Why didn’t my home sell?
The reason it didn’t sell may have nothing to do with your home or the market. In fact, your home may have been one of the more desirable properties for sale. Before you put your home back on the market, take a step back and look at the big picture.
With the right system, the home sale you want is still well within reach. Review your previous selling plan and you’ll likely discover one or more main reasons that reflect a problem in one or more of these four areas:
1) Teamwork
2) Pricing
3) Condition of Your Home
4) Marketing
Teamwork
Your home is a major financial investment, and your relationship with your agent should be in a full partnership with you, and ensure that you receive detailed and dependable feedback on the progress of your sale. Your agent has a responsibility to source this feedback from the agents who have shown your home, and to communicate this to you so together you can make the right decisions about what to do to adjust to the marketplace, if necessary.
Pricing
Did price work for or against you? The “right” price depends on market conditions, competition and the condition of your home. Pricing it too high is as dangerous as pricing it too low. If your home doesn’t compare favorably with others in the price range you’ve set, you won’t be taken seriously by prospects or agents.
To help you establish a realistic selling price for your home, ask your agent to provide you with an up-to-date competitive market analysis to give you:
* A review of comparable homes recently sold or currently for sale,
* An idea of how long other homes have been listed, in order to calculate an average time in which a home can sell in today’s market,
* A review of homes whose listings have expired, to understand what issues were at play.
Note: There is no mention of how much you paid for your home or its improvements. Like any investment, the market value is determined by what a willing buyer will pay and a willing seller will accept.
Condition of Your Home
Is your home someone else’s idea of a dream home? When buyers enter are they inspired? Do they think, “I love this home!” Remember, the decision to buy a home is based on emotion, not logic. A home in move-in condition invites a sale. You need to consider:
fixing all the little squeaks and cracks
keeping it clean for all showings
making it uncluttered
brightening it up
what your home looks like from the street (curb appeal)
Take care of major items, such having your home painted. Offering an allowance to your prospective buyers, so they can have painting completed is not the same as having done it for them. Now, as they’re trying to imagine what that new paint job will look like, they may also be discounting the price even further because of the less-than-perfect look of those walls. Remember….A home that presents well, sells for the best price because it outshines the competition.
Marketing
One of the first steps in your marketing plan involves finding an agent who will best represent you. Say goodbye to any real estate agents using old, traditional methods to sell your home because they don’t work in today’s market! To be competitive in today’s marketplace, agents who use new and innovative, non-traditional marketing approaches are the ones who are getting more homes sold fast and for top dollar.
Remember…
Effective communication is vital between you and your agent so that you are aware of, and can adjust accordingly to changing market conditions.
Price your home correctly, according to market conditions, competition and the condition of your home.
Be sure your home is in buyer ready-condition.
Have an innovative marketing plan firmly set in place.