7 Reasons Why Some Homes Fail to Sell
... and how to avoid them the next time you sell your home.
by Yosef Adde
One of the most common reasons a home fails to sell is simply because the listing agent didn’t have enough experience. Selling your home is not where you want family or friends to get started in this business. The complexities of real estate contracts, negotiation techniques, how to market and drive lots of buyers, or prep your home, etc. requires experience and skill. After a new agent successfully closes on a few homes, they’ll probably have enough experience to list a home on their own. So let's talk about some of the common mistakes agents make.
What was the last agent thinking? Using your cell phone and putting up 10-12 photos just doesn’t cut it anymore. When you’re selling one of your biggest assets… and competing against other homes with professional photos… the last thing you want is an agent that goes cheap on the photography. Yes, phones these days are really good but there is no substitute for professional photos… You want everything looking it's brightest and best. Often times, photographers have very advanced lighting equipment and they will stitch several photos of different exposures together into 1 perfect image. Then on top of fantastic photos, we include aerial drone footage and Matterport 3D virtual tours when appropriate… in this market you need to be at the top of your game to compete!
Now let's talk about marketing. Did the listing agent go above and beyond just listing the home on the MLS and sticking a sign in the yard and sit back and wait for offers to just come in? Because unfortunately that’s pretty much the full extent of marketing a lot of agents out there do. Maybe they were new to the business, or you were trying to help out your cousin by giving them the listing and doing them a favor or whatever the case was.
I take a very different approach. Over the years, I’ve perfected my 10-Day Selling System that has a 44-Point plan of all things we do to get you maximum exposure for your home.
Here’s a few examples of what I do compared to the average agent:
Now go into a little more detail about what it is I do… I use several tried-and-true old school tactics… as well as some new high tech marketing techniques. Traditional marketing includes sending out thousands of mailers, door knocking the neighbors and inviting them to see your home at a “neighbors only” preview party, because studies have shown about 40% of likely buyers will come from the closest 500 or so homes in your actual neighborhood. Either someone looking to upsize or downsize… or perhaps they just want their family or friends in their neighborhood as well. For these buyers, old school techniques definitely work. But not all agents take the time to actually go out and do the work.
For online marketing my team and I get lots of paid and organic exposure on social media. But the marketing doesn’t stop there. We use re-targeting to continue to follow them on other websites and remind them of your house. I also have a huge database and about 7% of the time, one of my buyers actually ends up buying the home! And lastly, what sets me apart from most other agents is I am actively prospecting every day looking for buyers for your home. I personally speak to 200+ buyers every week directly. So I don't take the passive approach like most other agents do.
But in general, the listing agent should always know what it takes to sell a home both quickly and for top dollar. And if they fail to advise the seller properly, or they were too scared to lose the listing and went along with a strategy they knew was doomed for failure, that’s their fault, not the sellers. You deserve an agent who will tell you like it is, not just what you want to hear. And in my experience… if the motivation of the seller to actually sell is sincere… which it usually is… then any failure to sell the home falls squarely on the shoulders of the listing agent and a lack of experience is often to blame. do.
#2 More Prep-Work Needed Before Listing.
For whatever reason, the home didn’t produce a strong desire by potential buyers to either see the home or submit an offer. This could be due to the fact they just couldn’t get over something… whether it’s a dated interior or a crazy red wall or a cluttered walk-in closet that made it look much smaller than it really was. Whatever the reason, some of these issues may be very easy to take care of with minimal expense. Things like decluttering spaces, a couple small strategic updates or maybe a deep cleaning and light landscaping could have fixed these issues. Everyone loves to sell “as-is" but sometimes just a small investment or a little bit of effort can yield dramatically different results.
In general, if you’re planning to sell a house while still living there, it’s best to downsize as much as you can and pack away everything else you want to keep but don’t need for daily living in the garage, closets or storage. Pretend like you’re going to house-sit your friend’s home that is completely empty for several months until it sells, and they offered to pay a mover for you. What would you bring? Your bed of course, and a sofa, TV, your coffee maker, clothes, toothbrush… the essentials and basic furniture. Keep those things in the house and try to keep the rest stored away.
If you’re planning to sell a vacant house, at the very least make sure it’s completely empty and had a thorough cleaning. Paint, small fixes, and light landscaping is a bonus.
Small flip projects like you see on HGTV are generally not worth the headache. Buyers are willing to pay fair market value for good/fair condition, that’s clean and functional… The goal is to advertise the house as “turn-key” or “move in ready” even if it’s not all new. Less than that such as poor condition, etc. and buyers will expect a discount. But that doesn't mean certain issues is worth even doing. Most often, it's best to just disclose everything and leave it alone. Buyers may not be willing to pay much more for something brand new here and there especially if it’s not to their taste.
For example, putting in a new dishwasher in an old kitchen or just painting the cabinets and leaving the old countertop and sink is probably just going to cost you more money and time than it’s worth. So don’t try to flip your own home unless you’re prepared to take it all the way to 10/10 excellent condition that will WOW buyers and you can do it at a low cost like a professional rehabber or contractor. For most people that’s simply not possible and so flipping your own home is not worth the cost or hassle.
#3 Buyers Couldn't See Themselves Living There.
This isn’t because of the neighborhood or price… this is about something in your home, that was confusing them. Is this bedroom big enough for a king size bed? Where would I put a TV, they may think? Staging a home well with modern furnishings can make a big impact even on the smallest spaces. Not to mention, staging really helps to highlight key features about your home or draw attention away from other things or eyesores that could detract. Home builders, who are in business to make money, typically stage every home they sell… so why wouldn’t you? Staging has been proven time and time again to help get top dollar and sell homes quicker.
If staging isn't something you want to do, another technique to consider is Depersonalizing the Home. This is similar to decluttering a home, but instead of getting rid of extra stuff, you're making the home appear as no one in particular lives there at all... sort of like a fully furnished rental home.
Why is depersonalizing a home so important? Well, you don’t want potential buyers to be looking at all your family photos or get distracted with all your bowling trophies or whatever. People are nosey, it’s a fact! Before my wife and I had our daughter, we used to live in a small apartment on the Esplanade in Redondo Beach. We were on the ground floor directly facing the ocean. But more people were interested in looking into our living room then they were looking at the ocean view! :)
So, if buyers are going to spend 15-20 minutes looking at your home, do you want them to spend most of that time looking at your photos and trophies? Or do you want them looking at the house and all it’s great features instead? The answer is obvious, of course, you want them to visualize their family living there and all the memories they’ll be making… not how you decorated your Christmas tree there 3 years ago. You want buyers to create a mental picture of THEM living there, not you!
We want the process streamlined as much as possible. You need a strong agent that has excellent negotiating skills, who will get you the best terms and get the deal closed. Having an agent that’s great at marketing is nice but that’s not what gets you over the finish line. You don’t want the buyer beating you up through all the contingencies and robbing you of your precious equity. You need a strong negotiator working on your behalf to maximize the final sale price.
Sellers often think... “my home” is too important to be passed up... and buyers will make time... especially for luxury homes. But this actually runs opposite of the truth. Buyers at the lower price points will make more of an effort, especially if they’re serious, because they know there’s more competition out there for the best homes that are priced correctly. Luxury buyers are often business owners, people who are traveling a lot or just have very short windows of time they’re able to see a home. So working around their schedules and being flexible with showings for these luxury buyers is critically important if you want the best results.
#6 Trying the "Quiet Listing" Approach
This is where you don’t put a sign on the yard or don’t want the home published on the MLS and expect the agent to do minimal, or even zero public marketing and instead rely on their circle of buyers or contacting other agents to get the home sold.
Can this approach work to sell your home? Sure. Will you regret it? Most likely… and the reason is reduced exposure means reduced offers. You want EVERYONE to see your home is for sale, not just 5-10% of the buyers out there. You want people fighting for your home.
If an agent says they have a buyer for your home or is open to listing it quietly like a pocket listing… RUN! Because chances are you will get BELOW MARKET OFFERS from a much smaller pool of buyers and the agent is just trying to double-end the deal at your expense!
Now if your house is likely a tear down and only going to sell to a developer that’s a different story. We have lots of cash buyers and people in our circle of buyers who are investors, rehabbers or just don’t mind a major project!
But if your home is likely to be bought by a family who will actually live there… there are probably hundreds of other families out there that would love the opportunity to bid on this home. Do you think you’re going to get the best price from 1 buyer or 20+ buyers? Maybe someone drives by your house every day and secretly wishes they could live there “someday”. I know I drive by several homes like that every day I go to work. By not letting ALL the buyers out there see your home, potentially fall in love with your home… to bid on the house… you risk getting a much lower sale price. And you want the most for your home, right? Yes of course you do!
Ultimately I support my client's decision to list at any price, but I would be doing them a disservice if I didn't provide them with a game plan in terms of how long homes like there's are taking to sell in today's market and what the strategy should be moving forward should it not sell in a similar amount of time.
With the right pricing strategy - You basically want to compress all the demand out there to get everyone, essentially all at once… in the tightest time frame possible… to submit an offer and fight for your home. In fact, the lower the home is priced, the more people that will be viewing it… the more the phone rings… and the more work for the listing agent! And yes, all that increased demand drives up the price to yield you the highest possible final offer.
There's a lot that goes into determining the Best Pricing Strategy for your home. If you want to read more click here, because pricing a home strategically for the higest sales price in the least amount of time is an entire topic all by itself.
But to Summarize, there is a proven strategy when it comes to getting top dollar for any home:
1. A Lower Price causes Higher Perceived Value of your Home.
2. Higher Perceived Value causes More Exposure.
3. More Exposure causes More Showings.
4. More Showings causes More Offers.
5. More Offers causes Multiple Bids.
6. Multiple Bids cause Buyers to Bid Based on Emotion, not Logic.
7. Getting Buyers to Bid on Emotion causes you to get ... The Highest Top Dollar Sale Price.
So, my friend... Are you ready to hire a strong agent to… ACTUALLY SELL YOUR HOME THIS TIME? Or are you going to put this off for later and gamble with the market… or worse yet… hire the same agent and doom yourself to getting the same results as last time when your home didn’t sell at all?
Give me a Call Now... and… Let’s Get your Home Sold!
