Pdg: Our realtor thinks it will appraise he is very confident. Thank you for your appreciation. Are you in the market for a home ? You can see it in person 12-5 today at the open house.

Good luck! You may have missed the peak in house selling in spring/summer, but there is a chance someone will bite before school starts and things get dead. I love your colors. It looks clean and bright to me!

handmethehammer: ahh... Thanks.. I think you might be right.

Feeling the Monday morning blues after being away from the home whole weekend and yet no offers -only words of appreciation. Lot of work to keep the house clean with kids on break and working parents.. hmm! feeling down today. I know it will pass...

Please bring cheer my way and give me your best wishes to sell :-)

My wife and I looked at homes in your area two years ago. (Grandchildren live a few miles south east of the OP - on the Old Oakland Golf Course.)

From a mid-atlantic perspective you can get a lot of house for the buck in INDY and vicinity. We were quite taken by Fishers, IN, and Carmel, IN, among other areas.

Your home shows very well, seems well located wrt INDY and offers a lot of square feet for the price! Two years ago, at least, there was lots and lots of inventory in your price range. It's all about the comps and whatever uniqueness you can offer.

Is there anything that you can focus on as far as a unique feature?

I'm sure the offers will come. I live in Nora...sold a house in Broad Ripple last year and it took about 70 days. Sold another house in Lawrence, took four months. Our realtor said 90 days was about average for Indy, but hopefully Fishers has a hotter market. FWIW, we ended up having to reduce price in both cases to get offers...seems that we always overvalue our own homes.

We have had atleast 20 showings, lots of traffic in open houses and the only thing that comes up is the steep driveway and unusable backyard. No Offers..

We reduced the price to $274,500 and yet no offers, and yes we have learned the lesson that the buyer/customer is not happy with the price . With fall and winter approaching fast enough we are now trying all options We are willing to reduce the price further. any suggestions ?

I was suggesting $259,500 in a desperate bid to sell to my DH and he is not happy. Please help us come up with a right price. Thank you in advance.

I'm sorry to hear that, although it seems you priced it too high to begin with. Not sure what the right price would be to close the deal, but don't let buyers smell the desperation! What does your realtor suggest?

I'm getting ready to help market a relatives house, and was thinking of asking the realtor if he runs advertisements in Canada. Some of the priciest homes in our neighborhood have been bought by Canadians. I'm interested in learning more about that potential market. Make sure you are hitting every website and getting the house out there to as many potential buyers as possible. Good luck!

Certainly one obstacle you are facing is the Zillow Estimate for your home is $245,131. Your "I was suggesting $259,500 in a desperate bid to sell..." still does not sit squarely with the Zillow evaluation.

Before the Zillow haters go wild here, you need to examine this discrepancy. I'd suggest that you get the Zillow estimates for some homes that either have recently sold or are on the market in your area and compare those estimates to the vauation the market has determined. If Zillow is pretty close, you need to determine why it has singled out your house for undervaluing.

While I would not price a home based on Zillow alone, it is a tool that needs to be considered. And no matter your opinion, some would be buyer will take the evaluation as Gospel!

SattiDawg- I know what you mean, I read about how Zillow comes up with that value it is purely a estimate,

http://www.zillow.com/zestimate/.

Realtor estimate is the correct one, they suggest going in and adding comments to the section to add seller opinion or correction. Our realtor is pondering on the right value still..

You can also influence Zillow Zestimate by logging in as the owner and making sure everything (sq ft, room count, etc) is accurate.

I would really consider repainting the feature walls that you have. I think many people will like them, but there will be other people like me, who love the kitchen, but just see all the painting I would need to do. Painting wouldn't be expensive and might make it more appealing to a few more potential buyers.

And to be honest, if it were me, unless there were comps that justified a price over 260K, I would definitely reduce the price to 259K, especially as there are other houses in your area around that price point. But, as a non-professional, I probably wouldn't pay more than 250K.

Yes, Emma got it. We took a quote to paint the house too. We were really hoping some one would see the potential in this house and give an offer, that did not happen so we will have to do this too.

Everything in the house is new -- 5 years or less,floors/appliances/drywall/plumbing,hvac. Hence comps dont do justice.

I agree with Salti's suggestion. Check the Zillow estimates on sold properties that are comps to your house. How close did the estimate come? (Percentage)

I'm afraid that most buyers just don't value what they can't SEE -- the new drywall, plumbing, hvac, etc. It doesn't hurt to *stress* all of that in the listing, but people generally buy with their eyes. (What's wrong with the back yard?)

OP stated backyard is unusable. I would imagine, since the driveway is steep, the backyard is also. Ours is very steep. So steep the climate changes from the top to the bottom. A blooming tree at the top will bloom at a different time than that same tree at the bottom. We solved our steep issues with terracing, steps and areas of interest. Not so easy to do in some backyards.

Yes that's correct unusable.. in the sense no swingsets etc.. but a nice creek and firepit is in place for enjoyment. The listing has a picture.

We have checked other Houses listed on Zillow they are valued way lower than what they are listed at.

People don't pay extra for things like drywall, plumbing, HVAC, etc. To me it would a great selling point that those systems are newer, and potentially help the house sell faster, but I know I wouldn't be willing to pay more for those things (and I would be surprised if others would as well).

The other issue that I think you have is that there is another home that looks to be on the same street as you, that seems to be as equally updated (at least in the finishes) with 130-140 extra sq ft that is priced at 258K and has been on the market 50 days, and then another home, again appearing to be on the same street that is the same size as yours for 244K (but doesn't have some of the nice finishes). The one house that is pending is listed at 245K and has more than 800 sq ft as yours (although some of the finishes aren't quite so nice). Unless the average DOM is pretty high, and unless there are multiple bids, so that the sales price is higher than the listing price, then, unfortunately I think you are going to need to drop below 250K. Because the pendings in your area? Are all on the market for under the 250K mark.

At least that is my very non-professional opinion. I know that we want to believe our homes are worth a certain amount, but they are only worth what other people will buy them for.

If I was looking at a newer home that touted even newer drywall, it would not be a plus--in fact my mind would be alarm-belling. My suspicions would be that there was major water damage, especially since the new drywall is partnered with new plumbing, and feed the fears of what could be growing in those now glossed-over walls.

Price drops in my area put the home back in front of real estate agents. We have an internal MLS and many of us use a "hotsheet" feature that brings up any changes in a certain area. If I have a buyer looking in a specific area I create a hotsheet and check it daily to see if anything has changed. You want agents to be looking at your home because they are most likely going to bring a buyer to it. I believe sites like Redfin, Trulia and Zillow also pop changes to the top. There are many reasons a price drop is a good thing, this is one of them. Also, switch around your photos and write a new description to get eyes back on your property. Many of my clients push the envelope with pricing and I am fine with that as long as they realize they will be sitting on the property until that unique buyer comes into play. Best of luck.

A couple of us made suggestions re Zillow - essentially advised you to see how Zillow's Estimates jibed with actual sales. If close, you need to figure out why it is valuing your home so very low.

I'm not sure what more you expect out of this thread????

Don't pay attention to Zillow it is rarely correct. Talk to your agent and listen to their advice, it sounds like they gave you the right price to begin with.

I don't know if you might be better off taking it off market and re-trying to list it in the spring/early summer- From what I've read, Fall/Winter is the worst time to sell houses, since people are busy with holidays and whatnot. Perhaps the housing market might go up and the comps will be more favorable to you next year?

Salti-- This thread has helped me a lot in understanding the pricing etc. Thank you. I did some comp analysis etc through the realtors data and we are priced competitively as of now. Zillow is consistently low for all the other homes listed too

We have no option but wait for the buyer and FYI we cant even rent due to our HOA CCR rules. Ultimately its the buyer who is going to decide the right value. I will wait patiently..

We might have to take it off the market if the fall/winter season slows it down.

You can't sell it if it isn't on the market. If other houses are withdrawn due to 'season', your house will have less competition. While it is a pain to keep everything looking good, if you want offers, you'll have to be 'for sale'.

Have you run the numbers to weigh how much you are losing (mortgage, insurance, taxes) v. taking a lower price? What's the economic climate in your area? (Scary layoffs and bad DOW numbers aren't helping.)

I don't consider Zillow "pricing" when viewing houses, I'm certain many others don't also.

r2d2indy, We had our closing on December 1st. One of our DS's bought his home in January.

I know it is a PITA to keep the house spotless, especially with kids, but hang in there.

Wishing you a sale soon, Kathy G in MI

I bought 2 homes with November closings. I had one home listed through the holidays (and it got showings) but we weren't living there at the time. I think I would take it down from some time in November through the first of January to have the holidays as family time unless the desire to sell outweighed the infrequent (if any) showings.

I sold a house 7 years ago in San Diego in a very down market~it was on the market for 3 mos, almost to the day. I agreed to be 'out' so Christmas could be enjoyed in the new home. It wasn't a big deal since I already had things in storage and what was left in the house was for staging purposes. I think the #1 selling feature is being ready 'to go', ASAP.

Patty_cakes' comment made me think back -- one of those had been vacant about 6 months. A good home, but it had a shallow back yard and no pool in an area where pools or room for a pool is a big deal in the summer. We wound up in a competing offers situation at that.

R2 did you sell?

No. I only wish --some good feedback no offers yet. It has completely slowed down here.There is absolutely zero movement in our neighborhood.

hmm, your home looks lovely. i can't imagine paint would seriously deter any buyers. don't people at minimum paint when they move in? maybe change everything to a light gray? that seems to be the color du'jour. i also think it's odd when people say a home is overpriced. if i wanted your home and thought it was worth 10 or 15k less, i'd just offer accordingly. i always found it odd when our realtor tried to get us to reduce our 375k asking price on our co-op by 5k. hello, is someone really going to want to pay 370k for our co-op but not make an offer based on our 375k asking price? messing with price every so often just looks desperate to buyers (at least it does to me). just price right and stay the course. good luck!

Your home is beautiful. I would warm the kitchen up a bit with maybe a fruit bowl or flowers, but overall it looks very nice.

I think it gets a lot harder when your home isn't the newest listing. Some stuff in the Indy area just isn't selling well, but I'd expect more demand in Fishers. I posted earlier in this thread, we sold a house in Lawrence last year, it took nearly 4 months. We started at something like 214k and then cut a few minor steps, then took a big drop to 199k. That put us into another "search" bracket (under $200k), and also significantly lower than other homes in the same neighborhood. That got the house sold -- fast. For comparison, the home next door listed about the same time as us for $220k, and is to this day still for sale -- now $189,900, and 400 days on the market. And it's a nice house. It's been empty a year now. I don't know if you have to move, but if you really want to move it, you may have to cut your price significantly.

Guys have a low ball offer, but we just got one offer-- our first. Good to see one come through. We havent done anything yet.. but am letting the group know. Thanks for being there with me, will keep the group posted.

Try to work with the lowball, it may not work out, but it never hurts to keep the ball rolling.

We'll hope that ball has some *bounce-UP* in it!

Congratulations on your offer! Several times, even with a price drop, you indicated you were pushing the pricing envelope and were not sure about where you should be priced. I suspect your Low ball offer is actually a pretty realistic offer based on the market value. Try to work it and consider what it "costs" you to keep it on the market in real dollars and the psychological costs.

Good comment rrah! Possible.

FYI, they accepted our counter offer..

Congratulations! Start packing!! :-)

Good news! Hope the home inspection and financing go well and you'll be posting that the deal is closed.

Great.

You originally asked $274.5K, dropped $9500 to $265K. Zestimate is $245,751.

What did it end up selling for?

It isn't sold yet, don't disclose your price. saltidawg - ignore zillow.

Probably a good idea to not disclose your price - nor most of what you have already disclosed here. lol

Re ignoring Zillow, that would be totally foolish. Period. (Wonder if ultimately sold at about the Zest. lol

Congrats r2d2indy! Here's to a smooth closing process

Why is it foolish to ignore Zillow?

Good job, r2.

Oh so glad to hear you sold it. Hoping for a fast closing so you can enjoy your beautiful new home.

Closing done. love the new owners, All thats well ends well. !!

You're nice to come tell us your good news. Glad this chapter closed on a positive note. On to the rest of your life!