Your Home Did Not Sell - Why?

There are numerous reasons why someone´s home will sell quickly. The sad news is that if you are reading this you may have already tried to sell your home without any favorable outcome. With the national recent slow down in the residential property market, selling a home has become a hard task. The Tulsa real estate market has not often seen the situation of getting multiple offers on homes, within a few weeks of listing the home for sale. Other more volatile areas, which have continually experienced this, may now not see that again for some time.

The good news is that properties are still selling in the Tulsa region. Many Tulsa area homes are still selling. We have not experienced the massive upswings and now massive losses that are affecting areas of California, Florida, Vegas etc. To be successful in selling your property, we need to establish what may be wrong. Generally, the main reasons for sale failure are;

1. Marketing Plan

Ensure the Realtor working for you has a proven marketing plan. This need not be set in stone, but should remain fluid with the ability to change it. The majority of buyers work with a licensed Tulsa Realtor. It is important that your Realtor is marketing your home to other Tulsa Realtors as well as buyers seeking similar homes to yours. The Realtor should supply you with feedback from the showing Realtors and potential buyers who have viewed your home. Although one cannot demand feedback, but reviewing what buyers think about the home may well assist in advising the seller of the home´s both good and bad assets, that it may or may not have.

2. Realtor Skill & Expertise

Selecting the right Realtor to represent your home and you can make a great deal of difference. Many seller´s engage the services of a Realtor just because they are a relative (near or distant), or a friend. It does not mean that the Realtor local to you is best equipped to sell your home as many of these are "Part Time" Realtor´s fitting in their efforts for you only when their other full time job allows. Some may say, you can get more money for your home with them by pricing high. This may actually end up costing you thousands of dollars more, continuing to pay you mortgage, when you just wish to move on (see below). In the real estate industry, this is termed as "buying the listing". Following the listing, the "high priced" Realtor will try to get the seller to get reduce the price to a realistic level over time. Sellers have the most leverage for their home when it is initially placed for sale. This is the best time to sell the property. In a normal market, if the home is priced right, condition, location, updates are all catered for, the home will sell.

It´s important to ensure that you hire a full time professional Realtor who will be "up front" with you regarding the future sale of your property. They Realtor must provide you with a market analysis (CMA) and assist you pricing the home appropriately. The Realtor should also direct your attention to potential issues with the home that may hinder the sale and supply advice on how to circumvent them.

3. Accessing The Home

Ensure that your house is easily accessible to other Realtors and their clients. If there are many similar homes on the market and they are easily accessible to Realtors, they will pass over the showing your home if there are issues to gaining normal access. Using an electronic Realtor keybox will allow Realtors to show your home to their clients whilst you are at work etc. A Realtor who wishes to show your home will call and leave a message if you are unavailable, or contact the listing Realtor to schedule an appointment.  The electronic keyboxes keep a record of which Realtor accessed the property and the date & time of the access. This is ideal for security generating a feedback request. The more difficult the access the more likely your home will not be shown.

4. Strengths Of The Home - Location & Benefits

As we all know real estate is about location. Some locations are undoubtedly better than others, whilst others are no so. If your home is in a great location it can be easier to sell, depending on all the other factors.  There will always be a challenge in selling a home when its location is considered unsatisfactory. If your home is at a busy location, then we need to consider ways to reduce noise and any unpleasant views. Do not obstruct great views, they need to be emphasized. What are the benefits of your home, over the competition, i.e., additional bath, updated kitchen, extra media room etc? This information needs to be available for potential buyers.

5. Do Not Negate Inexpensive Cosmetic Enrichment

The present condition of your home when it is placed for sale will directly affect its marketability and salability. The seller has only one opportunity to make a first impression and this is within the first ten steps into the home. Little things like a dirty walls, stained carpet, dripping faucets, pet odors, broken light bulbs, clothing everywhere, peeling paint, broken windows, broken/unbalanced ceiling fans etc., can turn buyers away. It is quite important to ensure the home is in first class condition, both inside the home as well as outside. This will remove doubtful questions from the buyers mind. Have you ever noticed a builder´s model home? Generally, the home is clean, not an abundance of furniture, limited clutter and usually bright with natural light. Sellers need to get their home to look like a model home, to beat the competition. Especially if the competition is more new construction and builders model homes.

6. Pricing

Easy to resolve ? harder for seller to embrace. If offers from buyers are non existent, or are arriving way under the listed price, it may be time to reevaluate the price the home is listed at. Multiple offers and bidding wars are generally a thing of the past. We need to "un-think" those times, they may not happen regularly for some time, especially in the Tulsa real estate  market. The market has moved on and changed. It is not that there are there are an abundance of homes on the market, it is just that there are fewer buyers due to the mortgage meltdown. The risky (no money down) buyers has disappeared, just as the 100+% loans have vanished, a bit like Houdini.

The homes value is somewhat determined by location and the value of the other homes around you, notwithstanding condition and the previous mentioned items.  Your Realtor should attempt to find the most recent sales in your area and generally the past 6 months data is considered current. Older than this, and it can be considered past data and not of real value. In some cases older, is all the date you may have. If by chance similar homes have sold recently, it is fairly easy to figure out the value of your home in the current market. If homes have recently sold for say $200,000, $225,000 and $215,000 there is reasonable chance the value of your property is around this range. You need to ignore the fact that a home sold a year previously for $260,000. That data is now "old" and should not be considered. It will not be taken into account by an appraiser.

The problems of High Pricing your home:

a)     The house will not appraise, thus a buyer cannot get a mortgage on the home

b)     Buyers will be educated about the real estate market, by themselves and their Realtor and will know what has recently sold. It becomes a public record

c)      No buyer will look at your property if is it too over priced (see above)

d)     Sellers will lose the momentum that a newly listed home generates. Realtors and their clients are aware of what is on the market and are awaiting something new to appear. Consequently, the most activity will take place in the first 30 days of a correctly priced home. A seller´s property will probably receive its best offers in this period. After this time, the only people to view your home will be new buyers to the marketplace

e)     Homebuyers will not be able to make an offer on your home, because they probably will not be viewing it. They will only view the properties priced within their purchasing range

f)        Overpricing your home assists in selling the homes that are your direct competition. It just makes the other homes look much better and they are perceived as a deal by the buyer. You have assisted in the sale of your competition.

g)     Your home will at some point become stale. Buyers will worry that it has been on the market too long, so it becomes blighted. Is there something wrong with the home that they cannot see but others did and this is why it is still for sale. As you reduce the price, you may have to settle for less than market value. A house may take on an unsavory status quickly, if it sits on the market too long.

h)      Negotiation strength diminishes when the property is for sale a long time: Buyer clients will not clamor to make an offer on a home that is priced over market.

We hope you found this informative. If you would assistance in your real estate matters please contact us: (918) 798 4428 or 6628, or email us.