If I could scream it from the mountain tops, I would! “SELLERS, THE REASON YOUR HOME ISN’T SELLING IN THIS ROBUST SELLER’S MARKET IS NOT DUE TO YOUR REAL ESTATE AGENT!” I see it time and again, a home is listed for sale with beautiful pictures and a great write-up and then it sits on the market…and sits and sits…until eventually, the listing expires and then the Seller lists it again with a DIFFERENT real estate agent…because that must be it, right? The Seller thinks and is convinced of the fact that, “The real estate agent couldn’t sell my home”, He/She didn’t work hard enough, didn’t do enough advertising, should have done open houses or more open houses, etc etc etc. This fact could not be further from reality! The reality of the matter is: The real estate agent was NOT the reason your home did not sell. In real estate, the old phrase “timing is everything”, really rings true. ALL homes sell in due time because there’s a Buyer for every home! The THREE things that sell a home have nothing to do with the real estate agent. They are: 1) Condition 2) Price 3) Exposure. Period. Believe it or not, the real estate agent is NOT one of the three things that sell your home.
IF your home has been sitting on the market for 6 months with a real estate agent and has not sold, you need to discuss with your agent some strategies for positioning your home to sell. Perhaps there are some things about the Condition that are turning away buyers. And by the way, Condition that I’m referring to here could also be factors outside your control, such as the size, layout, number of beds/baths, location on the street, location within a given neighborhood, the neighborhood itself (is it in a good school district, safe/highly-regarded neighborhood, etc). External factors (like location) are part of the home’s perceived Condition in the marketplace. So, understand that the Condition may not actually refer to your home’s interior/exterior appeal. In saying that though, interior Condition does play a critical role in getting a Buyer to write an offer on your home. Speak to your real estate agent about things you can do inside to make your home more appealing to most Buyers. If you’ve had showings but no offers, hopefully the showings produced some constructive feedback from Buyers who looked at your home. If you are able to, act upon the comments in the feedback. If you aren’t in a position to change the items that are within your control regarding the Condition of your home, that brings us to the next thing that sells a home…the Price.
As a general rule of thumb in real estate, a home will get its most showing activity within the first 3 weeks of being on the market. So, if you have had showings but no offers in the first three weeks, that’s the public politely saying, “thanks but, no thanks” at that price and/or condition. If your home is priced at fair market value for the condition, in this robust Seller’s market, you should have an offer within the first 3 weeks of listing. If you don’t then examine your price/condition with your agent and come up with a game plan for adjusting in order to bring about an offer. Now, there are certainly exceptions to this general rule of thumb. For example, if a neighborhood’s average “days on market” is higher than the rest of the market, then you can’t necessarily expect such a lofty goal on getting an offer on your home…unless it was perhaps listed either under market value or the condition was exceptional.
I always say to my Seller clients, you get one shot to price it correctly to be appealing to Buyers and within the market range so, price it that way coming out of the gate. If you overprice in the beginning with the mindset that you can “reduce later”, which many people tell me when we are discussing what price to list at, then, you actually end up in a worse position for negotiation power. So the take away on pricing is, price it right to begin with! If you sit on the market at an inflated price, you’ll do just that…sit on the market…and sit…and sit. It’s often here at the end of the real estate listing agreement that the Seller will start to doubt the abilities of their current real estate agent. THIS is the misconception that Seller clients have. Again, shouting from the mountain tops, “IT’S NOT THE FAULT OF THE REAL ESTATE AGENT THAT YOUR HOME HASN’T SOLD”.
In my market, as I’m sure in markets throughout the nation, the minute your listing “expires” or is “withdrawn” in the Multiple Listing Service, you will be inundated with calls/texts/emails/mailings from agents I will affectionately refer to as “vultures” who want to prey on unsuspecting, misinformed Sellers. These agents will attempt to tell you how your current agent couldn’t sell your home but, THEY can! Some even tell Sellers that they have a BUYER for the home! To that I say, if you do have a Buyer, where was that Buyer yesterday? These are all ploys to get the listing. Don’t believe the commentary or the “28-step marketing plans, etc etc. Remember THREE things sell a home! The other 25-ish things that agents may do, just simply don’t matter! They may do all of those things so, they aren’t necessarily speaking any untruths but, what they are omitting is the fact that big, fancy, multiple-step marketing plans in selling a home are pretty much useless. Many of the other marketing efforts that agents do, are simply a form of self-promotion for the agent and don’t actually work to sell your home.
That takes us to the third thing that sells a home: Exposure! So, in 2020, pretty much all real estate agents are using the same tactics to expose their homes to potential Buyers and the basic foundation of this is…the World Wide Web! That’s correct, it’s 2020 folks so, no longer do we find it effective to do things such as print advertising in newspaper and homes magazines, or open houses to promote your home for sale. Open Houses are a whole other topic that I address in other blogs. If your home is positioned in the best possible light with professional photography and exposure on the net, you’ll be showing up where at least 92% of Buyers are beginning their search for a home. That’s a statistic taken from the National Association of Realtors in 2006. I would venture to say that number is even higher now.
To recap, if your home is NOT selling, talk to your real estate professional about positioning your home properly to sell in one of the three areas that count to sell your home: 1) Condition; 2) Price; 3) Exposure! And whatever you do, don’t be misled thinking that it’s your current real estate agent’s fault that your home is not selling. I had a client a year or so ago tell me at the end of our 6-month listing period when their high-priced home was not selling that they were going to switch to an agent who had sold a home in their neighborhood before. They did so and, after another 6 months of sitting at the same price point, they finally did a large reduction ($50K) and that finally produced a contract on the home. There was nothing that the second agent did any differently throughout their term of listing than I had done throughout my term. It was simply a matter of price AND timing….the right Buyer finally came along and, the sizable price drop made the home attractive enough to put an offer on.
Happy Home Selling! It certainly can be a process but, if you follow some of the advice above, hopefully you’ll have a smooth and successful process!
Cheers,
Melanie DeHaven, Carolina Elite Real Estate
