I'll caveat all the answers below with the qualifier "This is Hawaii." In broad terms, home prices haven't been hammered down too badly, especially in established neighborhoods with homes in the 10-30-year age range. Median prices have dipped about 10-20% over the last two years but already appear to be stabilizing and may rise again in the next five years.
We keep pretty close tabs on the local market and go to a lot of open houses (50-60/year just for fun and ideas). Two years ago we briefly put our rental home on the market between tenants but then pulled it off after we got a very good tenant. We've also just finished a refinancing of our primary home so we learned a lot about the recent appraisal & comps process.
If you are generous with sharing info, the other questions I'd like to ask are:
1) did you get within 90% of the price you had hoped for,
No problem. Both our homes are in those aforementioned neighborhoods and have excellent maintenance (if I may say so myself). We priced the rental a few percent below its last tax assessment (because the market was going down in early 2009) to reduce the time on market. Two informal offers within three weeks were at 90-95% of the assessment, and I would've worked with the appraiser to help boost their numbers... upgraded kitchen & bathrooms, full storage attic, energy-saving features, full landscaping, and so on.
2) how long was it on the market before it got sold?
Less than three weeks for our rental. The five comps on our residence's refi appraisal were about 30-60 days, with one neighborhood home (in cherry condition) going in two days. (Spouse was highly pissed that they didn't even have an open house.) Another home in crappy condition needed 90 days.
3) how long from a ratified contract to closing?
We never finished the process on our rental home. For our residence, even though our PenFed refi has been astonishingly incompetent (I'll post more on that after we close next week) it has still stayed under eight weeks. A 60-day lock on the mortgage rate is typical. The appraiser was here in under two weeks.
4) did you have to switch realtors because the first one(s) did not do much to help sell? or do you have great luck with the first and only realtor?
We do FSBOs (discussed in
this old thread). If I had to use a realtor they'd be someone we'd seen in action at other open houses. When you're at someone else's open house, especially a busy one, then you can "interview" a realtor with just a few questions about the house they're showing and know right away whether or not they're worth your time. (They probably won't even realize they're being interviewed.) We've seen some who were so bad that we wanted to leave a note in the homeowner's mailbox. The candidates to start with are the ones who advertise themselves as "your [neighborhood's] expert". A little gray hair or 20 years' experience is a bonus.
We'd limit the contract to six months and offer incentives for a full-price offer and for closing within that time. In general we'd follow their advice (especially if they explain the rationale behind it) but we tend to be the kind of control-freak owners who want to know everything behind what the realtor's telling us. Most realtors don't like that.
Even if you prefer to use a realtor I'd read a library copy of a FSBO book (Nolo or "Complete Idiot's Guide" or "... For Dummies") just to be aware of the vocabulary and the issues. HGTV is a big help too-- pretend that all your buyers are that combative, lazy, and ignorant. They're really not, but at least you'll be ready if the worst happens.
5) what were some key enhancements that you made to the house, if any, before putting it on the market? re-carpet? re-finish wood floor? etc.
I'm an engineer who can look at a house's structure & condition and see the potential. I prefer a house with a good floorplan & location while its interior/exterior is in absolutely horrible condition. Spouse can do the same with décor. I made the mistake of assuming that most buyers are like that.
Instead what we've learned from HGTV is that most buyers can't see the house's potential unless it's already perfect. All mechanical aspects of the property have to be flawless, no "allowances" or "discounts" allowed. You must paint, declutter, and depersonalize. If a bathroom is old & tired then you might as well spend $1K-$2K now to maximize it. If a kitchen is suffering the same age-related infirmities then it's worth spending $5K-$10K on new flooring, new counters, new fixtures, new appliances, and cabinet refacings. It's much better to put in new wall-to-wall carpet throughout than to try to give a buyer a redecorating discount. It's probably better to refinish the wood floors than to try to get away with less, let alone try to cover problems with area rugs. I'd use sod in the yard instead of planting grass. Maybe I'd let the garage look a little bare, but I'd even put fresh paint in there. I can tell a lot about how hard the sellers are trying with just a few minutes in the garage.
The high up-front prep expense is recouped by maximizing a great first impression and reducing the home's time on market. You want the buyer (and their realtor) to feel as if the seller is unloading a cherry without realizing its potential or because they're in a hurry or out of money. That gets the buyer in a hurry, and if you have more than one buyer then you have a bidding war. If you don't make that "Wow" first impression then your home goes on the buyer's "later" list and they keep looking... sometimes for months.
