Anita, Gay, and Judy

These are our new realtors. Anita and Gay are the team for Glenway, and Judy is for Haddon. All of them have very good records - they get houses sold in our neighborhoods! And none of them can figure out how our former realtor possibly came up with such high initial prices. Eek. Now that we have made agreements with each of them, they are all working fast to line up the new listings, the disclosures, the photos, the internet ads, the signs, the mailings, the open houses, etc. There's a lot to do and they're all doing it.

That's some of what they have in common. In other ways they are entertainingly different. Anita and Gay are brisk, fast-talking ladies who don't want to waste their time or ours on unrealistic fantasies. They have clear and drastic recommendations about the price, and are moving fast to implement the change so that we can get the buyers in the door and have someone to talk to. Judy is also working hard on our behalf, but she is a former artist, and for her staging is very important. So she is spending the first couple of days bringing in art, accessories, plants, I am not sure what all it will be, working her interior design magic, and photographing our house in that condition. Both properties will be ready for open houses next weekend.

We are hoping Judy finds some really exciting art pieces for our house. I told her kids love glass sculptures. But I think her main interest is pottery, which is almost as good.

Now that's a price drop

Yeesh!  We have new realtors for Glenway, and we are dropping the price of that house by $75K.  It's painful.  But the data convinced us that we grossly overpriced it before.  Just checking Redfin in 20895 makes it pretty clear what our competition is.  

I am hopefully meeting with a Takoma Park realtor tomorrow about the Haddon house.  We're going to have a price drop here too... I wonder what she will recommend.  

Prices are dropping in Seattle too, so we will still be able to buy something good there.  Depending on what happens, we might need to settle for a place that's a little smaller or a little further out.  But it'll be a huge step up from the house we live in now, and it'll be SEATTLE.

Change of realtors

We have separated amicably from our original Maryland realtor and will quickly sign up with another one - maybe even two other ones, one for each house.  Our former realtor was a great buyer's agent for us, but in this market, we need a serious seller's agent.  We're looking forward to reinvigorating the sales process... things have been rather discouraging so far!  Fortunately, there hasn't been anything we've been itching to buy in Seattle.  Maybe it's all for the best.

Slow trickle

No one's visited the house in a few days.  Pretty much no one on the weekdays last week, either. Over the weekend, there were a few clients, maybe four?  We're antsy, and wondering if we've overpriced it.  On the other hand, it hasn't been very long.  On the other other hand, the first two weeks a house is up it should get the most action, right?

We are going away for the weekend, and have arranged for some neighbors to spy on the open house.