Three months ago, we made the big decision to sell our house so we could move from Tampa to Leesburg, Virginia.
It's the first time selling a house on the market for me (my prior home was a private sale). Given my mom is a lifelong realtor, I decided to do FSBO with her consulting along the way. I figured 2-3% of your home's value is a big ask for a realtor, especially considering the main things they do is list it in MLS and help you with pricing.
We found a vendor that charged us less than $200 put the home in MLS (which feeds the listing to Zillow, Redfin, etc). Mom helped us with pricing.
There's this weird psychological process you go through with your home. It's easy to get caught up and really think your baby is cuter than the rest. You can kid yourself into thinking it is worth more than it really is. And for that reason, we tried to stay realistic.
Our home is no mansion, we thought it cleaned up and showed well.
Most of the research and feedback I got online said that open houses are largely for realtors to market themselves. Yes, some people get offers through the, but usually not.
One realtor said, "Around 10% of my homes are sold through open houses." But the real number is probably hold closer to 2-3%.
I figured, even if it was only that 2-3% number, it would be a good exercise to feel out the market. We held three open houses and they were mostly busts. In total, we had 12 people who came. About half of them were just joyriders, looking for something to do.
Two of them were "looking for a friend," which wasn't promising. The rest seemed like genuinely interested buyers.
Now, I'll note, open houses are a lot of work. You really have to do lots of detailed cleaning, getting on your hands and knees. It got old fairly fast.
What I've realized is that serious buyers typically have their financing lined up, and will schedule actual showings rather than just appear at an open house.
After a week, I realized we'd probably listed the price too high, so we cut it 25K. Within two weeks, we had our first showing, then it was crickets after that. It's very much a game of hurry up and wait, and it can really make you antsy.
We then lowered the price again by 25K and showings picked up. What's also crazy is that you never get much notice from agents.
It's always this text message that drops in my messenger, "Can I bring someone by at 4 PM today?"
Or at 8 PM, they text and say, "Can we do a showing at 10 AM tomorrow?"
We learned to keep the house relatively clean at all times so that we could quickly touch it up and be ready.
I often get feedback by asking questions on Reddit on various topics. It's usually a great way to crowdsource solutions to your problems.
Context: There are various real estate and housing oriented subreddits where users provided feedback. When trying to ask about my situation and their thoughts, I realized how toxic this entire topic is. And I should have known: we are discussing housing, which inevitably feeds into people's anxieties, resentments, and financial fears. It connects to status, politics and affordable housing.
Which then led to harassment, especially after listing my housing details.
"How could a townhome be worth that?"
"Your house is a mess. You need to stage it better."
"Have you tried lowering the price?" ←this 1000x, even when I didn't give the price.
Yes, we tried lowering the price (twice).
The remaining answers mostly contradicted themselves.
When I asked how people decide when a good time to sell is, I got a lecture about how I should sell when I'm ready to sell. When I said, "We have flexibility because we work remotely and don't need to move this moment. Just looking for genuine help."
This then unleashed a lecture about how if anyone knew how to time the market, they'd be a genius millionaire.
At this point I realized that, while Reddit was immensely helpful on many topics, I should probably get help elsewhere on this problem.
We bought our home in 2021, at the middle of the upward ramp of the post-covid housing boom. Housing prices were skyrocketing. Well, all prices were skyrocketing—but houses especially here in Florida.
We didn't buy at the peak, and will surely sell for more than we bought it for—but we are still stuck in this buying hangover. When you click on Zillow for Tampa, it lights up like a Christmas tree. It looks like half the city are selling their houses. And there's only a handful of buyers. The math isn't pretty.
And so, we tried lowering the price again by 25K. We were firmly at or below comps for houses that are either the same quality or slightly lower.
It's a very humbling exercise. When Laura was selling her house in 2021 (so that she could move in with me), she got 24 offers on the first day her house went on sale. Times are so different now.
I remember looking around that time, Zillow was sparsely listing any inventory. It felt like I had three houses to choose from in my pricing bracket.
If anything, this exercise has given me such an appreciation for what my parents went through. We moved nearly every year for my dad's military career. And if you do the math, that is terrible for your finances. Every time you sell a home, you are getting killed for 5-6% of the home's value when everything is said and done. And that doesn't even bake in all the moving costs. Imagine doing that every, single, year.
I was asking mom about how they made it work and she said, "This is why I became a real estate agent. It saved us a lot of money." Which now makes perfect sense.
I'm sure you, like me, know people who lost all their money in some real estate enterprise or business they started. Being on this side of the fence, it's quite evident to me now how that happens. Real estate is so volatile at times.
Currently, interest rates remain high, with inflation continuing to nag us—which is not helped in any way by a dragging War with Iran. The political volatility and the threat of the fed raising interest rates have scared off many buyers.
We are going to be delisting our house and relisting it in a few months potentially.
Being at the 90 day mark, I know most offers that come through at this point will likely be lowballs so it is probably best to reset.
To be clear, I'm still being realistic. I don't suspect the market will improve much but in that small time window. Which is why I think spring or next summer might be our best shot.
If you ever consider selling your house, my advice would be to think very carefully about the price, and the comps you use to compare. Remember that even if you price it well, if there are too many houses and not many buyers, you are probably going to need big cuts to move it.
We will surely move at some point. It may not happen on our timeline, and certainly not Reddit's. If there's anything I've learned from this exercise, it's that a house is only worth what people are willing to pay for it.