There are a number of creative things you can do. All involve money. You might have your agent tell the buyer's agents that you'll discount it a small percentage if, and only if, you receive an acceptable offer within a week. You also might offer to pay any HOA fees for a certain time period or throw in the lawn mower or some other type of incentive.

Make sure your agent has indicated to the other agents that other people are very interested. This will either force their hand or get them to move on so you are no longer "waiting."

Hold an open house this coming weekend. If any of the potential buyers are getting emotionally attached to the house, the though of a whole bunch of people going through it and maybe buying it, might motivate them to make an offer.

I like the open house idea. People get panicked when they sense the interest of others.

I doubt an incentive will do anything but tell your buyer you are desperate to sell. It probably depends on how fast things are moving in your area.

Good luck! Hope it sells soon!

Maybe a reverse offer to all three of them?

One of our agents' tactics is to have an open house 1-2 weeks after listing a property, for the reason noted above that having an open house looming serves to motivate people to get their offer in before lots of people see the house.

I have no idea if it's true, since around here houses aren't sold very often through open houses. But it's what "they" say....

"I like the open house idea. People get panicked when they sense the interest of others."

There is something to be said for creating a sense of urgency!

We made a decision about our house because of an open house.

I wouldn't say we were panicked, but seeing the stream of people come and go at his open houses made us get the lead out of our shoes and make an offer.

The seller had purchased our house (to flip) in the spring. Fixed it up and put it on the market that summer. Was asking way too much up until Christmas so it sat. I had been watching it, but not very seriously because it was above our price range.

Then he dropped the price 20k and started having open houses in Jan. Every other week. And dropped the price a bit more. I learned that he had purchased a lake front lot and needed to get rid of this property.

I had seen pics of what the place looked like in the summer when everything was lush and green and knew we'd better jump before someone else did.

Since then, we've met several people (and a couple contractors) that told us they had been interested as well.

I will say that offering cash helped. So did not trying to find too many faults. We had heard other buyers moan about what they would have to do and all we said to the owner (initially) was what a great job he'd done staging everything.

We knew there were some problems to correct, but the house was in reasonably good shape and in such a good location we didn't mind. The owner really had gone the whole route to make the place shine. Completely painted inside/out. New ceiling fans, carpet, appliances, great landscaping. Removed an ancient above ground swimming pool and more. It was ready to move in and looked so much better than many of the places we had looked at.

I would suggest that you make sure the place is sparkling, mention the good school district if it has one and go ahead and try an open house or two. Many times neighbors have family or friends that might like to move to the area and they will attend and tell others.

That is what I overheard another person telling our seller at one open house. That her kids were moving out of the expensive development she lived in (around the corner) and that maybe our place would be a good starter home for them.

You never know why a person will think your house is 'the one', but it pays to be prepared and exercise all your options. If you want to learn more, try holding one of the open houses without your realtor. ;)

Our seller's realtor was on vacation when we made our offer to him. He was having the open house anyway since he needed to sell so he could buy his lakefront lot.

His agent wasn't thrilled about our offer, but he told her to go ahead and write it up. He knew a good, serious cash offer when he saw one and wasn't about to let the agent kill a good deal.

Hopefully, your agent will prove more of a help than a hindrance.

We are in the same position. We had 4 buyers come through recently that loved our home before July 4th weekend. Most of them had just started looking so they feel the need to look at more homes before putting in an offer here.

My sister who used to be a Realtor suggested that we could consider throwing in an appliance warranty for a year so that if anything breaks down it would be fixed.

Another suggestion would be to offer a decorating allowance or to help towards the down payment of the home. You don't have to offer much, but a few thousand might help spur them on.

I am waiting for my husband to come home from out of town to decide what we could do to help encourage them to put in an offer.

"I like the open house idea. People get panicked when they sense the interest of others."

There is something to be said for creating a sense of urgency!

We made a decision about our house because of an open house.

I wouldn't say we were panicked, but seeing the stream of people come and go at his open houses made us get the lead out of our shoes and make an offer.

The seller had purchased our house (to flip) in the spring. Fixed it up and put it on the market that summer. Was asking way too much up until Christmas so it sat. I had been watching it, but not very seriously because it was above our price range.

Then he dropped the price 20k and started having open houses in Jan. Every other week. And dropped the price a bit more. I learned that he had purchased a lake front lot and needed to get rid of this property.

I had seen pics of what the place looked like in the summer when everything was lush and green and knew we'd better jump before someone else did.

Since then, we've met several people (and a couple contractors) that told us they had been interested as well.

I will say that offering cash helped. So did not trying to find too many faults. We had heard other buyers moan about what they would have to do and all we said to the owner (initially) was what a great job he'd done staging everything.

We knew there were some problems to correct, but the house was in reasonably good shape and in such a good location we didn't mind. The owner really had gone the whole route to make the place shine. Completely painted inside/out. New ceiling fans, carpet, appliances, great landscaping. Removed an ancient above ground swimming pool and more. It was ready to move in and looked so much better than many of the places we had looked at.

I would suggest that you make sure the place is sparkling, mention the good school district if it has one and go ahead and try an open house or two. Many times neighbors have family or friends that might like to move to the area and they will attend and tell others.

That is what I overheard another person telling our seller at one open house. That her kids were moving out of the expensive development she lived in (around the corner) and that maybe our place would be a good starter home for them.

You never know why a person will think your house is 'the one', but it pays to be prepared and exercise all your options. If you want to learn more, try holding one of the open houses without your realtor. ;)

Our seller's realtor was on vacation when we made our offer to him. He was having the open house anyway since he needed to sell so he could buy his lakefront lot.

His agent wasn't thrilled about our offer, but he told her to go ahead and write it up. He knew a good, serious cash offer when he saw one and wasn't about to let the agent kill a good deal.

Hopefully, your agent will prove more of a help than a hindrance.

Well I got one offer, but it is contingent of selling their home. I know I don't want to accept a contingent offer because we just broke ground on building another home which should be completed in December. Do I counter or just say I won't accept a contingency?

Counter, negotiate and come together on an offer with a 72 hour kick out clause. It allows you to accept another offer, gives you more negotiating power because you have a standing offer and you have nothing to lose because you can take another offer should one come in by optioning your kick out clause

Counter, negotiate and come together on an offer with a 72 hour kick out clause. It allows you to accept another offer, gives you more negotiating power because you have a standing offer and you have nothing to lose because you can take another offer should one come in by optioning your kick out clause . When my sellers do this, I keep their house fully active.

We were looking at a 3 bedroom house for our son, but it was too close to the freeway. Nevertheless, it was freshly redone throughout and was perfect. He later sent me the records of that house sale--it sold $114,000 above the asking price.