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Top 3 reasons properties fail to sell:

  1. Price: If your home is overpriced, it will be noticed and may turn buyers away. Overpricing may also immediately put your property in competition with homes that offer a better value for the money. To ensure a successful sale, your goal is to compete with homes similar to yours in the market.

  2. Condition: The condition of your home could hamper your ability to sell. Investing a little bit of energy & time into ensuring your property is presented in the best light can go a long way in attracting potential buyers.

  3. Marketing: You need to think of it as a product you’re marketing, not just as your home. Try to do your best to get it in the best shape possible to sell. Good marketing can bring higher prices and it could also mean the difference between being sold or expired.

    a house key

Drive through any neighborhood or search online in neighborhoods that have homes for sale and you will find the same thing. Within the same area there are homes that are selling while others sit sometimes for months without selling.

The #1 variable that determines whether a home will sell or sit is the demand that is created for the property. A Real Estate Agent's primary objective should be to create a lot of demand for the property in order to not only generate an offer, but also sell for the highest price possible.

In order to create demand for a property, there must be a specific written marketing plan for that type of property. If there is not a specific plan for the property, the agent is probably using a “one size fits all" approach. This is ineffective because it's relying on luck to generate an offer. Think about the hundreds of different types of properties that exist in your market right now. There is a different type of buyer for each one. Simply putting a property on the MLS, and hoping it sells is like getting in the car and driving for hours and hoping you end up where you wanted to go.

property with a For Sale sign
In the absence of an effective marketing program, many agents will turn to lowering the asking price as a strategy to sell. While lowering the asking price will typically generate more interest it also impacts the bottom line that the seller is most concerned with. In short, if the only marketing plan that an agent has is solely based on pricing, the only one that wins is the agent. Selling for the highest price possible requires that you hire an agent with a proven track record of selling properties like yours, along with a written marketing plan. If you start there, the agent will help you determine what the best pricing strategy is that will allow you to sell for the highest price possible in the time frame that works for you.