Selling home in North Tampa - starting to get concerned

[Richard Solano]

Hi BP community. I am selling a 6 BR colonial house rental property in a pretty desirable area. I had a buyer back out at the last minute. House is back on the market. I listed with a flat fee MLS offering a 1% buyers commission. This was 4 days ago. The buyer I had lined up before listing on MLS found my house FSBO on Zillow so I thought listing on MLS would generate more traffic. No such luck. Not one inquiry. The house appraised at $340k so we listed at $345k. I have a sign in front yard and also listed it on Facebook marketplace and Craigslist. I log in every couple days to renew those posts. I’m starting to get concerned. The tenants we had in there moved out almost a month ago. (Ugh) What else can I be doing? I would have thought we would have at least gotten one call by now, but nothing. The school district is awesome (10/10 on Greatschools.org). Any insights, advice or reassurance appreciated.

[Brandon M.]

Richard Solano - I have a few opinions based on what you have said so far:

- 1% to an agent probably isn’t enough. Sad to say but there are still agents out there who won’t show a house to a client solely based on the commission they are getting. You will never know about those because they will just mark your house off their list before contacting you. Whenever I list a house for a client I always recommend they offer the buyer’s agent 2.5% to avoid the issue of not showing for low commission. Even when I am working for less than 2.5% for my own commission for selling it I still recommend offering 2.5%. I actually had an agent call me before and flat out tell me he wasn’t going to show my house simply because I was only offering 2.5%. Greed still exists....

Photos- did you take your own photos or use a professional? I always spend $125 to have a professional come and take my listing photos unless the listing is a house in need of repair, which yours doesn’t sound like. They know the best angles, lighting, touch ups, etc. Your photos are what makes the phone ring and gets people in the door to see it in person.

Rental- are you still marketing it as a rental? At $345k I would venture to guess this is a <1% for monthly rent:sale price, and 1% seems to be the bare minimum a lot of investors prefer.

Price- MLS is definitely the best way to market to the broadest range of potential buyers so if you aren’t getting any calls and have been on MLS for a decent amount of time, the market is probably telling you something. You simply might be priced too high. You might consider coming below the appraisal price. Remember, an appraisal is just one person’s opinion of value. I have had properties where one appraiser says $350k and another says $325k.

I haven’t seen your listing so I don’t know if any of the things I mentioned are even on the right track but throwing out some possibilities.

If you prefer to chat in more detail feel free to send me a PM. I wouldn’t mind looking at the comps for your listing and giving you my opinion of value, for whatever that is worth to you.

Best of luck with your sale!