In this low inventory market place many sellers are expecting that their home will sell within a few days. Sometimes days turn into weeks then months and a seller is concerned about what needs to change in order to sell their home.
Lets discuss a few ideas to get a home that has been on the market for too long to finally find a buyer.
- Do a search for homes in your area. Can you find yours on Zillow, Trulia, and by searching on Google? The first consideration is the marketing, can your home be easily found. If you cannot that may be the biggest issue. If your selling your home, you want to have your home posted on a website like Zillow because they capture the bulk of potential buyers looking online.
- Once you found your home online, what do the pictures look like. If your sell land or a home that is in need of extensive repairs, pictures may not be as important as a home that is looking for top dollar. Does the photos accurately tell the story of your home? It is important to make sure your photos look professionally done. If they do not look good, find a local real estate photographer. The cost should be between $100 to $250.
- Have you had potential buyers tour your home and give any feedback. Some listing have zero visitors. However if you have had some visitors come what is the feedback you have gotten. Most sellers do not follow up with buyers that are not interested to find out why. So the first thing to think about is the feedback. Just a hint, if most visitors say your home is nice and have nothing negative to say, they are generally not interested. Its not the price that would change their mind, cause if it were they would have inquired about how firm the asking price is. It may be the home needs more work than they hoped to do. It may also mean that the home does not show as nicely as you hope.
- Price is another obvious place to start. To be help determine if you simply asking too much for your home take a look at your competition, the other homes on the market. Where do you fall in the price range for the area. If your home is at the top, does it look like it should be? I am not suggesting that if you have the best home on the market your home should not be asking for the most. I am suggesting that the pricing of your home matters. And therefore if you are priced very high for your area, although it makes sense, it means less people will qualify for that home and thus traffic may be slower than other homes that may not be as nice as yours. That’s because your home is appealing to a very specific buyer in your market where the other homes are targeting homes for the average buyer. This may mean you need to market it in a different way and improve photos or the description to match the higher price you are asking.
- Is there anything you can improve to help the home show better? Can the hardwood floors be re sanded stained and protected to look better? Are there rooms that can be painted? Is there something unsightly about the home you can change? Does the landscaping need to be improved? How about changing outlet and switch overs? Getting new door handles? Changing the cabinet handles in the kitchen? There may be a number of small inexpensive things that can be changed to make the home look better. If you do improvements after you listed the home be sure to include new photos of the changes.
