I wish I could shout it from the mountaintops…it’s NOT the REAL ESTATE AGENT who sells your house!!!! It’s really quite simple and it has to do with 3 things mixed in with something that none of us have control over…TIMING! I’ll get to the 3 things in a moment but, before I do, let’s talk about “TIMING”. The sale of any home has more to do with timing than almost any other thing…meaning, the right buyer has to be searching for your home and ready, willing, and ABLE to buy your home when you’re selling!
What do I mean by this….well, it’s what I see time and time again in my real estate business; I’ll be showing homes to a prospective buyer(s) and they fall in love with a home but, guess what, they haven’t got the contract on their current home yet so, the timing is off for them and, as much as they’d love to, they can’t put an offer in on your home until theirs at least goes under contract first. Then in most cases, they can’t BUY yours until theirs actually SELLS/CLOSES.
In many instances, Buyers won’t even LOOK at your house until they get a contract on or sell/close on theirs. So, when your home goes on the market and, either you’ve had showings but no offers yet OR, perhaps a low number of showings, the RIGHT BUYER for your home just isn’t able to BUY just yet.
The Real Estate Agent has ZERO control over that whole “timing” process. What the Real Estate Agent CAN have some control on are the 3 things that sell homes which I mentioned at the beginning of this article. What are the 3 things? Here they are in a nutshell and, it’s quite simple:
- Price
- Condition
- Exposure
I like to start expanding on these with the third one first…”Exposure”. Let’s face it folks, it’s almost 2020 and, ALL real estate agents pretty much expose their homes the same way…on the “World Wide Web”. Simply put, regardless of the experience of your agent, he or she SHOULD have access to placing your home’s for sale listing on the Internet. How is this typically done? Once your home is placed into your agent’s local “Multiple Listing Service” (widely referred to as the MLS), many of the big websites such as Realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia, etc. will “crawl” the listings and put them on their sites. They don’t charge the agents to do this because, it’s these listings that they take that keeps their business alive! That’s a subject for a whole other article which I’ll publish soon. There are some additional website syndicating that agents do in order to put their listings on additional websites so that your home gets noticed by as many potential buyers as possible. So, exposure is a fairly uniform process…for the most part!
Moving on to “Condition” …I always tell my clients that it’s the “beauty pageant winner” that gets the prize (in this case a contract) so, make sure your home glistens from head to toe before listing it AND before showing it. The Seller is completely in control of this process with guidance from their real estate agent. There are other internal and external factors that are lumped into the “Condition” category besides just cleanliness and décor. For example, a home’s physical location, neighborhood, location within the neighborhood, lot characteristics (golf course lot versus wooded, culdesac, corner, etc) all factor into the home’s condition in the eye of a prospective Buyer. Internal factors include things such as floor plan, add-ons (like screened porches, pools) upgrades, etc. All of these things contribute to the overall condition, again in the eye of a prospective Buyer.
Lastly, the “Price” is usually THE most important thing in selling your home. If too high, it will languish on the market. You and your agent should carefully price your home after discussing your goals, timeline, market comparables, etc. Obviously, the lower price points have a much higher pool of Buyers looking than do the higher price points so, if your home’s value is higher and so is the listing price, be prepared for a longer process to get the right Buyer through your home to make an offer.
So, if you’ve been in a position of having your home for sale for longer than you’d like and you’re contemplating switching to another agent, PLEASE understand that the next agent likely won’t be able to do anything different to bring about a Buyer than your current agent is doing. YOU are in control of the Price and to some extent the Condition factors so, discuss how to improve on these to get your home sold. Look for the next article on some tips and ideas for making sure that your home shows in the best possible light both online and in person when Buyers are looking.
