Why Is Your Home Not Selling? 6 Key Factors

1.    Location. The location is the location.  Unless you are in the movie “UP” of course.

It might be advantageous (lake view with southern exposure and in a prime spot).  Or it’s by the highway with a view of a wall.  Whatever the case is, location is what it is and it is not moveable. It does play a tremendous factor as to why a buyer will purchase or not. In Sellers markets with low supply, tougher locations move faster. In Buyer markets, the price and other factors need to be changed drastically to get movement.

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2.   Condition. Condition can be a variable. How does the home show? Staging can have +/- 15% swings and can be the deciding factor if a home sells and at what price. See key staging tips

3.  Marketing/Advertising. The only thing a Realtor controls. A client who did not choose me called me the other day and said “I made a mistake not going with you.”  I looked at his listing online and immediately saw a backyard shot that was a closeup of a table and a fan cord hanging down and then his lake view.  This needed a prime aerial to show the full lake view and the corner lot he has.  Marketing has so many elements from photography, videography, ad placement/distribution, agent selling and on and on.  If all 6 Factors are right on, then you have a marketing problem.

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4.  Access. If the Realtor is not responsive or the Seller is always negotiating what day/time a house can show, it will limit the Buyers coming in.  This affects both price and days on market.

5. Offering Price. If 1-4 are correct, then it’s time to change the price.  The best strategy for pricing a home is to have it just under a category of shopping threshold.  Since Buyers and Realtors looking for their clients are searching (up to a threshold limit), its important to be below those limits. Just like shopping on google. When you get a client who wants to price something at $359,000 I usually ask them if they were looking for a new car to lease or buy what their limit would be. They always end up on an even number. Nobody ever says keep my payment below $359 a month.  Its either $350 or $400.  Therefore pricing a home at $359,000 means the buyer searching up to $350,000 will never see it.

• Up to $350 shops in rhythms of $25,0000
• $400,000 to $800,000 is in rhythms of $50,000
• $800,0000 to $1,200,000 is in rhythms of $100,000k
• And when you get higher in millions it works the same way going up by ½ million to million dollars. . $4,000,000m – $4,500,000m.

6. Trends. While trends is not something you can control, Realtors feel the market at ground level and know a market is shifting before appraisers do.  If the market is shifting it can affect strategies on 2-6.

Jeff Lichtenstein is owner and broker of Echo Fine Properties, a luxury real estate brokerage selling real estate in Jupiter  and homes in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. He has 20 years of real estate experience, has closed over a 1,000 transactions, and manages over 50 agents in a non-traditional model of real estate that mimics a traditional business model.  Some publications he has been quoted in.

Feel free to ask him a question directly at jeff@EchoFineProperties.com.