Bob Ashauer

It Didn't Sell Yet - Help! (Let's Talk About It)

The sale of your home starts right at the kitchen table, when you and your agent prepare a listing contract to sell your home.  A sale is certainly the expectation, right?  Well, actually, many listed homes don’t sell during the listing period.  If you had a home listed and it did not sell, you have a whole lot of company.  You are not bad, your house is not bad, buyers are not dumb and the market is not dead. It’s OK!

Except, of course, you need to move out of what I call the poor performer listings and into a sale.  So now what?  Let’s get some help – right here – right now!

Why Homes Don’t Sell
 

1 Presenting the Home as a Product

Seldom is a home we live in ready to go on the market.  Living in a home is definitely different than selling it.  Not properly preparing a home for sale is the primary cause of a poor listing.  All property has value, but buying a home is an emotional event for the future owner.  Perception is all there is in marketing.  How potential buyers perceive a home starts from the first time they hear of it and ends at the buying decision.  It is important to stand back and look at the home you have lived in from a potential buyer’s perspective.  It sometimes helps to remember back to when you bought it.

2 Marketing Effectiveness 

Today, traditional marketing is often part of the reason a listing does not sell. The traditional four Ps work, but not for selling a home.  Put up a sign.  Put it in the MLS.  Place it in the newspaper.  And Pray that it sells.  This works well for the agent because these actions generate calls from potential buyers that may buy a home – perhaps a different home than yours.  It is the most effective, and inexpensive way for agents to obtain buyer leads.  The same goes for open houses and print advertising.  Strangely enough, a high number of showings is often a poor indicator of effective marketing for you home.  Agents may be bouncing clients off of your home to make other sales!  (Ever wonder why an agent will accept a commission discount to list your home? It's cheap advertising for the agent.)  For you, the homeowner, saving some money on listing a home is a false economy.  Ineffective (cheap) marketing leaves only a lower price as the primary sales incentive.  Today’s buyers are different.  Selling a home requires a new kind of marketing.  This is the information age.  More than 85% of buyers today do their searches on-line.  They want high quality, multimedia presentations that excite them about buying your home.  Your marketing must be focused on selling your home, giving potential buyers what they want.  It is quite different than the old four Ps.

3 Presenting the Price 

The listing price is the single most important factor in selling a home.  You need some really accurate professional help in predicted what a buyer will pay for your home.  Not easy, but important decisions are seldom easy.  Too low, bad idea!  Most owners make the serious mistake of listing at too high a price with the thought that they can always come down.  This misses the most important sales opportunities at the most important time – the very beginning of the listing.  Sorry that’s just the way Real Estate marketing works.  Once missed, the property typically sits, and develops a stigma of being overpriced.  Subsequent price reductions only reinforce this stigma of being hard to sell, and usually produce a lower sale price than would have been obtained if the price had been listed correctly in the first place.  Think about it.  The owner and agent are spending time and money advertising something that’s not true - a false price of the home.  No amount of otherwise effective marketing can overcome mishandling the sales price.

You can make some changes that will sell your home.  Many homes are selling quickly and at acceptable prices, even in today’s market.  It has always been that way.  If history repeats itself, and it usually does, there will always be successful listings and some that are not – regardless of the market.  There are things you can do to have a successful listing and sale.   Remember, it all starts at your kitchen table with making the right contract to sell your home.

Free Consulting
 

Finding out why your home did not sell after being on the market is a valuable step in making effective decisions that will lead to the sale you had intended.  Remember, some homes have sold while yours has not.  What’s the difference?  What can you do as a homeowner to get yours sold?  As a re-list specialist, I offer my customers a free professional analysis of their prior listing to find out why.  There is no obligation for me to meet with you to review the efforts to sell your home and to make recommendations.  I can only provide this free consultation, however, to homeowners that are not currently under a written and active listing contract with another agent.  Sorry, it’s a matter of professional courtesy and ethics.  Please call me when your listing has expired.  It happens often.  I would be happy to discuss your options to getting your home sold.  Determining why your home has not sold is like getting a second Doctor’s opinion.  A professional opinion based not only on my Real Estate knowledge, but my experience in business consulting.  Trouble shooting a poor performing listing starts with an analysis of the present, or getting a picture of “what is”.  We start by taking a frank look at the big three reasons a home does not sell: Presenting the Home as a Product, Marketing Effectiveness, and Presenting the Price, all from a potential buyer’s perspective.  Looking at successful listings then provides a picture of “what could be”.  Why and how some homes sell quickly.  What is left is a gap that offers you the homeowner with some decisions of what you can do to insure your home sells.  If this sounds like it may help you, please call me.  I will take the time for you.  I don’t mind at all.  It’s what I do.

(And by the way, if you are reading this because your home has not sold, I know you may be frustrated.  I’m sorry, and I hope I can help. Here is a little consulting story that may make you smile):

A Consultant’s True Story
 

I have a friend George, who came to this country in knee pants as a little boy. His family had fled Eastern Europe during WWII.  As George tells about it, you can picture a very long dusty road, packed with families fleeing the approaching battle, with the sounds of cannon in the near background.  They carried as many belongings as possible, on their backs, on horses, in any way. George’s family was relatively well off, as they had a wagon, pulled by two horses, fully loaded with theirs and their neighbors’ stuff.  One horse was a little grey one, and the other was a big white one.  The white horse was a “slacker”.  If you know horses, a slacker is one that pulls just hard enough to take the slack out of the harness so as to appear to be pulling hard.  Slackers work really hard at the appearance of working hard.  Sure enough, in the middle of the first day, the little grey horse fell to the ground in exhaustion. This caused a welcome disruption in the procession, as the neighbors gathered around the poor horse, all shaking their heads and expressing concern. George’s father, being a horseman, knew his responsibilities as he went to the back of the family wagon, fetching an old pistol.  He came forward, through the crowd of neighbors, took careful aim, and shot the big white horse dead!  

“What have you done, silly man?” they exclaimed!  

“I shot the white horse for not pulling his share of the weight, of course. The little grey will be fine after she rests a little,” he replied.

The moral of the story is that if you are fixing a problem, make sure you shoot the right horse……….

Free Self Check List
 

So, your home is presently listed with a Realtor and it hasn’t sold.  I can’t really talk to you seriously about why, and neither should other Realtors.  It’s just not ethical while you are under an exclusive listing contract with someone else.  I’d like to evaluate why your home has not sold while others have, but I can’t – unless your listing expires or you terminate it, and I hope that doesn’t happen.  I truly hope you sell your home.  Perhaps I can help you end your frustration over what you can do now to get it sold.  Start by doing a self-evaluation, or review of how things are going.  I have a Listing Evaluation Check Sheet that I use when I re-list a home, and will email it to you if you would find it useful.  Every home is unique, and marketing a home for sale should be customized for that home and the needs of the owner.  The check sheet is not a list of what every listing should contain, but perhaps it will help you identify why your particular home has not sold while others have.  I hope so.  Please fill out the form below and request and ask me for the Listing Evaluation Check List.  I will email it to you.

Re-List It to Sell

I would like to list and sell your home.  It’s what I do, and I do it well.  Working for you as your personal realtor becomes personal to me as well.  My clients have had good success with my listings because of just that.  You see, I have a secret – I don’t take every listing that is available to me.  I will only take your listing if we honestly agree that your home will sell within the time frame that will meet your needs.  I just don’t like failure, and will do whatever it takes to avoid disappointing my clients.  Every home is unique and marketing each one for sale requires different efforts.  "Whatever it takes" means making continued evaluation and adjustments to the marketing approach until your home is sold.  I offer no carefully worded guarantees with fine print escape clauses that your home will sell.  I can only offer honesty and professional performance with you as the focus of my constant effort.  Please call me for a listing appointment.  We can sit down at the kitchen table and find out if I am the agent to market and sell your home.

Bob Ashauer
618 581 1695

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