15 Dec Why isn’t my home selling?
Experience tells me that there are three main reasons that properties don’t sell in a reasonable time frame.
They are pricing, styling and photos.
Properties have to appeal to today’s fussy and well-informed buyers and if they don’t, then all your listing is actually doing is helping sell someone else’s home.
I have discussed the importance of utilising good photography to promote your home as a key part of the sales process previously. It is important to spend a little bit more on marketing to attract buyers and drive competition for your sale. Buyers shop with logic but buy on emotion and bad photos wreck the fairy tale very quickly.
Property styling is also an integral part of your sales campaign. Good styling is done with no one buyer in mind, as the goal is to appeal to everyone buying a home. It is a process of editing and eliminating to ensure the property meets expectation. Property styling is all about “packaging the product”, that being your home. It is about romancing the buyer and boosting the perceived value of the home. It is about differentiating your house from the competition.
Don’t confuse this process with interior design, which is a supplementary process of adding beautiful things that have a personal meaning to the client. Decorating a home to live in is completely different to decorating a home to sell.
If you are preparing your home yourself, try to avoid some of the common pitfalls:
- Looking overtly staged (setting a dining table for example)
- Too many distractions (collections on display)
- Too much personality (over the top colours and too many patterns)
- Too little personality (stark or lifeless rooms)
- Lack of clear purpose of a room (a bedroom being used for craft and a gym at the same time)
- Inconsistent quality of furniture and accessories
The final major reason that your home may have become a stale listing is that of price. Putting a dollar value on your home is difficult as you are most likely very attached to it and it contains so many happy memories. You may also fall into the trap of wanting a significant return on the original purchase price. It is the market that determines the price you will achieve when selling and a good agent will be able to recommend both the expected price range and sales strategy for your home.
It is worth mentioning that if you price your home appropriately it will definitely motivate buyers to act quickly with a serious offer. I have seen competitive offers on properties I have styled recently achieving $70,000 to $150,000 over the top of the range asking price.
The key to selling well is to make sure that you have the right marketing formula – TOP NOTCH MARKETING FROM A GREAT AGENT + BEST PRICING STRATEGY and of course, THE BEST POSSIBLE PRESENTATION.