Has a HOUSE been on the market for a while? No decent offers? How do you sell your stagnant property?
Your house has been on the market for months, even years, yet nobody wants to bite. What’s going wrong? And more importantly, how can you turn it from stagnant to sell?
1. Refresh your advertising.
Most buyers are looking at properties well in advance of purchase, sometimes months or even years. If your listing and promotional details remain unchanged for months on end, your potential buyers will notice — and not notice you as a result.
Shake up your advertising with new, fresh photos that are rotated weekly, update your property description with a creative copy or ask your agent to change your marketing strategy.
2. Change your price.
You’ll pay the price if you end up stubbornly attached to one that is unrealistic. Price points are psychological triggers. One to five thousand shillings in the right direction can spark interest and make a buyer feel a purchase is possible or in some cases impossible.
Put yourself in the shoes of your buyers and be honest about a reasonable cost. Then work closely with your agent to adjust your price, make it realistic and attract some serious buyers.
Sometimes, a stagnant property’s problem might be its the price is too high for the market.
3. Take a break from the market.
Three things tend to happen if you keep your property on the market for a long time without a break. Buyers will make a mental note to avoid it, fearing something is wrong. They will use its time on the market as a negotiating tool or tune out your property altogether.
Three months is often a turning point so if you can afford it, giving your property rest for a few months means you’ll have a whole new crop of buyers ferreting out their perfect place.
4. Give your property a makeover.
Get the lowdown from your real estate agent and, if they’re co-operative, buyers who have decided to pass on your place. Ask them what turned them off and ask them to be brutally honest. Ideally, you’ll get some specifics that will help you focus on any improvements you need to make.
It could be the colour of the walls, the lack of decent appeal or a small kitchen. Look at low cost, quick facelifts, like home staging, a new coat of paint, better clean up inside, or some attractive plants in the garden.
5. Go comparison shopping.
You may have done a tonne of homework on selling your house, but forgot to scope out the competition. Attend open inspections and auctions to talk to other buyers at those homes, snoop at how those homes are being presented and look at how their open inspections are being run.
Get a handle on how your place measures up against similar properties in the area to get in touch with the reality of the market and price bracket in your suburb.
In addition:
Emotional value cannot be underestimated. With some properties buyers will be prepared to pay a price because they connect with the house in a way that justifies the money; what one buyer loves may leave another cold.
While people have a need to move house, be it death, divorce, taxes, marriage or children, the motivation for moving is personal and constant.
Unless you’re jumping off the property ladder completely, whether it’s a bad or a good or stagnant property market, you should view it as a win-win situation. Buyers and sellers need to react to the market conditions and let realism prevail to move onwards and upwards.
Given that so many buyers are currently extremely price-sensitive, never has it been more important to appoint a decent hardworking agent, who has the ability and experience to find and introduce the right buyer to the right house. Kenya Homes can be this to you.
