Buyer Beware: Unsold Homes Are Often 'Re-listed'

And for desperate owners of "stale fish" — that's what some realtors call properties that linger on the market — Niece's tactics are welcome. "He did open houses and helped us with staging ideas," said Sandra Wick. Niece re-listed Wick's Bloomington home after it sat on the market for 90 days. It sold 54 days later.

"As a seller, you know I have to think that it probably helped us," said Wick. "It certainly didn't hurt."

'It's Got to Stop'

But real estate blogger James Bednar says re-listing is simply unethical. "As a buyer, it does make me angry," he said. "I need to know how long a home's been on the market or what the original price is."

"Hiding that market information from consumers is wrong, and it's got to stop," he added.

Bednar started blogging in 2005 after growing aggravated with realtors during his own house-hunting search.

"The issue here is that when a re-listed home is sold, it skews the market transaction data," he said. "When an agent typically says they can sell a home in 30 or 60 days, is that really true? If they've re-listed a home, that might not necessarily be true." In an effort to gain access to market data, he actually got a real estate license and a membership with his local listing service. With a few key strokes he can find the true history of any listing in his northern New Jersey neighborhood.

"The most common outcome is probably that a buyer overpays for a home," he said. "I think it's only a matter of time before a buyer who buys a home under these false pretenses realizes it and perhaps sues the real estate agent for misrepresenting a house."

In Niece's area of Minnesota, re-listing is surprisingly easy.

"As long as you have a new listing contract with the seller, then you can put [the house] back on the market two minutes later," he said. "I would say we re-list about 60 percent of our homes at least once."

Niece says sometimes when he re-lists, he lowers the price of the house or makes improvements, making what realtors call a "material change" in the property … but not always.

Niece doesn't think re-listing is deceiving buyers.

"It's all about giving your sellers a fair chance," he said. "It's not like they had water in the basement and we're hiding it. That would be deceptive to buyers. These are good houses that the average market time might be 139 days."