February 2009
Community Paper
copyright ©2009 by Community Paper College Park, Inc. All rights reserved.


A Sixth Sense
by Mike Derenthal, Derenthal Realty Group and College Park resident

Remember that great movie a few years ago with Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment? (If you’ve never seen it, go rent the movie before reading further.) Anyway, it had a great “GOTCHA!” ending where the little boy said “I see dead people”. AAAAHHH!!!! Everyone in the theatre did a collective heeby-jeeby squirm in their seats as they realized this kid possessed the supernatural ability to see the discontented dead walking among us.

And in the spirit of bad analogies (and now bad puns) I have a confession to make. Much like that strange little kid in the movie, I too am haunted with a sixth sense.

I see dead listings.

In other words, I see houses that won’t sell.

Okay – you’re thinking, “Derenthal’s a nut! We’re in the midst of a housing slow down of epic proportions. EVERYONE sees houses that won’t sell.”

Not quite. What most people see are houses that DON’T sell. I see ones that WON’T. There’s a big difference.

Let’s take a look at that house for sale on your street. You know the one – it’s had a sign up for over a year. The sellers may be on their second or third realtor. They may have pulled the house off the market a time or two. They may now be facing foreclosure. And these drills are often interspersed with efforts to sell the home by-owner or in some cases, a short foray into the dark underworld of first-time landlording. They say things like, “I’m not going to give it away”, or “I’m waiting for an out of town buyer to appreciate what I’ve got”, or “my last realtor was full of …”

In any event, that is the story of a house that didn’t sell. Pretty obvious after the fact. But the cross I bear is that, in many cases, I could have told the sellers a long time ago the chances of them selling their house, in its current combination of price and condition, were essentially zero. In some cases I did tell them that (in which case they listed with someone else, but that’s another story).

Far too often I see a new listing hit the market that I know will not sell at anywhere near its current condition and price. The most common fault is the wrong price. Some people think that price isn’t all that important. “If someone likes my property they can just make an offer” is the common line I hear. These poor souls just don’t “get it” that we’ve got to first get fannies through the door before we can even think about getting signatures on an offer.

And when you realize that some sellers of overpriced homes have been chasing the market down for well over a year and sometimes longer, you begin to realize how it might be seriously troubling to watch from my perspective. Even more so when the sellers suffer serious financial repercussions for not getting their home priced properly in the first place.

Overpricing a house in this kind of market can be deadly to your financial health.
But price isn’t the only thing people get wrong. How a property is packaged and promoted are equally important. The “Three P’s” is a topic for a separate column some day, but let me give some brief examples.

By “packaging” I refer to the home itself. Has it been properly staged? Is it spotless? Have necessary repairs been made? Have those not-so-funny, funny pet smells been removed? Has the curb appeal been maximized?

Then there is “promotion.” Is the listing agent marketing the home effectively? Is it mapped properly? Have the top agents in the area been brought through for a broker’s open? Has everyone who has viewed the property been solicited for meaningful feedback? Have big issues been disclosed up front? Do all of the neighbors know exactly what you have for sale?

None of this stuff is rocket science. But it seems to me that it is the rare occasion where all of these details are properly addressed. At the end of the day, if a home is priced, packaged, and promoted properly – it sells.

In The Sixth Sense, the strange little boy eventually helped Bruce Willis come to terms with some of the demons of his past, and with the fact that he was in fact dead. It seemed that our friend Bruce the Ghost had been “living” an afterlife of denial, and only after he faced his new reality, was he able to pack up his spooky suitcase and move on to what we all hope was a loftier place.

Selling a home in this market isn’t impossible. While we are absolutely in a slow market, its not a dead one. The only thing that has truly ceased to exist are the values we all saw about three years ago. Sellers who are clinging to these values are in a state of denial. Properties that are priced, packaged and promoted properly, will sell. Whether or not a seller is prepared, or even able, to take the steps necessary to get it sold is the real question.

Feel free to drop me an email at mike@derenthalrealty.com.

by: Mike Derenthal, Derenthal Realty, www.DerenthalRealty.com
1520 Edgewater Drive, Suite E, Orlando, FL 32804
407-965-1919

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