I know of home in very close proximity to me that has been rehabbed over the Summer. The owners bought it essentially from an estate and it needed everything as it's a 45 year old home. To their credit, they did a FANTASTIC job of the rehab. In contrast they're now trying to resell it and making an absolute dumpster fire out of the process. The house was finally ready about 9.1, a crucial point in the home selling calendar in our area. For the first 30 days they stuck a it on Zillow with no pictures and put the WORST open house signs up I've ever seen at the end of the street (when one phone number runs across two 'for sale by owner' signs it pretty much makes you look incompetent). I never saw the home or opens advertised anywhere else. The 'flippers' took an investment they have hundreds of thousands in and completely botched the exposure. It's now 10.14 and they have finally decided to go ahead and list it. Had they done that sooner there were over 139 potential home buyers who had looked at homes in their area and their immediate price point who would have been exposed to it (data documented directly from Centralized Showings). By waiting to mid October and missing six critical weeks of marketing to a fairly active market, they have now put themselves in a terrible position. They're now staring at having literally missed the entire end of the market for no other reason than cheapness and greed. They may have to pay for it over the winter burning mindless days on the market while the leaves and then snow pile up and most qualified home buyers are celebrating the holidays and waiting for Spring. Had they hired ANYONE to get it in the MLS on 9.1 the home would have been most likely sold and closed. Instead the current owners have put hundreds of thousands of their dollars at risk. Amazing.
Look...listing a home and selling through a broker is expensive. I get that. If you want to try to market (and ACTUALLY market) your home in May and June that's one issue. But when you have so much on the line and your investment is about to get swallowed up by the season, get a brain and lose the ego. As it is I think this couple will have cost themselves at least $40K...perhaps more.
Some people think marketing a home is for idiots. Some days it's the idiots who think that. Would you go into court on a $400,000 piece of litigation without any reliable representation? Why would you at a time of the greatest risk put a home worth that much out there without a clue in the world what you're doing?
Greg Cooper top selling Indiana Realtor Agent Broker
