Top 3 Reasons Why Homes Don’t Sell
1. Inexperienced Realtor. All Realtors aren’t made the same. What I hear often is that my realtor has been in the business for 20 years. The problem is that realtor may have 20 years’ experience but sales an average of 5-6 homes a year. With the lack of volume under their belt it is unlikely that they have the finances to afford an efficient marketing campaign, the experience to know what the best list price is to attract the highest offers and the savviness to negotiate to make sure you come out ahead.

2. Hopeful Marketing. This is attributed to the first possible reason. Since the market is good, a lot of realtors are taking their foot off the gas pedal when it comes to marketing. Their hoping that if they stick a sign in the yard and send out a few emails that it will just magically sell. That method can work but if it’s your only way to getting a home sold then the visibility of the property will be diminished.

3. Poor List Price Strategy. What I come across sometimes is a poor list price strategy. Either the realtor lists the home to low promising the seller that they will get more, and they don’t. Or they list too high, and the market shows no interest, and the property just sits while other homes in the neighborhood sell. Oftentimes this occurs in one or more of these three ways.

1. The realtor was inexperienced and doesn’t actually know how to appropriately pull comps and explain them to their clients.

2. The realtor essentially is a coward and tells the seller whatever they want to hear in order to get their business. They may know that the home is priced poorly, but they don’t want to risk offending the seller. Or they convince you that they can sell your house for more in order to get the listing over another agent, only to tell you the truth later.

3. The seller tells the realtor how to do their job. In this scenario, the seller doesn’t really care about what the agent thinks. They have looked at the Zestimate and have a number in mind they “MUST” have, and they ignore the realtor’s professional opinion. Thus, the home just sits there. The agent is actually at fault for taking a listing they knew they couldn’t sell.