Selling Home in Hayward, CA

@Elt1, we already lowered the price to $749k a week ago… But, @sfdragonboy has a good point, I believe a kitchen remodel will help it move… Multiple parties have approached us about renting the home, so we are considering taking that route…

My experience in Mt View was that buyers didnt value a kitchen remodel enough to make it worth the expense of the remodel plus holding cost.

The market is trending down. At this point, personally I’d just try to get it sold within the next couple months.

Renting could be good too if you want to hold it long term.

Sorry but a 4 story home is a difficult sell…The problem is not the kitchen, its the price. Drop the price don’t waste time and money on a kitchen…

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Fire the agent. Do some staging. And get a new set of photos. I think the listing has gone stale already. Maybe take it off for a week or two? After a new set of photos come in it would look like a new listing.

4-story is a niche product. The listing agent needs to actively sell it. Not just chilling out waiting for phone calls. If he’s doing nothing, why not list with low cost companies like Redfin? At least they add some bells and whistles like 3D walk thru?

A well connected agent may know potential buyers looking for big homes.

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I would agree that NOW it may be too late to do a kitchen but keep in mind that when you first posted I had already identified that the kitchen was an issue and the place needed staging. Had you done all that, I truly believe you would have sold it by now.

I don’t mean to nitpick and be negative. There are plenty of good things about the house. Just the marketing needs to do better.

  1. Ad copy needs to be redone. Your ad copy is way too short. And even in this short copy the agent repeat the word “VIEWS” three times?! No mention of how many rooms/bathrooms on each level. This house may be perfect for 2 or 3 families sharing but no mention of it. Does it have 2 kitchens?

  2. Photos are way too few, and too dark. It doesn’t really wow me.

  3. Stage it. It really helps. If not full staging how about half? It’s really affordable and bang for buck is fantastic.

But seriously, fire your agent. Personally I will fire anyone who SCREAMS in their copies, and he SCREAMED twice: VIEWS and MOTIVATED SELLERS, with copious EXCLAMATION POINTS no less. I’d hire someone with the most Zillow reviews in that area. Your agent has 0. If I were to interview agents, I will ask them to sell the house to me, as if I were a buyer. What are the unique selling points? Do they know people looking for houses like this?

You are marketing this house only on views. I am sure it has great views but it’s now clear that’s not enough. Your house clearly has a lot to offer. But it’s difficult to know what for a potential buyer.

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Good staging and photographer may be the best bang for your buck, but I assume you’re still living there.

Look, must we go back to Home Buying 1? Buyers, for the most part, are an astute bunch. Unless we are talking our most cherished city (Palo Alto) an owner CANNOT ask for a high price and not have the house “prepped” for that price point. Especially in a matured market like what we are seeing right now. It is as simple as that.

The reason why the kitchen should have been made over before selling is because it actually is not as expensive as some buyers would think. All they see are the new cabinets and nice cool backsplash. Some will go, oh expensive, but you and I know otherwise. How do you expect people to want to shell out top dollar for that specific market space when they are thinking a new kitchen is also needed first? Again, this is not Palo Alto where unicorns, really roam up and down University…

Had I walked into this home, I would have immediately noticed the flow of the place (good or bad) and the ambience set off by the staging or lack of staging. I would have then said oh the kitchen is dated, and then looked IMMEDIATELY at the flyer for the corresponding asking price. At that point, I would have been disinterested in the rest of the house. Why? Well, the owner did not at least “acknowledge” the dated kitchen by at least by asking slightly less. Hey, this is a world of trade offs. That to me means the rest of the house probably follows that logic. I proceed to walk out at that point…

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I believe the biggest mistake we made was choosing the wrong agent. We chose the agent, based on a referral from a family friend. One week after listing, I decided to check out his profile in Zillow and found out that most of the homes he sold was $500k under. Since this is our first-time selling a house, we have been very forgiving, but have seen signs from the beginning:

-Our suggestion of staging the home was ignored. He kept telling us to trust him on that, because staging did not make any difference for his other clients.
-Instead of using a photographer to take photos of the home, he used his iPhone, since “its fine, it won’t make much difference”.
-We received zero advice on how to make the home more appealing. I received more advice from y’all than our actual agent.
-When we pressed the agent for marketing strategy, he said, all agents just use MLS, that’s it. Agents’ showing does not work.
-All we hear them say is, drop the price, if that doesn’t work, drop the price again, which we already did. But we expect them to advise us more, not just advise us to keep dropping our price, so they can finally get paid.

At this point, we have decided to rent out the home and reconsider selling in the future. I appreciate everybody’s feedback, and I will take them into consideration the next time we put the home back on the market. You’ve all been great and extremely helpful!

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The right agents definitely make a difference. In a hot market homes sell themselves. But in a slower market the right agent makes a huge difference. Good luck on your landlord adventure. Glad we can help. :slight_smile:

Talk to Redfin. I think they sell in your range, and I think, but could be wrong, that they’ll pay for the staging. Plus you get a nice big red R on their map for anyone using their software, and they give you a rebate as a seller:

https://www.redfin.com/why-sell

Redfin is dead to me

Yeah… I know… :frowning:

Because they shut down the forum or did something else happen?

Redfin has a a failed business plan…Hired a bunch of millienials with no experience. …They pay based on the yelp model social media model instead of performance so their best agents leave. Plus being a Seattle company they never understood the BA…I know a lot of agents… met only one Redfin agent. …most are buyers agents. …I have been to thousands of open houses and I only seen one Redfin agent…Plus they disbanded the forum which was their best asset. …one they never knew how to use to their advantage. …Glen knows tech, not real estate. .

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It worked out fine. We have a dedicated new home now.

Thanks Manch!

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I just remember another thing that will sell this house: floor plans. Many agents in SF now includes a floor plan of the house in the listing, as the last picture or two. It definitely helps buyers conceptualize the layout, and it will be particularly helpful for a big many level house like this.

You can get Home Depot to come measure and create a floor plan for you for a hundred bucks or so.

In general SF listings are just way better than most other locales here in Bay Area. Most are professionally staged and photographed, many include floorplans. They also host broker tours on Tuesdays. As professionals I feel the city agents are just a cut above.

I don’t believe this is true. The do pay based on performance–there are end-of-week bonuses based on satisfaction of customers–and it sounds like they are significant. They have hired some amazing agents, and those agents end up in the office doing contracts. And some of them get burned out and leave. Some come back. They need more staff at that end, but they want to make sure that the people doing contracts know what they’re doing, and not all agents do.

The other agents I know who did the tours were happy to get the pay. The one I know who was leaving was looking for full time work and it wasn’t going to be in real estate anyways.

They certainly need to work on other aspects of their business such as advertising–there’s no denying that.

Sorry bookpro, but you bought the house for a big disount because it was four stories not much more than $400k in 2011…if you want to sell, you will have to discount it…Noboby wants a four story…Your agent has no clue of its value…My guess is a 30% discount to a 2 story…