Difficulty Selling a Home in Scarborough

[Aurora]

Hi there,
I`m new to REIN and live in BC. My folks live in the east part of Scarborough Ontario (nice part of Scarborough) and have had their house listed for over 90 days with no success. I have a few questions:

1. They just signed another 90 day contract with their realtor. Are they able to break this somehow? I think they need someone better.

2. Any suggestions for great realtors in this region?

3. House has good curb appeal, nice landscaping, great presentation inside with pretty good updates (2-storey), except for the basement. It is unfinished. Concrete walls and floors. Ugly and uninteresting of sorts, but clean and dry. Concrete walls have been patched in two areas where old leaks were, but has been fine since. My thoughts are that finishing the basement would be important. Would others agree? Would finishing it completely be important or just even roughing in drywall, ceiling and flooring to provide a basis for someone else to put their own ideas into it. Would one pull the house off the market to finish this?

4. Any other thoughts? I think the price might be a bit high, ($10-20 K), but not excessive, but I haven`t really researched this.

Thanks!

 

[Nir]

Gavin Chen is an excellent real estate agent I worked with in Toronto - Top 5% Coldwell Banker Agents Worldwide.
His website is http://www.connecttocondos.com/ email: [email protected]. Office: 416-366-8800.

Ask him if he works in that area, if he doesn`t he might be able to recommend someone there. Good luck.

 

[kboughen]

4. Any other thoughts? I think the price might be a bit high, ($10-20 K), but not excessive, but I haven`t really researched this.

Thanks!

With all the attributes you mentioned, and no sale, I would suggest the listing price is too high.

The listing agent should have presented all the "sold" comparables to your parents when deciding on the price. Now that 90 days has past, I would make sure to review recent sale prices in the area for the last 90 days.

It has always amazed me how important the listing price is and how being just a little too high can severely limit the offers being made.

 

[donksky]

I read a Star article noting that Toronto house sales were slowing down (partly likely from the increase in transfer tax). Perhaps a flexible closing would also help - if the sellers are rigid on closing time, it may turn off some buyers (e.g, a May closing may be inconvenient for families who have 1 mo. left to summer break). When we sold our crappy, ancient East York home 2 years ago, we and our realtor also "staged" our house-made it pretty and attractive to the most buyers - no purple walls, outdated wallpapers - not to say it`s bad but u want to appeal to the most buyers - my realtor told me to erase the grapevine/bird stencils & paint all over w/ cream. I boiled cinnamon sticks b4 showings for a sweet smell...nothing that would offend certain groups - like animal skin rugs or something, minimize personal pics (so buyer can imagine living in the home themselves)...the wider the audience u appeal to, the more likely u`ll sell fast-all it takes is 1 buyer. You need a realtor w/ good marketing or study how to market ur house -if we got to sell our ugly home in winter w/in 3 mos., ur parents can sell their decent home - check over-pricing if all else is in place.