There’s always something to howl about.

The failed listing revisted: What the hell do sellers need you for…?

I keep meaning to come back to Barry Bevis and his discussion about what to do about “stale” listings, but I’ve got too much on my plate right now. In the mean time, let’s talk about this house:

Killer, huh? I mean, it’s a totally breathtaking expression of what modern architecture can be. Here it is looking back the other way:

The view is Camelback Mountain. It’s not just an incredible house, it sits on almost an acre of some of the priciest land in Phoenix.

A house to die for, not? Well, not to die for, but certainly to live for, to scrimp and save for, to dream that, one day, you might be able to own this home.

But look closely at those photos… They seem a little… schmutzy… Don’t they?

The listing for this home expired yesterday. There were a total of six photos for the listing — I’m not making this up. And all six of the photos were like the three I’m showing here.

That’s not quite true: The other three were worse.

What’s wrong with them? They’re scans… At some time or another, some magazine wrote up this home — easy to understand why. And then the listing agent made the photos for this listing by scanning from the magazine. That’s why they’re schmutzy — it’s dust on the scanner surface or perhaps damage to the paper on which the images were printed. That’s why there are moires in the images, as well. It’s the scanner’s grid of pixels creating an interference pattern with the half-tone dots of the printed images.

But wait. There’s more. This is the descriptive copy from the listing — on my honor absolutely sic:

Remarks: cHECK OUT THIS AWESOME CONTEMORARY LOCATED IN THE HEART OF ARCADIA WITH THE MOST UNBELIEVABLE VIEWS OF CAMELBACK MOUNTAIN. THIS SUPER CONTEMPORARY WITH SURLY IMPRESS YOUR CLIENTS. VERY FEW HOMES LIKE THIS ARE AROUND, AND WITH LOCATION, VIEWS, AND FINISHES. GATED COMMUNITY AND GATED FRONT DRIVE WILL ENSURE YOUR CLIENTS PRIVACY REAR DRIVE OFFERS ACCESS TO GARAGE AND MULTI-CAR PARKING. AWESOME KITCHEN, KILLER MASTER SUITE, AND 3 ADDITIONAL SUITES THAT OFFER BATH AND PRIVATE COURTYARD ACCESS.

List price? A buck short of $2,000,000.

Time on market: 366 days.

Richard Riccelli laughs at me because the NAR’s Code of Ethics forbids me from knocking on doors and saying, “Not to make a nuisance of myself, but here’s why your house is not selling.” But think what a service it would have been to the hapless owner of this amazing structure if someone had shown him what was passing for marketing for his two million dollar home.

Here’s my take: I would not actually kill to list this home for sale, but if it were mine to sell, I might inadvertently knock you down if you came between me and something I wanted done. I can’t think of a better opportunity than this property for Realtors to answer the question every consumer should be asking, especially in light of marketing efforts like this one: What do I need you for?

If we don’t market homes for sale — getting the best price on the best terms in the best time frame — then sellers don’t need us. If all we are is clerks, if all we do is put listings in the MLS and then beg for price reductions — then sellers don’t need us. There is nothing the seller of this home got, in exchange for the promise of a huge paycheck, that he could not have had for $199 from Help-U-Fail.com.

If you’re not actually going to sell the house — what the hell do sellers need you for…?

You sure as hell better have an answer for that question. Because on top of everything else I’m doing, I’m sure as hell going to teach sellers to ask it…