M. Tektura

Thank you all for the excellent feedback. Frankly, I am terrified of renting my house, and really can't afford to go that route anyway. I moved to a new one last Nov. so this one is vacant. I've replaced carpets, painted every room beige, resodded and landscaped, and fixed, fixed, and fixed. The house is a freakin' showplace, so don't go there. It's literally the nicest looking house in our neighborhood, for sale or not.

We re-researched the market and decided that the prices have decreased enough to warrant another price drop. We are now sitting at $249,900 when the house next door (very similar) sold last summer for $285. I think we are priced fairly, and now we are offering the lease to own option. The big problem in our area seems to be an abundance of new, unsold homes with crazy incentives that are hard to beat. The best advantage we have is our location within Walden Lake, (no new building in here) and we are a block from the best elementary school in the city. Plus we have 4 br and 3 baths, and a pool, which makes the house desirable for young families. I see the problem as this is a typical "second" house for many folks and since they can't get a buyer for their "first" home, they aren't moving. Anyone else see that as an issue?

Thanks again to everyone. - Thu Jul 26 2007, 12:38

Since I originally posted the question about whether agents intentionally avoid houses, I'd like to follow up. I'm sorry if I got anyone's knickers in a twist. Many of the answers were very, very informative. It really didn't occur to me that you'd skip houses based on the commission. I've always resigned myself to the 3-3 "apple" split and sucked it up. I guess it makes sense to skip low margin houses when your time is limited and prices are dropping. Of course, I'm offering the buyer agent 3 apples, so they shouldn't be complaining. Are there other incentives that would draw in the buyer agent? A $500 bonus or how about a big screen tv? Do I also have to sell the agent as well as the buyer?

The most telling comment, however, was about avoiding difficult listing agents. This is the one I wondered about the most and really didn't expect a comment on. I have a wonderful listing agent, but she has a small agency and it's located in an adjoining town. I've felt on several occassions that she and our house was being "shunned" because our agent wasn't in the local clique. At both of our agent opens, she was not treated with as much professional respect as I would have expected. She also has a mortgage brokerage and expanded into RE when the market was growing. She is very capable and very knowledgeable in marketing and financing, so it's not like she's a bungler. I'm disturbed by the notion that my house may not be getting fair exposure because of my choice of "outsider" agent. I hope this is not the case, but REs are human too, so anything is possible I guess.

I can understand the reluctance of any buyer agent to show a 'no-commission" FSBO, but if the home is offered by another agency with a fair commission, I think it should be shown to the buyer.

Thanks again to you all for the very candid and helpful answers. I appreciate your honesty. - Thu Jul 26 2007, 11:58

Hi Ernie,
My wife and I found Plant City to be a wonderful place to raise our two children. Both attended Walden Lake Elemetary (an A-rated school) and one has graduated from PCHS with honors and scholarships to UF. Plant City offers the small town atmosphere with a quaint downtown full of antique shops, a fun Strawberry festival and parade every year, Christmas parade in December and the COC holds a car show and motorcycle rally every month in the downtown area. Plant City is growing and now has many fine restaurants like Outback, Carrabbas, Panera Bread, as well as many local favorites, like Buddy Freddy's. We have a new Lowes and the others are sure to follow. Wladen Lake is still one of the finer gated neighborhood developments in this area and has many desirable homes for sale. With I-4 construction complete, driving to Tampa or Orlando is much easier. This area is close enough to the coast to go the beach, but you probably won't have any flood surge here! Check out my link below for a great example! And I can direct you to some financing help too! Give it a look -- we've loved it! - Wed Jul 25 2007, 06:41