...I would like to add that we have all the conveniences for agents that others have-- lockbox, showing service, flexible showing times, etc. We have good photos.

What do your pictures look like? What do the comps say about price. The usual reason that no showings take place are rotten pics and overpriced. Do you have a link to your listing?

Why do people feel that they are being blacklisted because they aren't getting showings? If an agent has a buyer that your house will fit, they will show it. Agents want to makes sales, sales dont happen if they dont show houses!!You don't say if you are getting showings from some of the smaller agencies.

If you are not getting showings and the inventory is low, then most likely your price is too high.

If this is true, can't say if it is. I guess other agents hate your agent, I don't think it has anything to do with the size of your agency, just personal dislike working with an agent. That said, I find it hard to believe all the other agent's don't like your agent. I do believe some agents are known to be very difficult to deal with, an agent will avoid them if they can, but if your house is the one, they will show it and work it.
The bigger question is, how do you know they are avoiding your agency? and not your house? Have you seen your competition go to pending? what does your agent say?

Don't forget, if your house is showing up in places like realtor,com, trulia, etc, it's out of the hands of agents. Buyers have a lot of information at their fingertips these days and rely less on an agent than ever before, especially if your region is low inventory. I agree with looking at some of the other issues people have mentioned.

Give us proof that high volume sales offices are blacklisting the home?

As a recent home hunter, I pretty much told my REA which houses I wanted to look at rather than the reverse. No concerns about who the home was listed through, if it was on MLS, I was looking online. If I liked what I saw, I asked to see it in person. Can you post your listing? Or maybe just your Real Estate photos? This may be as simple as getting photos which highlight your home better. A few people (including myself) have posted for feedback and I have found the advise is always very costructive.

Agreed, during my last home search, my agent had the gateway set up where I received emails every day on new or changed listings. I glanced through them, eliminated most of them that didn't fit my criteria right away, and researched others on the MLS and other sites before asking to see them, again, more were eliminated.

Your House Might be Eliminated if:
You only have one photo, and it's the outside of the house, with a terrible focus
You have very obvious signs of disrepair in the photos
Your price is totally out of line for the neighborhood and market

Every single house/property I have bought I found and then just asked my realtor to arrange for a showing.

There are going to be some REA's on here that don't like hearing this but here goes....

Realtor's and Brokers don't sell homes. They facilitate all the paperwork, process and people involved in a home sale. But in an internet-driven, mostly buyers market, the internet and the buyers use of same is driving more showings than is a Realtor or broker.

If you aren't getting showings, its because of one or more of the following:

-Your home is priced too high relative to competing homes/comparables in your market. Price drops, even minor ones, push you back to the top of the search engines as "changed" and signal potential buyers that you are motivated to sell. If you are NOT motivated to sell, then keep your price where you are and wait for a buyer with deeper pockets to come along.

-Your home doesn't look good on the MLS and portal sites. Colors may be off, perhaps its empty and/or needs some staging, not enough pictures, too many pictures, low curb appeal...tons of reasons. See above...if you add/change pictures, it usually triggers a refresh in the MLS database and the sites will filter you back to the top as a changed listing, giving you temporary visibility again.

-Ditto for MLS listing descriptions. While I personally don't read them first (I am looking at pictures and features like 3-car garage, bedrooms, baths, etc.) I have seen some that are outright deal killers. I saw one here just the other day that literally led off with this sentence. "Back on the market due to failure to perform by prospective buyers and no fault of the seller." C'mon, that just sounds like a childish agent/owners having some beef that the former buyers couldn't obtain financing and/or the appraisal came it below contract price. Stuff happens, be professional and if you put it in writing, it better be positive and genuine. Likewise, the text description shouldn't sound like the freaking Sham-Wow commercial guy or that's an equally bad turnoff. Accentuate the positives without screaming out every superlative you can squeeze into the 1000 character limit. You know the drill.

-Your home may be absolutely great, but your lot/location is less desirable than your competition. I can't tell you the number of times I've decided AGAINST a showing on a home because I simply hit the "view on Google maps" button and noticed that the home backed up to a busy street, had little privacy between me and my neighbors, etc. It used to be that you really had to go visit a house to get a feel for its surroundings and this is simply not true any more. Doesn't matter to me how nice the home looks in pictures, if I can see my neighbors from my back deck, I'm not even going to consider it. Keep also in mind that with both Google street views and birds-eye satellite views of your home, it may be showing something less desirable than your perfectly-staged MLS pictures. For example, I once found a great home with a nice piece of property but noted that my neighbors on both sides of me had really poorly maintained yards. Big open areas of erosion, holes/ruts from something, etc. I passed on the property entirely. This was just visible from the Google maps views, not from the MLS pictures. I guarantee you that I'm not the only genius using this technique.

I'd say that the reputation/demeanor of your broker/REA is the least of your concerns as they are the least of your influences to get a showing. The buyers most likely won't even interact with your REA until they submit an offer, and by that time, who cares what they think about the broker/agent? You are in offer stage if that happens.

Today's home sellers need to recognize that the rules have changed. Buyers are more informed, and more empowered, to pick and choose what homes they want to see and less reliant on a broker/REA to make that decision for them. Doesn't mean REA's are worthless...quite the contrary. But it means they have far less influence on obtaining/pushing showings than they once had.

This post was edited by Tony2Toes on Tue, Apr 2, 13 at 16:19

Tony--I have to respectfully disagree.

When we sold our home last year, it was DEFINITELY our agent who made the difference. He was young, internet saavy, and enthusiastic. He did one of the most beautiful photo displays I've seen anywhere, he had our home on every RE website, he had targetted ads on Facebook (targetting the population most likely to buy our home). He had 2 open houses for us that he advertised in all the right places (they were unbelievably well-attended, given the shape of the market last winter). He followed up on every person who walked through. He was in contact with us daily and EVERY DAY did something for each of the homes he had listed to help them sell. Oh, and the bottom line? In a bad economy, with our house in a neighborhood that was definitely changing, he sold our house for us in under 5 weeks--for almost what we were asking (which was pretty high for the neighborhood).

The WRONG agent doesn't sell homes, but the right one certainly can make the difference between a quick sale at a good price--ESPECIALLY in an internet-driven market.

And the proof of the pudding? This was our second agent. The first had the listing for 6 months, only 3 parties looked at the house because it wasn't properly promoted. During the 5 weeks the second agent had it? Almost 30 different parties came through, and it was one of the open houses that introduced our home to it's buyers.

A good agent--one who is truly excited about selling, one who knows how to use the internet to full advantage, can be your best friend. Just a side note--after he sold our house, our agent actually sold a house that wasn't for sale! He knew it was perfect for some potential buyers he had, it wasn't on the market, so he knocked on the door, and talked the owners into selling. THAT'S the kind of agent who will sell your house.

I'd say you have no proof in your pudding. You found an exceptional REA. That's not the norm....it's the exception.

The dropout rate of REA's in the industry is higher than 90%. It's worse than the food service business. Heck, even convenience stores have a lower dropout rate.

If you find a great REA, consider yourself both smart and lucky. They are the exception and for homes sold in the last five years the post-sales buyer surveys prove this.

In fact, here's the NAR report....the Internet is driving home showings, NOT REA's.

-The typical buyer began their home search online and then contacted a real estate agent. Buyers who used an agent searched a median of 12 weeks and visited 10 homes, down from 12 homes in 2011.

-When buyers were asked where they first learned about the home they purchased, 42 percent said the Internet; 34 percent from a real estate agent; 10 percent a yard sign or open house; 6 percent from a friend, neighbor or relative; 5 percent home builders; 2 percent directly from the seller; 1 percent a print or newspaper ad; and less than 1 percent from other sources.

-Ninety-one percent of home buyers who used the Internet to search for a home purchased through a real estate agent, as did 71 percent of non-Internet users, who were more likely to purchase directly from a builder or from an owner they already knew in a private transaction.

-Local metropolitan multiple listing service websites were the most popular Internet resource, used by 54 percent of buyers; followed by Realtor.com, 51 percent; real estate agent websites, 47 percent; real estate company sites, 39 percent; other websites with real estate listings, 27 percent; search engines, 19 percent; mobile or tablet apps, and for-sale-by-owner sites, 13 percent each; mobile or tablet websites, 12 percent; and mobile or tablet search engines, 11 percent; other categories were notably smaller.

I stand by my earlier statement with a lot more than anecdotal evidence. REA's are overwhelmingly becoming irrelevant when it comes to deciding which homes to SHOW to buyers. They are still VERY relevant to facilitating the buying/selling process. Just not for showings any longer. That ship has long since sailed.

Azzalea, the agent you used sounds great, but I have one question. How much of a price drop on the house was there between the first and second agents?

Anybody else wonder why the Original Poster doesn't continue to participate in a thread they start? I can understand if they get the less than polite responses that is sometimes seen, but this could have turned into a useful thread for the OP.

People prefer to vent and play the blame game rather than actually being forced to contemplate that the problem might just be in the mirror. No one ever wants to hear that they might be overpriced for the market.

And a lot of people forget to bookmark the address of the many forums that they post their vents to, leading to drive by postings.

Our agent only gave us a few suggestions of houses to go see while we were looking. Most of the time, we told him which ones we wanted to see after looking online. He had listingbook set up so we just favorited the ones we wanted to go see and he set up the appointments.

It has been almost a year and a half since the OP posted. I wonder if they are still being blacklisted?

(the thread was spammed and therefore bumped to the top. Spam has been removed, but thread remains bumped.) Just the way things go.