If your home ends up sitting on the market…

by | Nov 19, 2017 | Advice, Blog, News, Pricing | 0 comments

A cartoon of a man with a sign saying have you had your house on the market for a long time?.


It’s always best to price your home correctly from the very start, but as proud home owners, this may prove a challenge due to our emotional ties to our homes. If your home has been sitting on the market for a while, it will be harder to sell. You probably should take it off the market for a short time to re-evaluate: maybe the price is wrong, maybe the home could have been prepared a little differently, maybe more could have been done, or maybe there are other problems. Here are my tips for getting your home sold even if it’s been sitting for a long time.

 

STEP 1: Re-evaluate your price.

Be smart. You are running a race against other home sellers. Go see the homes that are on the market. Look at where they’re priced, and get ahead of them. You may want to consider being priced a little under them. If many houses are priced in a certain range, you will get noticed first if you price a little outside of that range.

The longer a house has been sitting on the market, the less power the seller has to negotiate price and terms, and the more power the buyer gains. Take a very hard look at the market and at comparable homes (“comps”) – with these, you should be able to defend the price you come up with. The most important thing a seller can do is price their home properly.

We’re very fortunate to have so much data on homes that have successfully sold in the past, as well as those that have been unsuccessful. With a good real estate agent to help guide you through all these numbers and what they mean in the market, the price range of your home should become very clear.

For more information on how to price your home, please see my recent blog post titled “Demystifying Pricing for Sellers.”

Once you know approximately where your home should be priced, there are different strategies you can take to sell your home for the most amount of money. You can price it a little under the market value, at the market value, or over the current market value.