Even if you own a lovely home and have taken care of it for years, there’s no guarantee it’s going to sell in the timeframe you want. If you’re struggling to get any offers in the first few months of your listing, it may be a sign that something’s wrong.
Fortunately, you have many options. Your first task is to understand why your home isn’t selling the way you thought it would. From there, you can strategize and find a new angle for your pending home sale.
Understanding Why Your Home Isn’t Selling
There are several reasons why your home may not be selling, and identifying the culprit can help you determine what to do next:
- Most problems have something to do with pricing. If your asking price is much higher than what your home is worth, or if there’s a mismatch between your home’s asking price and prices for comparable homes in the area, it can prevent your home from selling.
- Aesthetic appeal. Even though your home may be intrinsically valuable, if it doesn’t have immediate aesthetic appeal (curb appeal), it may struggle to generate any serious offers.
- Bad marketing and advertising. Most homes can’t sell quickly on their own; even well-priced, attractive homes need a solid marketing and advertising strategy to get them to move. Any number of problems in your approach could result in a delayed sale.
- Neighborhood fit. Prospective buyers will judge the quality of the deal you’re offering based on surrounding homes in the neighborhood. If your home is much different than other homes, it could make your deal seem worse than it really is.
- Of course, sometimes it all boils down to luck. If your home doesn’t reach the right person at the right time, it may not sell as quickly as it otherwise could.
Options for Homeowners
So what options are there?
- Give it time. If your home doesn’t sell in the first couple of weeks, and doesn’t even get an offer, don’t start worrying yet. On average, it takes 65 days to sell a home, which means for every home that flies off the market immediately, there’s a home that takes a few months to sell. If all the conditions seem right—the pricing, the aesthetics, etc.—it’s in your best interest to give it some more time and more visibility on the market. It could be that the right buyer just hasn’t happened upon it yet.
- Switch agents. Your real estate agent is going to be a major factor to your ultimate success or failure. Most real estate agents require you to sign a contract that makes them the exclusive representative of your home, but if they breach that contract or aren’t doing everything in their power to help your home sell, you’ll be well within your rights to switch to a different agent. This new agent may have an alternative strategy or a new vision that can breathe life into your listing—or capitalize on a strength that your previous agent ignored.
- Try new channels. If there’s something off with your marketing and advertising strategy, you could try to market your property in some new way. Most people use a combination of approaches, leveraging real estate listing platforms online, targeted advertisements, and even social media marketing to spread word about the property (and show off its best features). Try experimenting with a new angle, a new channel, or a new budget for your existing channels and see what results you get.
- Fix the aesthetics. You can also drum up more interest by focusing on the curb appeal and overall aesthetics of your home. Simple changes, like a fresh coat of paint or a deeper cleaning, can make your home seem much newer—and much more inviting to prospective buyers. You’ll also want to hire a professional stager (or rely on the advice of your agent) to use furniture and design elements in a way that caters to the widest possible audience.
- Add new photos and videos. While you’re at it, make sure you take some new photos and videos of your property for the listing. If you haven’t already, hire a professional photographer, and adjust the lighting to cast the best features of your home in their best respective lighting. Changing things up in the listing can make it seem new to people who have seen it already, and can present a better image to people seeing it for the first time.
- Lower the price. Only if you’ve already attempted several other items on this list should you move onto this step: lowering the price. If you’ve revisited your marketing strategy and your agent, and you’ve given it more time with better photos and lighting, but you still aren’t getting any offers, your lack of momentum is likely due to being overpriced. Look at other properties like yours in the area, and bring your price down to be more competitive with them.
- Consider other offers. You may be in a position where you’re receiving several offers, but none of them are attractive enough for you to act on; for example, they may offer too low a price, or may be dependent on too many other conditions. Entertain these offers and try to negotiate with these buyers. They’re already interested, so they might be persuaded to give you what you need to feel like it’s a fair deal.
- Rent your home. If you feel like you’ve done everything right, but your home still isn’t selling, you could consider renting out the property. Being a landlord can be stressful and a lot of work, but you’ll get a chance to capitalize on rental income while you search for (and hopefully, move into) a new property. This isn’t an option for everyone, but it could net you a profit and keep your home from going to waste.
If you’re trying to sell a home in the Katy, Texas area and you feel like you’ve tried everything, or if you’re considering selling and you want the process to go as smoothly as possible, contact Green Residential today! Our selling agents can help you stage and photograph your home professionally, and give you the best chance of selling your property for more than it’s worth.
Michael is Green Residential’s Vice President. He helps to keep the team organized and running smoothly. Prior to joining Green Residential, he spent 12 years working at Cadence Bank in the mortgage loan servicing department, where he specialized in loan audits, modifications, and bankruptcy-related issues for the mortgage portfolio.
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