Anita Clark Realtor

Reasons Why Your Home Is Not Selling

11 Common Reasons Why Your Home Is Not Selling

When you decide to put your home on the market, you’re likely armed with a certain sense of caution. You don’t expect it to sell overnight, but you also don’t expect the process to drag on for years and years. However, if you find yourself with few or no offers, and you start to wonder at the extent of time the home has been on the market, you might be doing something wrong. Let’s take a look at 11 common reasons why your home is not selling and what you can do to remedy the issues. 11 Reasons Your Home Won't Sell

1. You Have Priced it Too High

The first thing you should be examining is the price you’ve set for your home and whether it might be too high.

Determining the value of a home comes down to many factors, not all of which you alone have access to. So, if you’ve determined the price yourself, contact a real estate agent and ask them to set the price for you. In fact, you can contact several agents to see how different experts value your home and which factors they take into consideration. You can then go for the median of these prices or tweak your price according to their advice.

You might also be hearing feedback on the price from people who come to view your home. If a lot of them seemed interested but outright told you they can’t afford your price, you might want to revise it in order to make a sale.

Of course, the aim is not to reduce the price below actual market value, but rather to give up your own private notion of what your home is worth and be more objective.

2. You Are Not Marketing It Properly

Reasons Your Home Isn't Selling

You can only ever hope to sell something if people are aware of the fact that you are selling it. That’s why marketing your home should be crucial if you are looking for a quicker sale.

Don’t rely on one realtor alone to be able to sell the home. You can list it with different websites and advertise it with a wider audience. And certainly, you can change realtors if you find yours is not making much of an impact.

You can also spread the word offline. Talk to friends and acquaintances, and ask them to spread the word too. You never know whose interested ear your offer might reach.

3. You Are Marketing to the Wrong Audience

Along the same lines – you might be marketing your home to the wrong kind of people. Perhaps it would be more suited to an elderly couple than a family with four kids? Who is looking at your ads, and who are the people who are actually coming to see it?

Consider the space and who it would suit most – families with kids, couples, seniors? Come up with a story for your target audience, and market your home by emphasizing the appeal it has for a specific group of people.

Not everyone who goes out to view a home can imagine all the possibilities. It’s up to you to show them what your home can be and how it can fit into their stage of life and their future plans.

4. Your Home Is Hard to Find

Put up a sign (it doesn’t have to be a For sale sign) to make your home stand out. For example, place a bunch of blue balloons on your porch, making it easier to spot your house from the street. That way, potential buyers will have an easier time finding you.

Most buyers look at dozens of homes, often more than one on the same day. If they have to keep checking for the address and trying to spot your house number from their car, your property won’t be as memorable.

The less hassle someone needs to go through to get to you, the more open they will be to viewing and hearing your price.

5. The Photos You’re Using Are Bad

Even if your home looks amazing in real life, hardly anyone will want to come after seeing very bad images of it.

First of all, the quality of the photos needs to be exceptional. You can shoot them with most smartphones today, but you can also hire a professional for the job. That’s especially advised if you’re demanding a higher price and your home can potentially attract a lot of interest.

Next, make sure you get multiple angles of everything. Take the photos in some sort of order – as you would naturally move through the house. Focus on capturing all the major areas from two or three angles, and show how the rooms are connected to each other as well.

Don’t forget the front, the back, the driveway, the street, the yard – anything that contributes to the value of the home and can show an interested party what they can expect.

Shoot images of the finer details as well – doors, windows, stairs, the kitchen, the tiles. But don’t try to mess with the perspective and make the rooms appear bigger or the ceilings higher than they are. When viewers come to see your home, they will only end up leaving disappointed.

You want to show your home as it is in the best light – not pretend it is something it’s not.

6. You Have Not Staged the Rooms

So, you don’t want to show the rooms in the state they are when you are occupying them, neither in the images nor in person. You might still be living there, but in order to sell your home, you need to help others imagine their life there, not show them what your life looks like.

Remove as much of your personal effects as possible – family photos, trinkets, and memorabilia. Keep them stored somewhere when people are coming for a viewing.

Set up all the rooms to showcase them in the best light. This might mean moving some furniture around, but you can get used to the new layout if it’s for an important cause.

Take a look at the layout you have now, and consider how best to use the space. Set up the bedroom so that a viewer will immediately associate the space with sweet, restful sleep. Maybe you want to move the bed so that the window and door are to its sides? Maybe you want to move the sofa so that it faces a window? Could the dining table make better use of your kitchen space?

If you are adding any décor to the space, keep it neutral. Flowers and plants are a great choice, as are neutral paintings or prints. Emphasize the coziness and warmth factor.

7. Your Home Is a Mess

Why Your Home Hasn't Sold and How to Fix It

You certainly can’t be expected to keep the home spick and span 24/7, but you should also make an effort to clean and tidy the place before a viewing. You might want to achieve a lived-in effect, but that does not mean it’s okay to leave your dirty dishes in the sink or let the trash sit.

Look at every viewing as your chance to make a sale. It’s not that buyers won’t like the home because it’s messy – it’s that they will simply leave with a less than amazing experience and memory. They might end up wowed more by a home that was just as good as yours, only tidier.

Also make sure you do all the necessary repairs before you put the home on the market. A fresh lick of paint can go a long way. So can taking care of any stains, burn marks, chipped tiles, and other marks that testify to your use of the home. The more repairs and renovations you can shoulder before the sale, the higher your chances of making a sale faster. Plus, it will allow you to demand a higher price.

8. Your Curb Appeal Needs Work

You can never have a second stab at a first impression, so you want to make sure potential buyers will have a positive experience when they come to see your home for the first time.

Sure, your garden and driveway may be in good condition. However, if you let the gutter get clogged, if you have a whole lot of unraked leaves in the yard, if the lawn is going a bit wild, or if there are more weeds than plants in the garden – people will start to wonder how the rest of the home is treated.

Do a complete spruce-up of the front (and back) yard. Fresh plants, a freshly mowed lawn, or a new doormat can go a very long way in attracting your buyers.

9. You Are Rude and Unwelcoming

Showing a home is stressful work. There are a bunch of strangers traipsing through your home, touching things, making snide asides, discussing your decorating taste, and asking all kinds of questions. If they are unpleasant themselves, you might find it hard to keep smiling and nod along.

However, the more pleasant and natural you are, the better your home will fare on the market. People will want to work with a homeowner who is kind, relaxed, and who can answer their questions and show them what a home can be.

You don’t need to be an expert salesperson – just be the kindest and most welcoming version of yourself. You don’t have to bake a cake and have seven kinds of coffee on hand. A jug of water or lemonade and some cookies (store-bought is fine) will be alright.

Even if you’re having a bad day, try to put your negativity aside for the duration of the viewing. That can do a lot to help you sell your home.

10. You Are Too Pushy and Too Welcoming

There is, however, another side to that coin – you can become simply smothering if you talk too much and keep pointing out different features. Potential buyers will also feel smothered if you are artificially hearty with them.

You want them to have some time alone with the space and always stay on hand to answer questions. You don’t want to be too much by their side, and you don’t want to come off as pushy. Let the home speak for itself, and allow the good work you’ve done in staging and preparing it to do the talking.

Some people will specifically be put off by those who are too sweet and kind to strangers, so don’t be that person. Keep a professional distance. After all, these are people you’ve never seen before – how bubbly can you get with them? If you get too cozy they may end up asking you the reasons why your home is not selling…do you want that?

11. You Are Hiding Something

Your best option is to be completely honest about everything from the very beginning. For instance, if you have a very tiresome neighbor, you want your buyers to know this. Yes, you are pointing out a flaw, but it’s definitely better to be open about it than to have them find out themselves.

Don’t try to hide any repairs or potential future issues, either. A lot of buyers will be fine with tackling an issue that may arise in a couple of years (like fixing some of the plumbing) if they know to expect it.

Think of all the negatives you have on your hands and the best way you can be open about them. Sometimes, there is no silver lining. If your road is very busy and loud, for example, there’s no way you can sugarcoat that. Think of the positives if you can, but if not, just be honest.

Final Thoughts

Selling your home will take time and some joint effort on the part of yourself and your realtor. If you consider the advice we’ve offered here, you might locate a snag that you’ve previously been overlooking and that might be preventing you from selling your home.

Consider what you can do to alleviate it, and do your best in every area we’ve spoken about. Once you’ve covered all your bases, a buyer will find their way to your home.

If you found this article on 11 reasons why your home is not selling helpful, please share the article so other home sellers can benefit from the information provided.

Important Reasons Why Your Home Is Not Selling

About Anita Clark Realtor

Anita Clark has written 645 posts on this blog.

Anita is a residential Real Estate Agent in Warner Robins Georgia, with Coldwell Banker Access Realty (478) 953-8595, aiding buyers and sellers with all their real estate questions on her Warner Robins blog.

  • Anita Clark Realtor

    470 S Houston Lake Rd
    Warner Robins, GA 31088

    (478) 960-8055

    anitaclark160@gmail.com

    Coldwell Banker Access Realty

    (478) 953-8595

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