Why didn’t your house sell?

Relist your house with these marketing tips!

Maybe Why didn’t your house sell?, maybe your agent didn’t fully go over the home selling process, or maybe you were presented some offers that didn’t go through to a full closing. These issues could be attributed to problems found at inspection or a low appraisal. However, failing on the first attempt doesn’t mean you’ll never sell the home. If you address why your home didn’t sell, you can still try for a timely home sale.

IDENTIFY THE REASONS FOR WHY YOUR HOME DIDN’T SELL

This is the first question to ask your next agent or yourself when relisting your home. Why was the home lost in the market in the first place as a buried listing? If your home has been on the market for some time, it may acquire a reputation among potential home buyers as an old listing with problems that doesn’t get looked at a second or third time even when deals fall out.

An old listing tends not to be addressed, sellers agents typically wait out the listing time to reassess the problems behind their listing and eventually wait to a relist the home as a fresh relisting at a lower price to encourage a lower quick sale. Having learned from the past failure, you should come back much smarter, relist and sell the property in a fair timeline with better knowledge of the current market.

The top Five common Selling error/issues

 Home Sellers relate to with Marketing Strategies:

1) PROBLEM WITH THE PROPERTY – HIGH PRICE
You can identify these issues based on the feedback from agents and buyers who saw your home. Ask your agent to ask every buyer’s agent about all the objections from their buyers. By taking constructive criticism, you can realize your mistakes and improve on your next attempt to show your homes best qualities. Did your agent make steps to share feedback with you for adjustments and advertising to the home during your listing? If your agent comes back blank for examples of marketing techniques, chances are their marketing attempts will be blank as well.

2) CHANGE YOUR PRESENTATION !!!

First impressions are the most important! If your home doesn’t catch buyers’ interest right off the bat, the listing is already at a disadvantage to competitors. Is your home competing for a look resort like look for out of townees? Are you appealing to all crowds with your picture images of your unit without sharing shots that have a lipstick finish for a false presentation, but not dull enough to look away as not real?

I created Virtual Tours Las Vegas to address ways to marketing your home for sale to the current majority internet buying pool without false hope. 

A well-presented house with high quality photos will get more viewers, while listings with poor photos will struggle. Limited photos shot off of a cell phone or a simple point and shoot camera set to auto may offer bland looks of a space that do not truly represent how a home truly looks to a person eye, especially with bad lighting. Changing the photos as the seasons change shows buyers the home is fresh and doesn’t set off red flags about that reputation that has not been left alone after one visit. Did you get professional photos or a cell phone special?

Offering home buyers more options to view the home like a 3d Dollhouse or Floor Plan view can keep home buyers on the webpage for 3-5 minutes longer than other traditional listings. Add Virtual Reality with 360 views all around the home inside and outside allow home buyers more time to fall in love with the home. New home builders use the service, why not you?

Offer a 360 virtual tour to beat out “Slide Show” virtual tour options against your competitors so home buyers can tour the home from their cell phone, tablet, laptop or home computer offering the feeling of touring the home as if they were in the home themselves. The viewings are Responsive to mobile phones, tablets and laptops.

This feature offers a 24/7 open house to home buyers in town or from other states and countries that would normally not jump at the opportunity to offer on the home until a later date when they planned to be in town to see a home. Slide show “virtual tours” offer nothing more than using gallery photos and a zoom option. Once home buyers realize they already saw the image in the gallery photos, they tend to leave and more onto the next home. Use a 360 virtual tour to get more interest in your home.

3) MAKE LOW-COST IMPROVEMENTS

Houses that move fast are those labeled as “move-in ready.” Fortunately, there are multiple low-cost improvements you can make to the home to increase its move-in ready appeal. Painting the interior or exterior can help your home’s sale. A deep clean can also give a better impression, as well as cleaning up the trim and landscaping by adding new affordable plants.

Break from your Current/Past Realtor’s Home Selling Strategy

Simply cleaning up your home one time for a DSLR photo shoot or 360 virtual tour will allow home buyers who saw the home online to overlook the cleanliness of your home when they visit, now respectfully understanding your busy lifestyle and inability to tidy up the home in time for their visit. Showing the home once at it’s pristine condition pushes buyer offers off from coming in at a bully position knowing the home has been well cared for.

If there are minor repairs, take care of them in advance when possible. If they’re more major damage, look into hiring a professional like Handyman Dan.

While at it, you could look into a home pre-inspection of your home to give yourself an idea of what to improve before the home is under contract, (You may have been given some red flag remarks from your previous listing).

This is also a reassuring and motivating sign to buyers when deciding to make an offer on a home. It’s common that expensive improvements rarely pay for themselves, so focus on those obvious little improvements a handyman can help with that could win you more viewers and ultimately a great price in our current hot market and focus your shots on the great selling points your property offers even with professional DSLR photos and a slide show.

4) REEVALUATE THE PRICE
One of the largest factors for an unsalable house comes down to the price. It most situations, I suggest never putting a home back on the market at the same price. The market is moving much differently now, than the previous couple years. Advertising and price can be large negotiators on how your home will be found!

Don’t hesitate to have a frank discussion regarding the price with your agent. See what your agent is really doing to market your property. Many say that the home will be going onto 15-30 websites automatically. But there is more to the configuration to get to the most amount of buyers, mostly in the first couple weeks.

Will your agent be taking DSLR photos? Will your agent be offering a 360 virtual tour? Will you agent be offering a Zillow Walk Though Video? Will you agent be plugging your home on social media. Ask them how? If they bach, the agent has little to no expertise in marketing your home and I would then question their ability in negotiating tactics.

Taking emotion out of the conversation will allow you to see the buyers perspective: Just because it was your dream home, doesn’t mean everyone else sees it the same way. If your home has been on the market for some time, try considering the market conditions. If you’re in a higher market, sluggish sales may motivate you to lower the price. However, your previous listing may have now allowed you to bring more money to your pocket due to a lack of marketing by your previous agent and current home buyer trends.

Opportunity awaits you Now!

Making price changes often triggers a new pool of buyers, especially in the digital age where email is the preferred method of communication. A small adjustment can trigger an email alert to buyers who have set up a home search based on their price range. But price should be a factor that is evaluated with marketing and comparable sales offering you the home seller the best opportunity for a sale “without leaving money on the table”.

Many listing agents will take a listing of a home  at a higher price than current comparable sales just to win a listing and have a sign placed in the yard as well as on the internet for the agents to benefit of reaching new home buyers for sales leads. Knowing your new home listing is overpriced, they will show other homes for sale to those buyer leads as a means to earn a living until your home sells for fruits of their lack of labor. Knowing later, there needs to be a price reduction of your property to make a sale happen, that will eventually match your current comparable sales with current home buyers they have recently met or other agents will bring to the table.

For example, if your home is priced at $310,000 and you’re not reaching home buyers who’ve set their search for homes priced between $250,000 and $300,000. Reducing the price to $299,900 will draw new impressions to the property without a significant price cut. Until your home meets the market, the agent will take new home buyer lead calls and show them homes under or over your current listing price to make an additional sale.

Every house can sell. If yours didn’t, there’s probably a reason for it.

Do not let listing agents blame price and basic IDX internet feeds be the only reason a home doesn’t move, marketing still plays a huge part in exposing your home to the most potential buyers today. In 2016, my wife listed 5 properties with my Matterport 3D Doll House virtual tours receiving multiple offers from buyer agents on each home within 1 week of listing each home. Most went into contract due to price and the buyers ability to maneuver through the home online as if they were in a 24/7 Open House using my Matterport 360 Virtual Tour without loosing time to schedule a personal showing.

There can be many reasons for a failed sale.

Big pluses came from the agents who didn’t have to point out obvious pluses the home showed in the 360 degree 24/7 Open House. Home buyers were looking to verify the information they already saw on their own online when the agent was off. Multiple offers came in on homes as far away as Japan and Hawaii from buyers that may not have offered on a home at all until a later date when they were to be in town to preview the home in person if and when it was still available.

Who is VTLV?

My wife Michelle and I believe that my 360 Virtual Tours offer more for buyers to see a property that may not have come to the table until a later time if the home can still available to see at a later date. We created Virtual Tours Las Vegas in 2010 to allow busy Las Vegas residents, family members, military personnel and out of state and country home buyers to see homes they may not physically get into with their hands immediately or have access to when weeks later when they arrive in town or on hot properties that simply  moved fast. Our tours would allow immediate visibility to see the home and offer now and preview the home later in person later with an offer in a hot market.

This is some early footage and we have progressed with technology well beyond what was available years ago. And we are still here versus agents who come and go.

5) SWITCH UP THE MARKETING

With most home buyers looking at homes online, it takes more than just a newspaper ad to sell a house. Experienced agents have networked with area agents so they can quickly alert other agents about the sale. In addition to that, realtors need to be aggressive in marketing their properties online.

Simply putting your listing on Zillow isn’t enough anymore. Out-of-the-box strategies such as social media marketing, 360 tours, online pay per click advertisements, and search engine optimization will help you reach more people in less time. Is your agent offering Zillow Walk Through Videos in your listing presentation?

HIRE THE RIGHT AGENT
Lastly, find the right agent for selling your home. You don’t have to fire your real estate agent after an unsuccessful home sale, but consider creating a fresh listing by refreshing a relist of the property with high quality photos, tours and videos that keep buyers looking at your home for a longer period of time over other listings. In a majority of cases where a house fails to sell, you’ll find that the agent was at fault to some degree listing and waiting for a response versus proactively pushing the home out for others to see and later sell.

The seller may have also not done their due diligence. Perhaps you didn’t interview multiple Realtors, or didn’t ask the right questions. It’s important to pick the realtor that will get the job done, and not someone you know because their your friend or family.

Offer a 360 Virtual Tour with a dollhouse view, Floor Plan view and the ability walk the home as if it’s a 24/7 open house.