5 reasons your home hasn't sold
Don't fall short on showings, Web marketing
By Bernice Ross, Tuesday, October 6, 2009.
Flickr image by Clearly Ambiguous.You listed your house at the price that your Realtor suggested. You have staged the house and it looks like a showcase. There have been no offers and only one or two showings. What could the problem be?
Usually, when a house doesn't sell, it's due to one of five things: price, accessibility, condition, location, and/or marketing.
1. Price (or is it price range?) rules all
In most cases, the reason a property doesn't sell is the price. In today's market, however, you can be priced perfectly, but if you're in the wrong price range your property won't sell. In other words, your property can be in perfect condition and in perfect alignment with the comparable sales and it can still sit on the market for months. The reason? The credit crunch.
The first-time-buyer market has been flourishing, largely due to the first-time-buyer tax credit of $8,000. Homes that require financing over and above the "conforming loan limits," however, are languishing on the market. A conforming loan meets the guidelines to be purchased and securitized by either the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) or the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. (Freddie Mac).
Both of these government-sponsored entities (GSEs) are in conservatorship and may require a taxpayer bailout. The magnitude of this issue is huge. According to Wikipedia, Fannie and Freddie currently own or have guaranteed about 50 percent of the U.S. $12 trillion mortgage market.
Conforming loan guidelines include a maximum loan amount determined by geographical region as well as the requirements to meet certain downpayment, credit and debt-to-income requirements. Go online to view the loan limits in your area for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
In most areas, the maximum amount that you can obtain for a conforming loan is $417,000. In certain expensive areas, the maximum loan amount that a borrower can obtain is $729,750 (through the end of the year, unless these upper limits are extended). These numbers are higher for Alaska, Guam, Hawaii and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Thus, if your property is priced more than $450,000, the reason it may not be selling is that buyers are unable to obtain financing to buy it. A second reason is that if your home is a "move-up" property rather than a first-time-buyer property, your potential buyers may be unable to sell their existing properties in order to buy your property.
There can be a wide variety of reasons for this, the most notable of which is their properties are worth less than they paid for them. In many cases, their properties may fall into the "short sale" category where they owe more on the mortgage than the property is worth. When a substantial number of sellers in a given area have no equity in their current properties, the move-up market will be dead. ...CONTINUED
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Submitted by Gregory Moe, Olympia, WA on October 6, 2009 - 12:34pm.
Having placed many listings on Craigslist, with no measurable responses, I have decided to not waste my time with that chore.
I welcome hearing from others who perhaps have had success with Craigslist
Submitted by KH on October 6, 2009 - 12:36pm.
'5. Marketing
Does your agent have a written marketing plan? Did he or she have a video tour made of your property? Is your listing being marketed on at least 30 major listing portals and 15 major video portals? Did your agent provide you with a single-property Web site that uses your property address'
Photography? Most people 'browse' listings - skimming the thumbnails for what looks good - long before downloading a video. And proper, professionally produced still photos can do as good of a job, if not better, it peaking a prospective buyer's interest, or at the least, getting them to want to take the time to watch a video.
Not sure why photography, proper photography, is so often thought of as a 'waste' or that a few snaps are 'good enough' If a seller takes the time and expense to perform #2 above - why not showcase that in the listing?
Submitted by Gregg Neuman on October 6, 2009 - 12:58pm.
The article should have been named "how to sell your home for more money". There is only ONE reason at home doesn't sell and that is PRICE. Price will over come accessability, condition, location and marketing. If it is priced low enough agnets and buyers will jump through hoops to see the property, condition becomes secondary to price, location becomes moot at the right price and even the most inept agent's (oops are there inept agents?) marketing plan will not matter if the home is priced low enough.
Now should you want more money for your home then the remasining four issue become a factor. Well written, just poorly titled.
Gregg Neuman
Submitted by Ted Jernigan on October 6, 2009 - 1:24pm.
Ted Jernigan
Ebby Halliday REALTORS
McKinney, Texas 75071
www.TeamJernigan.com
972-489-6173
I have found in this slower market that a key issue is accessibility. I had one moderately priced property that had two small dogs, one large dog and a baby in residence. The mother would leave to run errands and be unable to return to accomodate the two hour notice we had specified. Buyers agents would schedule today for a showing tomorrow, and then not show up for the showing.
When they cancelled their listing because I "couldn't sell it," I gave them their weekly report for the full listing period that showed half of the possible showings had been denied by the seller. I had no way of knowing how many were no shows by discourteous buyer's agents.
All of this is very frustrating for the seller and for me, but I would have liked our odds better if they had accomodated all the requested showings. If a homeowner is trying to sell a property they have to do their part and make the property accessible for showings.
Submitted by Steven Sanders on October 6, 2009 - 3:39pm.
In normal times the author's advice is quite good, but theses are not normal times.
In our area the average sale price is $145,000. Doing all that was described might work for higher priced properties, but spending that much time and effort on a listing likely to generate a $2,500 commission, is hardly good business practice.
And quite frankly, in Riverside County, CA, there are more buyers than properties. Anything listed even close to potential appraisal value will sell in days, regardless of the condition. It isn't "Location, location, location" it is "Price, price, price".
We are seeing 10-12 offers on properly priced properties, many of them ridiculously over-priced. The appraisal, of course, has been bringing offers back to reality, but many buyers are being beat out by cash offers which do not require an appraisal. Sometimes the cash offers are even at a lower price than the FHA or conventional offer, and still they are accepted.
And the scariest of all is that many of these cash offers are from non-profits, using NSP money, competing against the very buyers they were supposed to help. It's a crazy market filled with disappointments and stress, but it is still a great time to buy. Especially if the Feds extend the $8,000 tax credit.
Submitted by michael Espiritu on October 6, 2009 - 5:04pm.
Price is definitely the key in the So Cal/Inland Empire (San Bernardino County and Riverside County)area. Any property will sell, regardless of condition, at the right price.
Many agents still do not get it. Letting the seller dictate the price is a complete waste of time and money. The practice of "buying a listing" is alive and well and agents that overvalue property in order to obtain a listing are not ethical.
Homes that are priced at market value or below are the first to be sold. Using the most recent comp data within the last 90 days is what any appraiser will use and if the property does not appraise then no loan will be given on it.
I have had countless clients, unhappy with their former agent or agents, who have never been shown comp data and offer "list price". Many agents are not adept at valuating property.
I also notice a lot of properties with one picture, often times blurry, and they wonder why their liating is not selling. Our MLS has a 5-day timeframe to get a picture on the MLS.
The more pictures of a property the better. The properties will get more views and the property will come up higher on different sites the more pictures you have.
I have sold property in less than 7 days simply because we had 25 pics and the clients already fell in love with the property when they saw it on-line.
Video tours on a standard sale are still valuable marketing tools but not a necessity.
The hierarchy for buyers is this:
Cash
Conventional buyers
VA
FHA
County/City Assistance programs
Cash is king and always will be.
The bottom line is that properties that are priced correctly will sell quicker than ones that are over-priced.
When there is a listing that has not sold in a timely manner it is almost always because of price.
Agents- you are supposed to be the expert- earn your commission- be able to interpret the data accurately- be able to walk away from an unrealistic seller.
Let someone else waste their time and marketing dollars.
Michael Espiritu
Broker
Elite Realty Group
SoCal
Submitted by Lenn Harley on October 7, 2009 - 2:28am.
I believe that, if #1 through #4 are implemented properly, #5 is not critical but market the listing agent and not the property for sale.
Agents are subsumed with "marketing" overpriced, under prepared, hard to access properties and spend valuable resources and $$$$ supporting the vendors that use our information to stoke their own profit centers.
Price it right, clean it up if needed, give easy access and it will sell.
Lenn Harley
Broker
Homefinders.com
http://www.homefinders.com
Submitted by Barry Noble on October 7, 2009 - 8:27am.
In a declining market that is about to bottom out and head back up - Price it right, price it right, price it right, price it right, and #5, price it right.
If it is inaccessible, if the condition is poor, if the location is damning - no marketing will get it's Current Market Value - so price the property to its base value and presentability, but price it right.
Barry Noble
http://www,MyPropertyIsWorth.com
Palm Springs and the Desert Resort
Cities of So California
Certified Residential Appraiser & Broker