Real Estate Update

I met with MaryBeth, my real estate agent, 2 days ago.

While my house had received many hits on-line, not one hit had resulted in a phone call.

So MaryBeth, knowing that we are anxious to move, met with me to discuss what the next step could be.

That next step involved a price reduction. Big surprise ~ not.

With the way the real estate market has been lately, it was expected that we would most likely have to reduce the asking price of our property.

In addition to the price reduction, we discussed other strategies.

So, come March 1st, which is a Sunday, we'll be having an open-house.

Now open houses have not generally resulted in sales. The only advantage to having an open house is that it brings extra free advertising.

In addition to the open house, MaryBeth is going to take out a quarter-page ad in the Wanderer. And she will be using part of the ad copy that I wrote when I had written awhile ago.

That ad copy was borne of that bold insight that I have blogged about on the 27th of January.

Back then I did not reveal what that insight was.

And since then, I found out that my crazy scheme was not going to be do-able, in the town by-law manner.

So what was that crazy scheme?

That crazy scheme involved putting up a huge sign in front of my house that was to bring attention to this house's great potentials ~ whether it was to create a beautiful and comfortable home that reflected the buyer's unique tastes or to have a grand, rambling gift shop like the Ansel Gurney House in Marion.

Basically, my intent was not to sell a house, but to sell a dream.

However, 2 Sundays ago, I happened to run into the town's building inspector at the CVS in Fairhaven.

I asked Andy about the town's by-laws governing the placement of a sign on ones property. Andy told me that the town allows only one sign on any given property, and that a "for sale" sign counts as that one sign.

Oh well, there goes my crazy plan for doing some guerrilla marketing of my home.

However, MaryBeth, who formerly worked in marketing for the former Compass Bank, liked my idea of selling a dream. And she asked if she could take my ad copy to incorporate into the ad that she was planning on placing into the Wanderer.

In addition, we talked about adding a plastic pocket, which would contain flyers listing the details of this house ~ along with my ad copy ~ to the "for sale" sign in front of my house.

(By the way, the "for sale" sign was moved this week from in front of the embankment to on top of the embankment. Apparently, the town objected to its placement, and said that the sign had to be moved 8 feet back.)

Also, because the weather was getting warmer, I suggested to MaryBeth if we could change the picture of the house from the snowy one that she took to a more attractive one that had lots of greenery in front. She agreed that it would be a good idea.

In addition to discussing marketing/sale strategies, MaryBeth calculated what our rock bottom selling price would be.

Hopefully we could get the house sold without having to lower the price to its rock bottom. After all, we would like to get a bit more money from the sale than just barely enough to cover relocation costs.

Let's keep our fingers crossed.