If you’re ever in a situation where your house has been sitting on the market for weeks on end and hasn’t received any offers, it’s normal to panic. Waiting for your house to sell is like standing at the edge of a diving board while working up the courage to jump. The suspense can be brutal. Sometimes even if your property is located in cities with red hot real estate market like Phoenix, AZ, or Raleigh, NC, it’s possible that it will sit in the market for weeks or even months. Fortunately, there’s always a reason your house isn’t selling, and more often than not, there’s something you can do about it. We’ve brought together 7 reasons why a house isn’t selling to help you think through this problem and find a solution.
Reasons you can control
First, we’ll focus on the reasons your home isn’t selling that are actually within your control to change.
1. You’re not using an agent.
Trying to sell your house on your own is probably the easiest way to never sell your house. The days of putting up a for-sale sign are long gone. Think about the type of buyer that would be comfortable buying a house without going through a professional? That’s probably not a reliable person to deal with when hundreds of thousands of dollars are on the line. Getting an agent will not only speed the home selling process along, but they’ll also be able to point out other problems that might be reasons why a house isn’t selling. However, be sure to ask the right questions before hiring a real estate agent so you’ll have an idea of who is the right fit for you.
2. Your price is too high.
Everyone wants a big payday when they sell their house. So long as you’ve given yourself enough time to build equity in your home, you’ll get that payday. But if your price isn’t competitive for your area (i.e., potential buyers can get a better deal from someone else), you’ll never get that payday. Bite the bullet and lower the price, the sooner, the better. The longer a house sits on the market, the less attractive it will look to potential buyers. When it comes to selling your home, time really is money. Work with your agent and find comps (homes in your area that are comparable to yours) to get a good idea of what an acceptable price for your home would be.
3. Your listing photos are bad.
We can’t emphasize this enough. Pictures matter. People are visual animals and if we don’t like what we see we’ll look elsewhere. First impressions matter. When homebuyers search for homes on listing sites they’re looking at the pictures first, probably before they even look at the price tag. So make sure that the pictures you post of your home are top-notch. They need to be bright, inviting, and accentuate everything positive about your home. It’s well worth the money to hire a professional to make sure those pictures are as good as possible.
Reasons you can’t control
4. There just aren’t enough buyers in the market.
If there are just too few buyers in the market, you’re handicapped in how many people you can advertise too. Chances are good, yours isn’t the only house that buyers are looking at either, so with fewer buyers, the chances that one of them decides to go for your house gets slimmer and slimmer the more time goes on.
5. There are too many sellers.
This is a bad situation to be in. The more sellers you have to compete with, the more competitive you have to make your house, which usually means lowering the price. The good news is that in hot markets with lots of sellers, like in Texas and Florida, there are most likely going to be a lot of buyers too (those sellers have to move somewhere, right?), so cast a wide net and be patient.
6. Your home is in an undesirable neighborhood for most buyers.
It doesn’t matter how nice your home is if nobody wants to live in the neighborhood. You could spend months listing a mansion at a huge discount, but if it’s a hundred yards from an airport runway will anyone make an offer on it? Not at any time soon, most likely. So take into account your location, ask if it’s desirable to most people, and if the answer is no, that’s why a house isn’t selling.
7. You’re selling at a bad time of the year.
The housing market is a seasonal beast. Home sales tend to slow down during the late fall and winter, picking up again in the spring. If for whatever reason you listed your house in November, and it hasn’t sold by January, don’t panic until April.
What You Can Do About It.
1. Optimize your price.
We don’t use the word “optimize” lightly. If it’s a question of selling your house or not, you can’t think of it as just “cutting” the price. Use comps, consult with your agent, and incrementally lower your price until you start attracting more attention to your home for sale.
2. Get better pictures taken of your home.
Spend some money and hire an actual photographer to come into your home and make it look better than you could ever imagine. A picture is worth a thousand words, and in real estate it can be worth a hundred thousand dollars.
3. Make some minor improvements to your home.
Don’t go overboard and throw a new deck on your house or finish your basement. That might improve your home’s value, but it probably won’t help it sell any faster. Fortunately for your pocketbook, superficial improvements to your home that increase curb appeal are perfect for helping your home sell faster. So go outside and pressure wash away all the gunk and stains collected under your home’s panel siding, clean the windows, repaint the front door, mow the yard, etc.
