House Not Selling:

Why Wont My House Sell?

Is your house not selling? “Why won’t my house sell?” Is that your question? That’s what we’re talking about today, and we’re gonna get started right after this.

Hi, I’m Kim Ward, If you’re new here welcome! I’m an expert at helping executors, administrators and trustees with homes in probate in San Diego.

“Why won’t my house sell? Let’s talk about that. This is a top five reasons for you to consider:

#1 photos and marketing. A buyer’s first look at your house is most likely online and they’re looking at the photo supplied by your real estate agent. I can’t tell you how many photos I’ve seen sideways or really tiny or with the toilet seat or with the pets and the sellers in the photos. A poorly marketed property starts with bad photos. So, what’s important is to get professional photos once the house is properly prepared. That way you’ll get more buyers into the house to actually take a look at the interior. Now marketing, it’s really important to have your property on the market all over the Internet, including sites like Zillow, and trulia, and realtor.com. That’s how a lot of buyers learn that the house is on the market, also having a well-placed sign with some sign writers giving information about the property at the property is super important to!

#2 pricing too high for the condition of the property and the location. When determining the right price for the property you should be looking at sold homes within half a mile of the subject property. You want them to be relatively the same size, and condition. The selling prices tell you what buyers are willing to pay for the location and the size and the amenities of the particular house. When looking at a house that’s move-in ready, versus a house that was built in 1964 and is pretty much a time capsule from 1964.There’s a big gap there. You have to look the photos, you have to determine really what has been done to house number one versus house number two that really needs to have a lot of updating and may have a lot of deferred maintenance.

These things affect the bottom line pricing, when pricing too high, you’ll have less buyers come through the door. When pricing too low you’ll have tons of people come through the door and possibly multiple offers, and that may give you a and a chance to negotiate up from there, but pricing slightly below market value, I believe, is your best option. You get people in the front door that are serious about buying the property and you get reasonable offers in a place to start negotiating.

#3 Accessibility to the house. And how does it show. Does it show well? or does it show poorly? So the first thing is to make sure you prepare the house as well as possible within the budget and time frame allowed, I believe, in cost-effective repairs. When a property just needs some carpet maybe a little bit of paint. I don’t believe in rebuilding kitchens and bathrooms.

Quick story, I’m helping to sell a property, in San Diego. And we determine that the market value if the home was in moving condition. And I’m not talking perfect, I’m talking moving condition. The price would be approximately$680,000 and for that $680,000, my recommendation is approximately $25,000 and repairs. This is the number that the seller asked me to provide to them. And I have done that, I also provided them with the is number of $630,000. And so, after doing all the calculations it turns out that there would be about a $20,000 difference. So, now the seller has to determine whether they’re going to take the risk of putting $25,000 into the property to try and get that higher price or sell as is at a lower net to the seller and the estate.

So let’s talk about accessibility. That means buyers need to be able to get in the front door. It’s important that there be a lock box on the front door that is easily accessible by licensed real estate professionals. If there’s someone living in the home, we have to have a broad timeline of when people can show. Now the way we set this up in my office is that we have the buyer’s agents, let us know approximately when they would like to view the home and then what we do is text the person who’s living in the home and say, “Hey can I be shown between 2pm and 3pm tomorrow afternoon?” as soon as we receive the text back saying yes, then that is a scheduled appointment. What you don’t want is to have very limited times that people can come and view the property.

Remember, you’re not the only home on the market and if buyers and their agents can’t conveniently see the interior they’re just gonna move on to the next property, and you don’t want that to happen.

#4 incomplete property information, or community information. What does that mean?

I’ll tell you a quick story. I just called an agent yesterday on a house that I saw, I was in a really good price range for one of my buyers. When I spoke with her, I asked why, had the property been on the market so long and she said it was because the home had foundation issues, so I said, “Oh so do you have information on that?” And she said “Yes, we do, we have a report” and I asked if it was attached to the multiple listing service, which is how I do things. And she said “No, I just send it to agents that have an interest” So, of course that makes things more cumbersome and inconvenient for the buyer’s agent. But I asked her, Okay, so do you have a price to repair the foundation issues? And she said “No, she doesn’t have that.”

So, you know what that makes me not even want to start trying to show the property ’cause I don’t have proper information on what it would cost to make that home. So, because I don’t have proper information from the listing agent who should have done her research and got a price on how to correct the foundation issues to make the household.

Another thing is not having the proper information for homes that are in homeowners associations. It’s important that there be information saying what the rules might be if they’re really specific or how much is the monthly homeowners association fees, things like that. Giving the buyers agents and their clients, your home buyer, the proper information is key to getting people more interested in the house.

And finally, #5 is having chosen to work with the wrong agent. Sometimes sellers pick an agent, because they like them, and they think they’re gonna do a great job. They don’t do the research that they should on how other people have experienced working with that agent, or whether that agent has worked within their community, how many homes has the agent helped to sell in the last year? What type of communication does the agent have? Remember, what I just shared about the agent with the house, with the foundation issue? That’s improper communication techniques in my opinion. You want someone that’s going to work hard to get what you want, to find out what’s important to you, and to give it to you.

So, those are my top 5 reasons that your home may not be selling. If you found this a value you may find a copy of my book How To Successfully Sell Your Home helpful. For your free copy call my office at 619-741-0111, and we will pop one in the mail to you.