Shop For The House You’re Selling

So here you are, maybe a few years in the business, wondering what the heck just happened.  Not so long ago, if you put a house on the market, you had multiple offers within hours or a couple of days at most.  Often, those offers were well over asking price with appraisal guarantees and minimal if any inspection concerns.  Now, that is still happening, but only on the very best houses and only if they are  priced very competitively.  For the rest, the homes may make it through the first week, second week, even a month or more while getting minimal showings and attention.  What is a listing agent to do?

One easy thing to do is to shop for the house you’re selling.  What do I mean by that?  Exactly what I said.  Think about the main selling attributes of the home (size, bedrooms, bathrooms, location, etc) and then shop for it as if you were in the market to buy it.  Where do buyers go first?  You already know, I don’t even need to say it.  So go there and type in the parameters you are looking for.  Scroll through the listings and see what the buyers are going to see.  If your listing doesn’t grab your attention, then news flash, it won’t grab the attention of the actual buyers out there either.  And how many buyers just look within a single neighborhood, or within one mile of a specific address?  Yes, there is the occasional one, but generally, they are looking within a town or a few towns, or a specific school zone.  So search for your listing this way!  Is your listing the best value?  Is your description compelling?  Are you highlighting the best features? Or, are there six other homes in a similar price point that you would probably pick first?  Guess what?  You now have the answer as to why your home isn’t getting any showings even though your very carefully crafted Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) says you have it priced correctly.  Sometimes, the data doesn’t support the reality of the market, and we are seeing that now, just as we were receiving offers $50,000 and more over the list price not so terribly long ago.  Remember, at the end of the day, regardless of what a CMA or appraisal says, the home is only worth what someone is willing to pay.  So take a minute or two and shop for the home you’re selling and decide if you would be willing to pay the list price for it if you were the buyer!

If you are interested in learning more ways to market and sell your hard to sell listings, reach out to us at info@differentialcoaching.com to learn more about how we can help!