told was to make sure an agent shows our home last in their list of showings. Because the house shows so wonderfully, they think it may get lost in the shuffle of other homes. I think maybe the photos we use could use a little tweaking here and there (we're not professional photographers) but we're always told the house shows better than it looks in the photos. The area around our home is always freshly mowed, neat and clean. That's why I'm at a loss. We even had an agent tell us 2 weeks ago that their buyer loved the house and was just a little hampered by the fact that she had to sell hers first before they would be able to buy ours. I encouraged her to put in a formal offer with a contingency clause - anything not to lose the sale. But since then even she's been strangely quiet. I'm at a loss at this point. - Tue Jul 1 2008, 09:11

As I stated in my response further down, I am offering an average commission for our area, 2.5 to 3%. I'm pretty sure the commission isn't the issue, or we wouldn't be getting any interest at all. I actually had an agent grill me on why I'm using the brokerage that I am using as opposed to using a traditional agent, that's what made me start to wonder if many agents are just fundamentally against the idea of a discount broker. It's clearly stated in my MLS listing and realtor.com listing that I am more than willing to pay a buyer's agent his just due, so I'm pretty sure that's not the issue. But I will make more of a concerted effort to find out why my home was not chosen after we repeatedly get rave reviews. Thanks everyone for your responses, more than helpful! - Tue Jul 1 2008, 08:53

The feedback that I'm getting is coming directly from the agents who showed the home to their buyers. I have had several tell me that the home is priced right, showed well. Haven't gotten any negative feedback whatsoever, despite practically begging for this information. What I haven't done is ask for feedback regarding what made the buyers eventually buy other homes rather than mine, that's something I'll begin to do. The commission that I am paying is average for this area - 2.5 - 3%. - Tue Jul 1 2008, 07:33