What if it's not selling?

What Should I Do If
My Home Isn't Selling?

Provided by Jay Burnham, VP
Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage

Suppose you've been trying to sell your home for months. You haven't had even a nibble from a prospective buyer. What should you do?

Call your agent and request a strategy meeting. Tell him or her to bring you information about current sales activity in the area as well as any feedback from agents who have shown the property to prospective buyers.

What are the current market conditions? Is your home the only one of its kind on the market that isn't selling, or is the market just very slow? How long is it taking similar properties to sell? Are you being impatient or does your marketing plan need to be modified? Or the price?

Find out how many listings similar to yours have sold since your home was listed for sale. What were the asking prices? How did the properties differ from yours in terms of condition and amenities. Why does your agent think competing listings sold and your home did not?

Ask your agent to give you a summary of the feedback from agents who showed your home. What was the consensus about your list price? Were there any negative comments about the decor of your home? Did agents mention that your home was hard to show?

Agents need to be able to show your home easily and with short notice. If you have set up a complicated showing procedure, modify this to make it easier for agents to show and sell your home. If other listings in the area have lockboxes, you should too.

There may be something about your decor that buyer's don't like. Strong colors and busy wallpaper can make a home difficult to sell.

FACT: In most cases, homes don't sell beause they are priced too high for the market. Sellers often wonder why buyers don't make offers on over-priced listings. The fact is, motivated buyers usually don't have time to waste, and a high price is a signal that the sellers may be unrealistic.

In a buyer's market where there's plenty of inventory, buyers gravitate to the listings with the most competitive prices. If prices are flat or falling, buyers usually won't make offers on over-priced listings for fear that they might overpay in a declining market.

You and your agent should analyze your entire marketing program, including the list price, and set future strategy. If your price is too high for the market, reduce the price enough to have an impact.

Ususally a price reduction equal to five to ten percent of the list price will be necessary to generate new enthusiasim for the property. So if your home is listed at $300,000, you should reduce it $15,000 to $30,000 in order to make a substantial impact.

You may find that you have to improve the condition of your property AND make a price reduction. If so, make cosmetic improvements before reducing the price. After the home is fixed up, reduce the price and ask your agent to hold an open house for the local real estate agents, and possibly another public open house as well.

It's often difficult to get agents back to look at a home that has been on the market for awhile. A cosmetic face-lift combined with a substantial price reduction ought to generated new interest in your home.

IN CONCLUSION: Sometimes a home isn't selling because the agent isn't doing his or her job. A successful home sale requires teamwork between you and your agent. If, at the end of the listing period you are not satisfied with the agent's services, change agents.

JAY BURNHAM, VP
Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage
PREVIEWS International® Property Specialist
54 Dodge Street
Beverly, MA 01915
978.233.2828

Designations Earned: CRB, CRS, GRI, RECS, SRES