$680 on better listing content for a rural house that had sat four months

A small house I'd been trying to help a relative sell, three bedroom one bath on 1.4 acres in a town of about 2,800 people, listed at $118,000. Four months on the market, six showings, no offers.

The listing had nine phone photos, one of which was a bathroom mirror with the photographer in it, and a 40-word description that said "charming country home, must see." The agent is a decent person who does maybe nine deals a year and does her own photos.

I paid a local person who shoots real estate content $680. That got 28 photos, a short drone clip showing the road frontage and where the property line runs, and a one-page sheet I asked for specifically: well depth and last water test date, septic type and age, roof year, heat source and average winter bill. Then I rewrote the description around the two things rural buyers here actually ask, drive time to the nearest employer and whether the outbuilding has power.

We also dropped the price to $112,000 at the same time, which I'll admit muddies the story.

Under contract five weeks later at $109,000, closed 31 days after that.

The part that nearly broke it: the agent didn't want to do it. She took the photo budget as a comment on her work, which fair enough, it was. What got her over it was me paying for it and letting her keep the files. Also our MLS has a character limit on the public description and rules about what can go in it, and those limits differ by MLS and state, so a chunk of what I wrote had to move to the one-page sheet and the flyer instead of the listing text.

What I'd keep: the utilities sheet. Every buyer question that had been coming in by phone was answered on that page, and the agent said showings got easier because people arrived already knowing about the well.

5 replies

2diane_kowalskiPassivePRO9

The utilities sheet is doing more work than the photos and I'd bet money on it. Rural buyers at that price point are underwriting risk, not falling in love. Well, septic, roof, heat. Those four items are the difference between a $118,000 house and a $118,000 house plus $22,000 of unknown, and until someone answers them the buyer prices in the unknown or doesn't come at all.

Your price drop absolutely did some of the work, and I'd guess it did more than half of it. But a $6,000 cut on its own is a 5% move, which rarely converts a house that's had six showings in four months. What changed is that the next set of showings arrived pre-informed and the property stopped looking like a mystery.

One thing I'd add for anyone copying this. The land line matters more than people think out here. That drone clip showing where the 1.4 acres actually sits is the thing I look for and almost never get, because a rural listing with only house photos leaves me unable to tell whether the acreage is usable or a ditch and a slope. Cheapest content you can buy on a land-heavy listing.

The part I'd watch is that you paid for marketing the seller's agent should have supplied. It worked here. It also means the next seller in that market gets nine phone photos.

1sonia_alvarez Get yoursPRO6

Did the better photos come up at all on the lender or appraisal side? I've seen appraisers pull listing photos for comps and I've wondered whether a listing with 28 photos versus nine changes anything there. Probably not, but you're the first person I've seen document both versions of the same house.

2carlos_nunezActive

I think it was the $6,000. Four months, six showings, that's a price problem wearing a marketing costume. arbor's 5% math is fair but $118k to $112k also crosses a search filter for a lot of buyers, and "under $115k" is a real bracket. Not saying the sheet was useless. Saying you changed two variables and the cheaper one gets the credit in my experience.

3samantha_ruizAU4APRO6

What would you have done if it hadn't sold? That's the version I want to hear, because at $680 on a $112,000 asking price you spent 0.6% of the ask on content, and if week ten had come with no offers the next move is another cut, and then the $680 is just gone. Did you have a stop point in mind or were you going to keep spending?

$680 on better listing content for a rural house that had sat four months

5 replies