Ignore where I have "major negative" at end...typo meant to delete.

Also see below for better link to actual photos

Here is a link that might be useful: House pics

It is a beautiful house! Can you change the front panels to your kitchen dishwasher and trash compactor or whatever it is to match the stainless steel refrigerator? Is there a panel that you can just flip????

No there is not. The trash compactor was in the house when we got there and I've never used it. Dishwasher is newish (late last year) but there aren't panels for it.

I realize it's hard to find 'comps' but a good realtor will find them!! Really "push" him/her to find some so you can make a reasonable decision on the price. It is a beautiful home,by the way, I bet it will sell soon! It is very early if it has only been 2 weeks; give it some time and then drop the price some if you find the'comps' warrant it.
Good Luck!

I did hear from my agent who said that the critique sheets usually make it sound worse than it really is (the sheet asks them what to change, not what they like about the house). Said that the agents overall did like the house. And the house is in a very desirable subdivision where houses don't often come on the market. I've asked to see updated comps (such as they are).

Where do you live? Is tile flooring the norm in your area? I think that an area rug in the master bedroom might be a good idea and more comfortable for bare feet. Based on the agent's feed back I would drop the price to about $550k. (I know, easy for me to say).

Do you have a link to the actual listing?

Have you removed that picture of the porch yet? It doesn't look very good. Also, that pink chair with the green table next to it doesn't do anything for the picture. It should be removed at least for the picture.

The front of your house should be your first picture, not a bedroom picture. Your house is beautiful.

Terriks - I am in Texas. Tile flooring is not the norm in the bedroom but it is not unusual to see it in the higher end houses. The area rug idea is a good one. I am going to get new comps and look at them carefully before I decide on the price. We do have one buyer who has said we are at top of their list but they have to sell their house first so I don't put much stock in it.

happyladi - The picture of the porch is gone. The pink chair/green table pic was of the guest house and is gone and replaced with a better picture. In the actual listing the front of the house is the first pic.

Re cat odor:

Before the walls are repainted, have them coated with white pigmented shellac (Zinsser and BINZ, are two brand-name formulations of WPS). Shellac is excellent at odor blocking, quick to dry and compatible under most paint. It's likely that you have a small amount of over-spray from a litter box. You could go crazy looking for it, but it's easier to just shellac and repaint, unless you know exactly where it is. If you do the painting yourself be aware that WPS is prretty strong smelling (when being applied), especially in a small space. You can get a cracking headache from breathing it in a confined space so use some forced ventilation if you can. The good part is that it's cheap and the clean up is household ammonia and warm water.

If the floor is tile or cement, then I would wash it with a cat-urine specific enzymatic cleaner. Nature's Miracle for CATS is one, so is Get Serious. Use either one several times allowing full drying between. They are slightly stinky themselves and rely to a small degree on odor-blocking so you may not smell anything remaining at first. Be prepared to treat again, but eventually it will cure it.

I've read that activated charcoal is good for removing odors. Could you put a bowl of it in the closet in the entry?

The smell of cat pee/spray/odor would be a deal breaker for me.

Before the walls are repainted, have them coated with white pigmented shellac

This is exactly what they ended up doing. And the smell was very strong although dissipating now. You sure can't smell any pet odor now. We did clean the floor with an enzymatic cleaner and then had it cleaned and sealed.

With regard to the price feedback I did ask for and get comps. There were only 2 sales remotely like my house in the last 5 months and they were not all that similar. The per SF price of the two was widely different (one was around $105 and the other around $138). The $105 was a very large house (about 5700 SF as I recall) and not in as good a location and a bit higher price range. The $138 house is not that comparable as it is was a house in a higher price range. These two houses sold for about 90% of listing price. There is a pending sale for a house in a lower price range (mid-$400s) that is listed at about $110 SF. It is smaller, on more land, older, not as good a location, but does have a guest house.

In the active listings there are 4 houses in the $650 to $700 range, 3 at around $599k (including my house) and 4 in the mid to high $400s. Most are not that similar to my house. Given that the only listings between $495k and $650k are the 3 houses at $599k I am inclined to drop my price.

My agent does think when all is said and done that the house will likely sell in the $550k range or thereabouts. We will likely reduce price although haven't decided what to reduce it to. Perhaps around $565k.

Sometimes it's more about capturing attention and making the buyers feel like they got a "deal." Since there are three others at $599, I'd drop it, too. Put it at $569 and see how it flies.

I know a reduction hurts, but it if makes you feel any better, my house was listed (and sold!) at $305, then that deal fell through, and it eventually sold for $255. So that $50k drop was a bigger chunk of my total than for you... I feel your pain. :)

Good luck!

I know I watch too much HGTV :). In several shows I have seen a stick-on "stainless" sheet that can be applied to existing appliances to give a more uniform look to the kitchen for not much money. Just a thought, although your kitchen is nice as it is.

Here are my thoughts, we just finished selling a home that didn't have a whole lot of comps, either. We were on the market for 1.5 years!

1. Real estate agents don't really know what price you'll get. Take their feedback with a grain of salt...when we went on the market, we interviewed 3 agents, and there was a huge variance in the prices they thought we could get. Each did a comprehensive market analysis, but they did not agree on price, not even close.

2. The best strategy on price, if you have time, and want to maximize what you get for the place, is to incrementally lower the price until you get good showing traffic and positive feedback from buyers. A good rule of thumb is to lower for 2-3 weeks, and if you don't have any offers, lower it again.

3. Be prepared to lower the price until it hurts. Then, be prepared to lower it a lot more. This is very hard to take, but it was our experience. Like I said, we were on the market 1.5 years. Every time we lowered the price, we expected a lot of interest. It just didn't happen till we went a lot lower than we thought we'd have to go. Hopefully that won't happen for you, but in this market, it's often the reality.

If your carrying costs are $5k per month, you don't want to diddle around lowering the price incrementally for weeks and months on end. Bottom line is, you HAVE to SELL your house. I agree with xine, drop the price so that yours is the best "deal" for the size and location of the house. It doesn't do you any good to hold out for 6 months to get your price if it costs you $30k in the meantime.

grad_girl_1 - I don't recommend your approach at all as it will get you less in the end. xine and idrive65 have the approach I would take. It will likely net you more in the end as the longer you sit on the market the more stale the listing becomes and people wonder what is wrong with the place.

I agree with xine, idrive65 and lyfia. That said, I think that grad_girl_1 has a point to. When comps are limited it is different than when you have a house, say, in a subdivision that has a lot of similar houses nearby to use as comps. In that situation, comps can be relatively straightforward.

Where they aren't straightforward and where there is wide disparity between realtors on what they think a house will sell for it can be difficult to know where to set the price and doing incremental pricing may be a way to get at finding what a buyer would pay.

That said, I do not want to be on the market 1.5 years given that we already have bought our new house. I want to do a fairly large reduction now and hope to shorten the sale process considerably.

Since the comps were so few and non-similar I had my agent do comps all the way back to last August. Unfortunately that didn't bring much more clarity. Prices per SF were all over the place, partly due to the fact that many houses had varying amounts of acreage and homes varied a lot in size and amenities and outbuildings. I did notice that by and large the sale prices tend to either be about 90% of the listing price or about 97-98% of listing price.

One of the things that also makes it difficult to decide how much to drop the price is that there is a potential buyer who has expressed very strong interest in the house but has to sell their house first so is not in a position to buy for a month or two. I am not going to wait for that possibility of course.

My agent asked if I was going to drop the price to about $560 or $570 so I guess that is the range that the agent has in mind for a price reduction. I am uncertain whether to drop to $565 or $560.

Your house is beautiful! I can't believe you have to lower the price any more. What a shame, that's a lot of house for such a low price. In my area it would sell well over a million.

I wish you much luck,

Jane

Oh, your post brings back too many memories for me. It took us 2 years to sell our house (it sold a year ago). We had loads of traffic and the majority did not have a problem with the house, there was just too much on the market to choose from. We ended up selling for 65K less than we started at and that was after doing a minor kitchen remodel (removing a wall and adding a large pantry cabinet), a new roof and replacing some flooring. All that to say, yes, I think being prepared to lower is a wise way to go. Hope you get an offer soon!

The amount of showings that you are generating tells me that you have a property that is marketable and something that buyers would like... at least when looking at it from a computer screen. Once they get there though, it sounds like the floor plan is scaring them off at the current listing price.
What's up with the nieghbors house, who listed at $499000?
I would suggest lowering it to $537500 now. Don't waste time lowering it to $550,000 now and then a month later to $525000. Split the difference now.
BTW...when your agent is comping out the home, is she adjusting for sq. ftg. amount of land, outbuildings, pool...? The differences in land amount is not that difficult to adjust for. She can research what lots are selling for and get a sence of the value of land, and adjust accordingly.
BTW... it is hard to "give your house away" even in a buyers market. If you undervalue it, two things can happen. You will get multiple offers that your agent can play against each other to get the price back up to a fair market value, OR, it does not get any offers at all. And if it gets no offers at the "rediculously low" price, then it would have never sold at the higher price to begin with. (This strategy takes an agent that knows the art of footdragging, in order to wait around for that second offer)
Thanks for keeping us updated and good luck.

I did consider going lower than $550k however if I do that then searches for $550 to $600 won't turn up our house. At $550, we will hit both search bands.

Neigbors house (not at $499 now, it is at $600) is on about 5 acres (double lot which they don't want to sell vacant separately). It is a 3 bedroom house in a sea of 4 and 5 bedrooms. They have horses and really the outbuildings/property are optimized for horses. My understanding is that people with kids think it is too small (it is about a 1000 sq feet less than ours). On the other hand, older couples who might be interested in a 3 bedroom may be turned off by the sunken living room. Started out well over $800k (shortly before the time the market started going down).

The agent is adjusting but the comps are not entirely clear particularly since there are so few of them. We also have a guest house which most comps don't have.

You can not worry about what increments buyers are using for thier search. It has nothing to do with your property's market value. And, with a market that has so many good deals out there, buyers are using a wider price range these days anyhow. If the home is priced at $525, $537, or $550, they will find it.
You say that you would go below $550 except for the problem that you think it would cause for searches. If this is the case, then lower to $550, instead of being stuck at $565 with no offers.

Oh, we are definitely going to lower it to at least $550.

When I evicted a tenant from one of our rentals I had to deal with some nasty smell. I tried all the different sprays and no good results. I bought some of those baking soda boxes with different scents and had some change. Then I bought 4 bags of charcoal and put them into four big boxes I got from the supermarket. I left them there for a week, open the windows, it worked. Also change the a/c filter, wipe down the vents with alcohol.