8 Reasons Your Home Probably Isn’t Selling
Are you currently listing a property for sale? Perhaps you expected dozens of offers for the home within the first few days. At the very least, you expected to sell the property sooner rather than later. Nothing is worse than sitting on an unsold home for weeks or months on end. Avoiding some of these issues is key to selling your property and moving on with your life plans.
Therefore, consider the following reasons your home isn’t selling:
1. Asking Price Versus Nearby Closed Sales
When homeowners list their properties, they often look at houses for sale in the area. Unfortunately, these individuals base their asking price on such figures, which is a major mistake. You cannot base your home’s asking price on active listings. The key to success involves checking out properties that have actually sold in your neighborhood. Doing so allows you to figure out what the market is willing to pay. Therefore, your asking price must be based recently closed sales.
2. Physical and Virtual Visibility
In all likelihood, you have a “For Sale” sign in your front yard. Your property is more than likely listed online and in the local newspaper. Various factors could still prevent from prospective buyers from seeing or knowing about your home, though. For instance, a large number of homes for sale in the area will decrease your home’s visibility. A mass of listings online and in the newspaper can lead to the same problem. You need to ensure people can find or see the home.
3. Is Your Home Underwater?
If your home is underwater, then your options for selling are limited. You’ll need to sell the home above market value in order to recoup losses. A short sale might save your behind, but that’s not guaranteed. In today’s housing market, underwater homes are less attractive to potential buyers and even banks. An underwater home will prove more difficult to sell, and a variety of other problems arise, too. You’ll have to think outside the box to sell such homes.
4. Leads, Leads, and More (Missing) Leads
Leads come from countless sources, and you must ensure you’re receiving all leads. With a real estate agent, you need to tell your agent to hand over every lead received. An agent might otherwise discard leads that don’t match your initial criteria. Selling a home by yourself causes other issues. Therefore, you’ll want to check your mailbox and email Spam folder for missing leads. Every lead should be looked at and considered to avoid missing out on a potential sale.
5. Neighborhood Perception
Overall perception of your surrounding neighborhood plays a role in selling a property. If everyone thinks your neighborhood is a dump, then they’ll be less likely to make an offer. To fight back against perception, your home listing should include extra information. New amenities in the area, and other developments, should be mentioned in a home listing. You’ll need to sell prospective buyers on both your home and the surrounding area in order to secure an offer or two.
6. Out of Date Features and Fixtures
Modern homes with modern features and fixtures are easy to sell. Buyers want to purchase a home that’s as close to modern as possible. In that vein, a home with outdated fixtures is a tough sell for potential buyers. Nobody wants to purchase a property with an old HVAC system and a crumbling foundation. You need to ensure the property is maintained without anything being too outdated or broken.
7. Your House Is Ugly and Needs Modifications
Similarly to outdated features, prospective buyers don’t want to move into an ugly home. Describing your home as a fixer-upper is detrimental to getting the property sold. Most buyers want to buy a property that’s ready for an individual or family to move into today. On the other hand, nobody really wants to move into a property that requires obvious renovations and modifications to be livable.
8. Listing Errors
Finally, listing errors can doom your property’s chances of being sold. Major errors like an incorrect address or incorrect property information can lead to cancelled offers. Even minor blemishes and errors can cause buyers to think twice about their offer. To avoid this problem, you should check your home’s listing for accuracy every couple weeks. Failure to do so could lead to countless issues.