What Should You Do if Your Home Isn’t Selling?
It can be pretty frustrating to sit around waiting for a buyer to put in a solid offer after you’ve listed your home for sale. After listing your home on the market, you’re probably anxious to find a willing buyer and get the sale process moving along.
Yet while the majority of listings sell within a reasonable amount of time, there are those times when certain listings just seem to linger on forever. And if that listing is yours, you’ll probably wind up feeling defeated and even nervous, especially if you’ve got a new home purchase deal going on at the same time.
If your home isn’t selling, what should you do?
Adjust the Listing Price
Every seller wants to get top dollar for their home when they sell. It’s totally natural. But when sellers go so far as to price their homes way over what their properties are actually worth, this can pose a problem. Even after their agents strongly recommend to list at a certain price point, some sellers may be set on a specific price, only to find out later that listing too high is a big mistake.
Sometimes it may just be that you priced your home accordingly, but the market quickly changed soon after listing your home.
If your home is priced over what the current market dictates, you run a big risk of losing out on prospective buyers. Nobody is going to want to pay more than what a specific asset is worth, and that goes for homes and any other consumer product.
When it comes to homes that sit on the market longer than the average, it’s usually the price that’s the culprit. Asking for an inflated price just to make a decent profit is not the way you want to go.
This is not the time to test out the market to what buyers are willing to pay. What you’ll end up with is a stale listing because buyers will simply gloss over your home and set their sights on others that are priced appropriately.
If the price is not reflective of the current market, a price drop might be in order.
Expand Your Marketing Reach
Having your home listed on the MLS is great, but it’s not the only marketing platform that you should be limited to. In fact, selling a home relies on a lot more than just one single aspect of marketing. Instead, it’s a mixture of marketing platforms and efforts that work together to effectively get the word out and get a home sold.
In addition to the MLS, other avenues for marketing should be taken advantage of if your home isn’t garnering as much attention as you want it to. Many times marketing efforts aren’t working when sellers attempt to sell their homes on their own or if they’re working with the wrong listing agent.
Work with a listing agent who has a proven track record of effectively marketing homes and having far-reaching effects with their advertising efforts to help get your home sold.
Take Better Photos
Sometimes it could be something as simple and unassuming as poor photos online that are hindering a home sale in a timely manner. Never underestimate the importance of online photos of your home. They’re usually the first point of contact with potential buyers, who usually make a snap decision about whether or not to visit a home based on their opinion on the photos.
Pictures shouldn’t be taken with a smartphone without proper lighting and lack of consideration of angles. Instead, they should be taken by a professional with innovative camera equipment to ensure your home is photographed in the best light possible. If your images are lacking, it’s time to have them redone to regain more attention to your listing.
Have Your Home Staged
If you haven’t done so already, now may be a good time to call in a professional home stager and have your home furnished and decorated according to what buyers in the area are looking for.
If your home is vacant or is not decked out in an attractive way, buyers may not like what they see or won’t develop an emotional attachment to your home. This can be a big deterrent to making a sale. Having your home staged by an expert can help your home sell faster and for more money. It’s been shown to work for this very purpose time and time again.
And whatever money you spend on a home stager will be more than recouped when you sell.
Take the Listing Down and Start Over
As a last resort, you may want to consider taking the listing down. After doing some research into what may have gone wrong the first time, you can get a fresh start with a brand new listing shortly after removing your old one. This time around, you might have better photos and a more appropriate listing price that accurately reflects the current market.
Of course, such a decision shouldn’t be made lightly and should only be done after careful consideration and upon the advice of your real estate agent.
The Bottom Line
Even though many listings are snatched up just as soon as they enter the market, others tend to linger on for longer than anticipated. If you ever find yourself in this position, there are things you can do to get the process moving along again. As long as you’ve got a seasoned real estate agent in your corner, there’s little reason why you can’t find a willing buyer within a reasonable amount of time.
