by Sean Hess, broker and manager, St. Augustine Team Realty
Who let the dogs out?
You may be feeling this way if your property listing expires and you are suddenly deluged by mail and phone calls from Realtors who want to list your home.
I had an exasperated seller ask me one time, “No one was interested in looking at it when it was on the market, why are they all calling me now?”
The short answer is that property listings are the lifeblood of the real estate business. I told this particular seller that before she listed the first time I had no idea she wanted to sell her home. Now that her listing has expired I assumed she still wanted to sell her home, but with another agency. That’s why she was getting all the attention.
As for myself not looking at this particular home while it was on the market it could have been for one of three reasons. One, I didn’t have a buyer for that particular property so it wasn’t on my radar. Two, I didn’t have another home for sale in the same neighborhood so it wasn’t on my list of competitors to look at. Three, I did have a buyer for the property, but the marketing was so terrible or the price/terms were so out of line my buyers bypassed it in favor of other properties.
And that’s why expired listings get all the attention they get.
