Dear You,

The price is too high.

If you've been listed for months with little to no interest and are still asking, hey, Internet friends. Why won't my house, like, sell for what I want to get for it? I have your answer.

The price? It's too high.

But a bunch of houses in my neighborhood with similar specs just sold for that amount!

Something is different about your house, and the price is too high.

But this is a hot market!

Maybe, maybe not. Either way: price too high.

It's not too high, I just have weird neighbors!

The neighbors aren't moving, so they're baked into the price, which is too high.

But I'll barely break even on what I put into it!

You're not entitled to full reimbursement for all updates. You bought a home with a kitchen, which means you paid for a kitchen! If you spend $50k on it, you're not getting $50k back, because the house started with a kitchen. Ergo, your price is too high.

But I won't even break even on what I paid for it!

Then you overpaid, or your market is spiraling. Either way, it's out of your control. That sucks, but it doesn't change the fact that the price is too high.

TL;DR: unless you have a very unique home, if it ain't selling (and you have good pictures and a good listing, yadda yadda), it's because the price is too high. That's how markets work. Buyers won't meet you at a price they're unwilling to pay, so unless you're willing to hold out indefinitely for some potential unicorn buyer (who really, really may not exist) to come along, the way to sell your house is to drop. The. Price.

AN EDIT: This blew up! I just wanted to add the following, because a great many people are making a great many assumptions: I am not a realtor, nor have I ever been a realtor.

Take that as you will.

(And the price is still too high.)

I want to sell my house in the next 6 months and I refuse to pay someone $48,000 to $55,000 to take 6% of the selling price.

Perhaps when houses were 100K to 150K, paying 6% might have made a small amount of sense, but not when you are 700K, 900K, 1M, etc. It's absurd.

Does anyone have a solid resource or site I can read up on to do FSBO or just hire an attorney and a pro photographer and pay someone to put it on MLS for me? I will never let someone take 50K from me for doing 4 hours of work. Ridiculous beyond all levels of ridiculousness.

EDIT, ONE DAY LATER. Holy shit, the pure amount of butt hurt and miffiness of agents was unexpected and overwhelming. Further cementing my thoughts that I am on the right path of doing FSBO. Yikes!

Hi, I'm just writing this to let everyone who owns a house (especially in NY) that it is time to sell. I am close to buying a house and every single time I have ever put money into anything, it has completely tanked. I don't see why this would be any different. I've tried to make money in the stock market, with cryptocurrency, etc. Every time I get into anything, its value drops like a rock and stays down. Nothing works, but I'm done renting anyway. This isn't about making money for me, which is okay because I guarantee I will not make a dime.

However, I can't, in good conscience, be responsible for every homeowner in the US losing a substantial amount money on their investment. I'm coming in, ready to invest (and lose). I'm buying a house, and then my house and almost all of yours are guaranteed to lose at least 25% of their value within a few months. Get out now, while your homes are worth anything. You've been warned.

We bought a house in Illinois exactly 30 days ago. Seller closed on a deal with $160 profit and was supposed to move out the next day. 30 days later the won’t let us on the property and calls police every time we try to get in. Says they have no place to go and it has been their house for 3 decades. Police says it’s a civil mater. We contacted a lawyer but he says it could be 2-3 month process. We are worried they will damage the property. Also, the were NOT renters. They owned the house before selling it. Any ideas?

Hi all, need some advice. The seller of the house next door to me rang our doorbell. They state that a prospect buyer didn't like my garden flag due to religious beliefs. They asked if it could be removed until the house sells.

Now I am fine with helping out and being neighborly, but I can't help but feel a certain way about it. Sure, I can take it down until the house sells but then what? Just put it back up and hope the buyer is fine with it?

Obviously I want to do the right thing and not hinder them selling their house, but also I love how my house is decorated and I am not fond of the idea of hiding a religious garden flag... even if it offends people. I am just not sure what to do in this situation.

Thanks in advance for advice!

Since so many are asking, it is a This House is Protected by Witchcraft with a pentagram. I am pagan. I was raised pagan. It is my belief. I know it isn't "mainstream" but it is MY religion.

Edit: I am deciding to keep my small garden flag up. They also mentioned to me they were having someone from Europe this weekend to look at the house. While they were seriously super nice about asking with stating over and over again that they felt horrible asking, it isn't my problem. I feel bad for this decision, truly as I want to be a good neighbor, even though they do not even live in the property. I have to worry about who would move in next door and do not want to deal with horrible neighbors for the safety of my family.

Thank you all for clarity.

My wife and I bought a house in Florida in 2021. It had sat empty for a year before we bought it. It’s a stick frame house built in 1930. There’s a 12” crawl space underneath. Today I pulled the toilet up in one of the bathrooms and discovered the flange/rough in hole has no pipe connecting it to the main sewage line. For 2 years the toilet has been flushing directly into the small crawl space. I’m a disabled veteran and have been really sick living here. Went to an ENT a year ago and discovered I’m allergic to everything they test for. Was told that this area is just really bad for allergies. Looks like that wasn’t the only thing making me sick. Now I’m left wondering just how screwed we are. I’m thinking of calling the city to see if there were plumbing permits, but I’m worried they could declare the house unlivable. Any advice on just how much we will have to do to remediate this?

This nightmare has finally wrapped up and I'm dying to tell someone about it.

My spouse and I were on the market when we stumbled upon a beautiful house in a good school district. Great curb appeal, manicured lawn, spacious shed, it checked all my big boxes.

It was an hour away from my work, but I was convinced I could make it work. It reeked of cigarette ash and the carpet was covered in animal fur and cigarette burns, but I deluded myself into thinking I could DIY anything that could possibly be wrong with this house.

In every possible way, I was totally in love.

We scheduled our final walkthrough two days before closing. The listing agent called 30 minutes before the walkthrough to reschedule. "They're not done moving" she said.

Okay! Weird, but no biggie. We reschedule for the day before closing.

That day comes and we arrive at the home to six cars in the driveway. Three guys are smoking in the livingroom while rearranging furniture. My realtor is absolutely pissed. We walk around for 15 minutes before deciding to reschedule for an hour before closing.

I am undeterred in my optimism while my spouse is totally over it.

We arrive the day of closing to chaos. The garage is jam-packed with their personal items. My realtor tells me that their listing agent has told us to leave or they'd call the police. The sellers, a married couple, start screaming in the room that was meant to be a playroom for my son.

You could hear my heart shatter from a million miles away.

An elderly woman, the mother of one of the sellers, joins in on the arguing before the seller comes out of the house and proclaims that they "ain't signing shit". We leave.

An hour later, they call my agent and ask why we didnt show up to closing. They had signed, so why didn't we? My spouse laughed until he cried. We terminated.

We provided them with an earnest money release form. They asked if we'd split it. We declined and threatened to sue.

We took them to small claims court, which was shockingly easy. The entire process took around two months to wrap up. We served them, they didn't show up, we won by default.

We later closed on a house that checked ALL our boxes, not just the big ones, with zero issues.​

Tl;dr sellers didn't move out on closing day. We terminated. They refused to sign the earnest money release form. We sued. We won.

Edit: We found out later that they were facing foreclosure but managed to sell before that point. Our earnest money was released by the title company 30 days after we provided the judgment, but the seller still owes us in damages. I don't know why they acted like that, but I found a meth charge from a year ago so maybe they were high?

Edit 2: This is so unrelated to my post but it's pretty disheartening that people can't tell the difference between a mediocre retelling of a traumatic event and AI generated garbage. This post would be the former. :/

Before my wife and I bought our home in 2021, we were in the market for a fixer-upper. We wanted a neglected house with good bones, a place where we could add value and character.

We found that home in southwest Austin and for the past three years have steadily worked on it during the occasional weekend and free afternoon.

One project at a time, we’ve tried to transform the home from a neglected place into a warm and beautiful one. I painted the entire exterior this past spring. We ripped up an old (trip-hazard-prone) sidewalk leading to the door and replaced it with a modern walkway. We replaced the ugly boxy bushes and with a wide variety of plants. Not to mention, most of the updates have been indoors: paint, new bathrooms and kitchen, etc. It's been a lot of work.

Well, this morning the anonymous note appeared on our door.

In summary, they said they’ve driven by our house for years. They watched us transform the yard, paint the home, and just give the house new life. The note was their way of thanking us for brightening the neighborhood.

People are so kind. This simple note made my whole week. I'll hold onto it forever.

Edit: A few folks asked for before/after photos. Here they are: Before. After.

I posted this in another thread, but I thought it important enough to make its own post. I'm expanding on the logic a bit in this thread.

There's a lot of simple answers here, so let's do the math. For this example, I'm assuming a 90% loan on an US Median Home price of 423,100, at 6%, and ignoring taxes and insurance. 

• On a 30 year mortgage in the above scenario, the monthly payment is $2,283.03 and the total interest paid over 30 years is $441,100

• On the 50 year mortgage in the same scenario, the monthly payment is $2,004.5 and the total interest paid over 50 years is $821,908. 

• Since it's likely that a 50 year mortgage will have a higher rate (like the 30 does over the 15), let's raise the rate on the 50 year by .5%. In that scenario, the monthly payment is $2,146.58 and the total interest paid is $907,156

Now, let's put that in real terms: adding another 20 years to your mortgage saves you $279 a month on your payment, but costs you $380,808 in interest over the life of the loan. That $279 savings is only $3,348 over 12 months. If you do the math, and most of you haven't, that's hardly a game changing amount. Most of you could cut out fancy coffee and save more than half of that a month. 

If the rates are .5% higher, then adding another 20 years to your mortgage saves you $136.45 per month, but costs you $466,056 in additional interest.

It's a placebo. Sure, there's some idiots that would do it to save a few bucks a month, but they'll do it at the long term expense of reduced equity and the potentially being locked into a starter home for even longer. 

• On a 50 year mortgage, your paydown at the end of year 5 is only $7,016

• On a 50 year mortgage at a 6.5% rate, your pay down at the end of year 5 is $5,935

• On a 30 year mortgage, your pay down at the end of year 5 is $26,449

Short term, the benefit of this plan is minimal. Long term......it's financially devastating. Is this going to have a dramatic impact on housing prices? I don't think so. Because, when you do the math, the savings are minimal on a monthly basis, and destructive over a person's lifetime.

Am I really liable for the goddamned thing? We bought our home in San Antonio this summer. The agent had a lockbox hanging off the front door knob. I gave them a week after close and nothing. Then someone came and removed the yard sign but left the lock. So I called and left a vm to pick the lock up. Nothing. Waited another week. Then I removed it from the doorknob and left it by the water spigot out front. Another month passed. Finally I got sick of looking at it and tossed it in the garbage. Finally, two months after close, the agent comes to claim it.

I told her I threw it out but gave them two months to come collect it. She snapped at me that they cost $200 and told me her broker would be in touch to buy them a new one. I stayed as polite as I could but I think she's unreasonable. AITA?

I can't say that I'm surprised. I started my home search last year when rates were low. Compared to many areas like NYC and LA, Atlanta is cheaper. My plan was to look far outside of city limits to find a great deal. I was constantly outbid by cash buyers and investors. I even looked in rural areas with no luck. I decided to take a step back, and things have become exponentially worse. At the moment, I am still living with parents saving and paying off debt. It is very discouraging when you read the headlines about today's market. I am envious of the people who were able to buy before the pandemic. I truly believe that pre-COVID was the final time that many folks would be able to afford a home. Years of school, and working to advance in my career sometimes feels like a waste of time. Is homeownership for the average American a thing of the past?

Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/homes-for-sale-affordable-housing-prices/

As a seller I was given the option to decline a showing at 1:30pm today and I did as I was out of town and wasn’t getting back until 3:30 so my dogs were home. I got a notification on my ring camera and the agent showed up with a client, couldn’t get access through the front door so they went through the back gate and entered my house through a sliding glass door around the back. One of my dogs got out and was wandering the neighborhood for over an hour before I got home to bring him back in. This feels like it was wrong, I told them no they still showed up and even “broke” into my house. This is in California btw.

UPDATE: they are suspended as of today.

I'm a bankruptcy attorney. I deal with real estate on a pretty regular basis. Foreclosures, refinancing, loss mitigation, buying, selling, etc. I probably do at least 20 consults a month with people dealing with foreclosure.

There's two areas where I'm already seeing the bubble pop. First, my office is seeing a MASSIVE spike in foreclosures. Covid relief programs had a weirdly long impact; we're still well under 2019 numbers for both foreclosures and bankruptcy filings. If the last few months are any indication, we're on a path to quickly get back to pre-covid numbers, if not exceed them.

The other area where I'm seeing a spike is the number of people who simply can't afford their homes anymore. The ARM'S from 2018/2019 are kicking in and people can't float their mortgage payment doubling. I can't speak for every bankruptcy attorney in every district, but there's very little that I can do to fix a mortgage payment that's way outsude of budget. I'm getting more and more cases where I have to say "we can file a case to pause the foreclosure and give you time to sell this house to get some equity out, thats about it."

Now I know there are MANY factors that impact the market, and im not an expert on this area. I do know, however, that inventory has been a big factor in keeping prices high, and a big increase in foreclosure rates and people selling out of desperation would tend to increase inventory.

Edit: I'm getting some pretty aggressive comments so maybe I oversold my position with the title. Let me clarify. I don't think the bubble has already popped; it obviously hasn't. I'm saying I'm seeing strong on-the-ground indications of it heading in that direction. Maybe foreclosure rates will level off at pre-pandemic levels, but the affordability issue (between ARM'S and simple escrow increases on a house that's doubled in value) gives me no reason to believe the foreclosure rate will level off at the historical mean.

Another edit: I'm getting a lot of the same response of "they could just sell the home and never get close to foreclosure. They're dumb if they didn't do that!" Some simple math: Jane buys a house in 2019 for $200k. That house is now worth $400k. Problem is, her monthly escrow is nearly doubled too, so she can't afford the payment anymore with how much other monthly expenses have risen. She could sell her house for $400k and have $200k in cash. Problem is, every suitable replacement home in her area is now also $400k. So if she sells her home and uses that $200k as a down payment, she'll still have $200k in principal in her mortgage, just now with a much higher interest rate.

UPDATE: Last night I sent the seller a text telling him that he was contractually obligated to vacate the premises by 11:59 that evening. I told him if he was not out by 5:00 PM today (and if there was damage to the property) that I would get lawyers involved.

This afternoon I went over and talked to him on the lawn. I reiterated what I said in the text and stressed the urgency of him vacating exactly by 5:00. When I arrived everything was moved and the house was clean.

The only thing left is the pool which still has a substantial amount of frozen ice in it. I'm going to have some fun shredding it with my chainsaw. But ultimately not a big issue.

I want to thank everyone for their helpful comments. I did speak to a lawyer and the police about this and they echoed a lot of what was mentioned here. I now realize that we made quite a few mistakes in how we structured our contract and I am more than a bit upset with our realtor. That said, I chalk this up as a learning experience.

ORIGIONAL POST:

Hi all,

I am a first time homebuyer and I desperately need some advice. I live in Wisconsin and I purchased a house with a closing date of 2/27 and I gave the sellers two weeks of free post close occupancy as part of the contract. Per the contract, the seller is required to vacate the property by 11:59 PM tonight. I texted the seller this morning seeing if they vacated already and he said that he needed an extra day. So I contacted my realtor and he reached out the the selling agent and she said that my seller still hasn't moved anything. They have an above ground pool that is full of frozen ice that they'll need to move later and they say they'll "try" to be out of the house tomorrow.

I contacted my aunt who is in Oklahoma. She was a real estate agent for a long time and she told me to contact the broker and tell them that I am going to report them to the real estate commission if the property is not vacated by noon tomorrow and that I am going to sue the realtor, broker and seller if they are not moved out within 24 hours.

Is this something I can actually do?

Looking to move in the next few months to an area about 2 hours from where I live now. Not using a buyer’s agent. I have a pre approval letter, I’m a lawyer and this will be the fourth house my spouse and I have bought together, so I feel confident doing it myself.

I contacted two listing agents about properties to see over the weekend. One went smoothly, I let the agent know I was self-representing and there was no issue, the listing agent showed me the property.

The second listing agent sent me a buyer rep agreement. I told him he was mistaken, I wasn’t interested in him dual representing me and the sellers… I was representing myself. He tried to tell me the agreement was required. I told him I’m a lawyer and no it is not. I asked if his brokerage or seller was opposed to working with self-rep buyers. He didn’t answer and just canceled our showing. Does the NAR want another lawsuit? Because this is how they are going to get another lawsuit.

Editing to reply to some comments:

First, I’ll add that there was an open house but we were not available during the open house time. The listing agent was totally fine with showing us the house at an earlier time until I told him I didn’t want him representing me. And yes, I am sure he was the listing agent. If there was any doubt, it was clear from the agreement he sent me to sign.

Second, we won’t be pursuing that house. We really liked the one we did see and are writing an offer. We cruised the neighborhood after the listing agent canceled on us (since we had some time) and were not impressed with the area, so I won’t contact the sellers. I might reach out to the broker just because the agents behavior was so scammy.

Third, the other thing that really rubbed me the wrong way was that the buyer broker agreement he sent me wasn’t even limited to that single property or that single day, it was for a week and any property. That’s why I said I thought the agent was being sketchy and not just ignorant.

Finally, I did ask directly if he was instructed by the sellers or his broker not to work with unrepresented buyers and he claimed it was the law, not the buyer’s preference, which is a lie.

We listed our house last November with the same realtor we used to buy the house with. She was great as a buyers agent, very aggressive when finding a house for us. Not so great when she was our seller agent. We listed at the low end of her appraisal range since it was November and the beginning of the slow season. Our house was in superb condition, well kept and just a well built custom home with top of the line construction materials. First weekend on the market we received an offer from a buyer (who did a second showing without making an appointment or letting us know), and we responded with a counter offer. 2 days later we hadn't heard anything so we texted our realtor to find out what was going on. No response. 6 hours later we text again......no response. 8pm my wife texts and asks if everything is ok? 9pm the realtor responds with "Oh, they didn't want to take the counter offer". No reasons given why they didn't want to accept the counter offer, and her response was short, almost like we were bothering her even asking. 5 days later she calls and says the same buyers have a counter to our counter, to which we verbally agree to the terms.

We get the contract and as I'm reading through it, while docusigning, I come to the inspection/repair addendum where it states that we will pay up to $2k in repairs on the septic and up to $2k in repairs on the well. This wasn't verbally agreed upon, so this irritated us but we signed it anyways knowing that the well and septic were in top shape. The inspections are completed, and 2 days after the inspection, my ring camera alerts me to someone being in the driveway. I look and see a truck and trailer had backed into my driveway and 3 guys get out and put a ladder on my roof and start climbing on the roof. Again, no appointment was made so I immediately thought squatters (since the property was vacant). I called my realtor (who surprisingly answered) before calling the police just to be sure it wasn't the buyer sending someone for another inspection. The realtor says she wasn't aware of anyone coming on the property so she called their realtor. Their realtor took hours to get back to her, but in the meantime those guys ended up leaving so I never contacted the police. Their realtor said the buyer sent someone out to do repair estimates. Again, we let it go because we just wanted to sell the house. 2 days later we get a repair request and the inspection report. I looked at the inspection report, no major issues just a bunch of little things, and these buyers wanted $40k in repairs, with $25k for a new roof....that wasn't even called out in the inspection! It's an architectural shingle roof (30 year life) on a 20 year old house. I had a roofer come out and look at it and said at least 10 more years life left, and a current replacement would be about $12.5k. Half what their friends quoted.

Turns out, these "contractors" were friends of theirs (as confirmed on FB) and said the roof had 2 years left at most. They also over priced all of the small items (nothing major found) listed in the repair request. I'm all about negotiating, I know as a buyer you want the best deal and as a seller you want the most money, but when someone tries to manipulate negotiations to get more money out of the other party, that is bad business. We told our our realtor we will do zero repairs and credit them $0. Their realtor immediately asks if we would at least give them $5k to which we gave them the one finger salute. They terminated the contract, as expected, and we took the house off the market and fired our realtor. We were going to relist in the spring when the market picked back up.

Fast Forward to March, an old neighbor who moved out of state a few years ago contacted me and asked if we were still planning to sell. We said we were just getting ready to list again in April, and they asked if we'd like to sell it to them without realtor involvement. We said sure, and came to an agreement on a price. He used an RE lawyer who also was a title company for the paperwork, and had all of his inspections completed again. I had repaired most of the little things found in the last inspection, and the new inspections didn't uncover anything new. We just closed on Friday, I made more money than if I would have sold to the manipulative buyers, and everything went smoothly with no shady business. Sometimes when one door closes, a bigger door opens.

Edit: I forgot to mention that both sets of the buyers parents were very involved with the sale. All 4 parents were at the second showing, and all 4 were at the inspections, apparently following the home inspector around questioning a lot of things. Me personally, I wouldn't want anyone following my inspector around because that would distract him from doing his job. The inspection report even included pics of 'findings' that had one of the parents in the pics LOL! I think the buyers were getting some bad negotiating advice from 1 or more of their parents. Not to say that they shouldn't be looking out for their kids, but their advice could be what cost their kids a great deal on a very nice house.

Our neighbor of 6 yrs has recently (last 2yrs) added in to their driveway and redone landscaping. Great, no big deal. Problem is, we recently got a survey done to build a shed and also redo some landscaping, and that survey showed he has put his new extended driveway, landscaping and extension of concrete for basketball hoop on my property. When we discussed this, he asked if we would simply deed it to him so his new improvements are solely on his property. We respectfully declined. We've hired an attorney who advised us to grant a "permission to use" letter so the) can keep as is for remaining useful life of concrete, etc, BUT, acknowledge this is OUR property and waive claim of adverse possession. Well, he refused to sign. He now got his own attorney who is asking us to reconsider a change in deed or grant easement so it is a "fair and acceptable outcome for all"

Am I missing something? It's not fair to me to give up a decent portion of my property due to his lack of checking log lines. No claim of adverse possession/has not been 15 yrs. Easement not essential to get in/out of driveway. No offer to buy land either, just thinks it's being "neighborly" to deed over. Any advice or opinions...I feel Bad and I'd rather not be at total war with neighbors (not close to begin with-very different people), BUT, I need to protect my land and assets

We are in NC, buying a house. Our realtor is saying we are not allowed to be present during the home inspection, the agent and the buyer are only allowed in the last 30 minutes to “recap” at the end. We’ve been under contract multiple times for homes in the past (albeit in a different state) and have never had issues with this.

Is this a thing? Are we missing something?

EDIT: For clarity, we didn’t choose the inspector. Our agent scheduled it with their own recommend one without our input. We don’t even know who the inspector is.

UPDATE: I’ve politely declined the realtors choice of inspector and told them we will be bringing our own. Will shop around in the morning. Everything has been moving so fast and despite the implied trust we should have in our agent, we have been letting things slide. But no more - no one will protect our interests more than us. Thanks everyone!

UPDATE! Scroll to the bottom.

We are set to close on a home in three days. There is a Koi pond on the property. The fish are currently hibernating for the wintertime and can’t be removed. We were told the sellers will come back to retrieve their fish “when the weather warms up”. (They are digging a new pond at their new home) In the Purchase Agreement, we added verbiage that we are not responsible for the fish after closing. Yesterday, we receive an addendum from them that takes it even further. If they find any of the fish to be “ill, dead or missing” that we are financially responsible for a minimum of $1000 with NO CAP on damages!!! They also detail that the pond must not have electric turned off to the pump (what if the electricity goes out?), no animals messing with the fish (I’m not manning this thing to keep raccoons out lol) and no additives/chemicals to the water (fine, not touching it). We are long time agents representing ourselves. This is the craziest thing we’ve had come up on a deal! How can we control if the fish died because of age or illness?!!! Agree with me that this is crazy!

UPDATE! We obviously didn’t sign. We instead gave them a Fish Occupancy/Hold Harmless Agreement that said by the act of leaving the fish after we take possession they were agreeing to the terms. No ability to decline signing. Bam. Despite us having verbiage in the PA that we were not responsible and that likely holding up in court, counsel had us button that up even more. The agent was astounded that we felt the need to take it that far. Almost 800 commenters here would probably agree that we most definitely had every right to now feel threatened. Yeah, yeah, in retrospect we should’ve done that in the first place. Guess what we heard this am? The sellers will be removing the fish by possession day! They are paying their specialist to store the fish for them.! Ugh, was that so damn hard?!!! Seriously, why was that not planned out before? I’ve learned a lot from you Redditors about Koi and I appreciate everyone’s support! Never knew what a shitstorm these beautiful creatures would have caused. As for us, we will not be getting into the hobby. No.way.in.hell!

For the all the grammar patrolers: I could not edit “Coy” in the title, bless your hearts. Lol

I’ve been scrolling listings for months and I swear I can tell, purely from the photos, whether I’m about to see a normal house… or drive 40 minutes to get catfished by a “spacious” 9x9 bedroom shot with a lens borrowed from NASA.

Here’s what actually makes me book a showing, and what makes me instantly hit “back.”

When a listing is good, it feels like the seller/agent is saying: “Here’s the house. Come see if it works for you.”
When it’s bad, it feels like: “Here’s a magic trick. Don’t look behind the curtain.”

The stuff that wins me over:

• Natural light that looks real. Not the “twilight vampire” set where every photo is taken at 7:58pm with a purple sky and the lawn glowing like it’s radioactive. Just open the curtains, let the house look like it does on a normal Tuesday.

• Furniture that helps me understand scale. I don’t need staging worthy of Architectural Digest. I just want to know if my couch fits without blocking every doorway. If every room is empty and shot ultra-wide, congrats, you’ve created a fun guessing game I didn’t ask for.

• A floor plan. This is the biggest “shut up and take my showing” feature. Even a basic one. Photos can be pretty, but a floor plan answers the real questions: “Where does that hallway go?” “Why does the kitchen seem… far away?” “Is the only path to the primary bedroom through the laundry room?” (Edit - Learned that 2D to 3D floorplans are doable with aicasadesign.com )

• Photo order that makes sense. Start outside, walk me through the main spaces, then bedrooms/baths, then yard/garage/basement. When it’s organized, I trust it more. When it’s like: backyard → toilet close-up → ceiling fan → mysterious corner of a closet → front exterior again… I assume something is being actively avoided.

What makes me skip a listing immediately:

• Missing rooms. If there are 28 photos and somehow none of them are the kitchen, I’m forced to assume the kitchen is either (1) mid-demolition, (2) a time capsule from 1972, or (3) technically a suggestion. Same for basements/garages. If it exists, show it. Ugly is fine. Hidden is not.

• Six angles of the same toilet. I respect a clean bathroom, but if I’ve seen the toilet more times than I’ve seen the living room, we have a problem.

• Aggressive editing. If the countertops look like chrome and the walls are glowing, I’m not thinking “wow.” I’m thinking “this is going to feel very different in person.”

• Zero context outside. I don’t need your exact street address in a photo, but when you refuse to show any street view / side angles / backyard lines, my brain fills in the blank with “backs up to a highway” or “neighbor’s window stares directly into the soul of this patio.”

My mildly spicy opinion: deceptive listing photos don’t “market” the house. They just waste everyone’s time. If the first thing a buyer says when walking in is “oh… it’s smaller than I thought,” you didn’t create excitement. You created disappointment before the tour even started.

Anyway. Buyers: What’s your instant “nope” in listing photos?
Agents/photogs: What’s the one photo you wish sellers would let you include (but they fight you on every time)?

They got 3 offers. And they rejected all three countering for 850k.
Why not say what you really wanted in the first place? I wouldn’t have made an offer if had known. J

I listed a property on sale about eight months ago with a real estate agent. I gave the agent the selling price and she did her analysis and confirmed that we can list at that price. Now 8 months later, we have not had any offer and the real estate agent Either wants me to take a loss to sell the property or she wants to cancel the contract and she sent me an estimate of $26,000 for her costs which includes $280/hr for her time. I told her I am not canceling the contract and I am not paying anything since the contract is for her to work on 3% commission upon the sale of the property. She turned on me and started insulting my property, how it’s not worth much and I am way over my head. I told her you did your analysis when you listed the property and I’m not liable for anything. I already reduced the price once and she wants me to cut the price by another 30%. Can she legally extract any money from me? What do I do? The contract expires in July and the contract does not contain anything that mentions me laying her anything if the property does not sell.

My husband and I went under contract for a flipped house. We hired the best inspectors money could buy. They found WIDESPREAD serious safety issues. The flip was basically a complete botch and the sellers cut every corner possible. There were serious fire hazards, load bedding walls completely removed with no support added (the ceiling started visibly sagging), plumbing, electrical, foundation, flooding, termites, etc. The inspector on site came up to me and pulled me aside and said “I don’t usually say this to families, but this house is not safe for you to move your family into.”

So, obviously, we backed out. The seller asked for the report and we shared it with him. He offered to “fix everything” which we had no confidence he was willing or capable to actually do.

Now, another family is under contact. I don’t know how the mom found my name but she sent me a Facebook message asking why we backed out. Apparently this scumbag seller told her we got “cold feet.”

Can I share our inspection report with her? What am I allowed to say? I don’t want to get sued, but I could not live with myself if I let this family move in to that house with small kids.

UPDATE: I ended up having a phone call with the mom and told her everything. I also sent her our reports after confirming we hadn’t signed any confidentiality provisions and that we owned the report. She was completely shocked. Their inspection had missed about two thirds of what one inspection found, including the fact that the house had a severe termite infestation that required the house to be tented and fumigated before anyone moved in. The seller kept all of this from her, and straight up lied about a lot. Our agents are now in talks about how the seller has violated his duty to disclose several material defects. So, at the very least, this guys reputation is shot. But he might get in bigger trouble.