Have Real Estate Questions? Have your question answered by a licensed Realtor who serves St Paul, Minneapolis and surrounding areas. Submit your question below.
Question
I have a home for sale in St Paul. It has been on the market with another realtor for 5 months now and it still has not sold. Is there anything else I can do besides drop the price?
Lisa R. – St Paul, Minnesota
Answer
The first thing I would check is to see if you agent did a relist on your home. In most cases you don’t want a listing to show more than 90 days on the market otherwise it looks old. The only exception is if you are getting heavy showing activity. The next thing to check is to see if your agent used professional photography to include wide angel shots and a virtual tour. Also you should check to see what other type of marketing is your agent doing besides just online. For example I like to use radio and TV to market my listings. If you find that your agent has been doing these things, sorry to say but if you want to sell you may need to do a price reduction.
Kirk Duckwall
Question
I am looking to buy a home in South MPLS and there are a lot of short sales. Are short sales just a waste of time?
Jason M. – Minneapolis, Minnesota
Answer
If you are in a hurry to buy a home a short sale house may not be the way to go, however if it is a pre-approved short sale that is a different story. A pre-approved one may be able to close in the same amount of time as a traditional sale. If you have time on your side a short sale purchase can be one of the best deals out there along with estate homes. On average short sales in the Twin Cities are selling for around 16% less than asking price. Traditional and bank owned homes on average are only selling for 8% less that asking price. A short sale can take around 60 to 90 to get approved. Also do not be afraid to write a backup offer on a short sale, there are many short sale homes that have on offer on them but a large percentage of first offers back out due to that the buyer finds another home before the short sale gets approved. This can work out to your advantage because if you are the backup offer that just came in and the other offer drops out, the bank and selling agent may have most of the leg work done already. This may shorten the time it takes to get the approval on your offer.
Kirk Duckwall
Submit Your Question Below
Follow Us!