January 30, 2009

Your Listing Just Expired, Now What Do You Do?

Nothing is more frustrating than to place your home on the market, hire a Realtor to market the home, spend the time and effort to keep your home ready for showings, leave your home during those showing times, and still not have an acceptable offer. In such situations it is hard for the Seller not to feel discouraged and ready to give up! There is always a lack of confidence in the salesperson, a lack of faith in the process, and the Seller is left to wonder why their house didn’t sell. The final question is what does the Seller do next?

Almost without exception, if the Seller’s house has been placed on the MLS, the Seller will get calls from other Realtors wanting to market the home. This is not a bad thing because in every industry there are some associates who are very professional and some who are less professional. We all know that there are people who can give a great haircut and others who don’t do so well. Before you make the decision to re-list, take the home off the market, or sell it on your own, the Seller needs to ask themselves a series of questions.

If a home doesn’t sell it is for three reasons:

Marketing

Condition

Price

The Seller needs to carefully examine each of these areas to be sure that they understand why the home didn’t sell. Let’s talk about marketing first.

Marketing is the prime responsibility of the Realtor. Before you re-list, examine the marketing plan of the Realtor to make sure that the home is properly exposed. The greater the exposure of the home on the Internet, the greater the chances of finding a qualified buyer in a reasonable time frame. Since most buyers start their search for a home on the Internet (estimated 87%), first review the Internet marketing plan of the Realtor. For example, I not only list the home on the MLS, the company website, and my personal website, I also feature that listing on Realtor.com, the most used real estate website in the world. What that means is that anyone looking for a home in your area will see your home even if they are not searching for it specifically. This results in thousands of extra hits on your home. I always do a very professional virtual tour so that anyone can tour your home at anytime of the day or night. More pictures means more hits on the Internet. We also syndicate our listings meaning that they are distributed to all the popular real estate websites including Google, Yahoo, AOL, Trulia, Military.com, Frontdoor.com, Zillow.com, RELO^® Home Search and many, many more. In addition, I always use free sites such as Craig’s List and KSL.com. We also track each listing to see where the greatest numbers of hits are coming from to make sure that marketing money is spent effectively. Of course, we do flyers, open houses (virtual and in house), showing desk, have 24 hour recorded information, and call collector services to make sure that each lead is contacted and followed through with. If you would like a free consultation on our marketing plan then just click here. I also have a highly qualified assistant that helps me execute the plan and is available when I might be in the field.

The Condition of the home lies with the Seller. The most popular homes for buyers are new construction homes because of their condition. Renovated and upgraded homes come next. Every home needs to be in the best condition it can be in to obtain its highest values. Staging a home can create a positive first impression. Homes with less clutter, orderly, and clean will give a higher impression of value. If there are appliances or parts of the home that need to be repaired, cleaned or painted, work on those areas before you re-list. We have a free DVD on How to Prepare Your Home for Sale that is very helpful to Sellers. Sellers should make sure their homes are available to be shown with few restrictions so that agents and buyers can tour the home when they have the time to do so.

The Pricing of the Home is the Seller’s Choice. The Seller should be able to choose their price with the assistance of the Realtor. The Seller must have access to the current market data in order to properly price the home. In a buyer’s market, overpricing a home will push buyers away. The data available to appraisers is the best data to use to price a home. Realtors can supply a list of all homes sold in your neighborhood in recent days and months and prepare a CMA (Completive Market Analysis) to allow you to price your home so that it will sell. Buyer’s will not buy overpriced homes so Sellers need to be realistic in their pricing strategy. Please contact me for a free list of the last 10 homes to sell in your neighborhood.

Finally, every home will sell if these conditions are met. There are no exceptions so please don’t be discouraged that your home will not sell.

Posted By: Steve Randall