How to Sell a House that Didn't Sell

Written By Troy Williams
Last Updated Thursday March 30th 2023

If your home has just come off the market and hasn't sold, don't be discouraged. The reason your home did not sell may have nothing to do with your home or the market. In reality, your home may have been one of the more desirable properties for sale.

So Why Didn't Your Home Sell?

Without seeing your home, doing a market analysis, and understanding the marketing of the property, I can only guess at the specific reason your home didn’t sell.

However, it is safe to say that one or more of three key factors (property condition, price or marketing) was not properly managed. Let’s take a quick look at how each of these factors would affect the sale of a home, and then let’s undertake a case study of a property I recently sold (after it had previously failed to sell with another agent) to demonstrate the implementation of some basic principles.

Property Condition

No property is perfect, but there are some important steps that should be taken to show your property in its best light. Here are some easy ways to improve your property's condition.
Property Condition Tips...

• Your home becomes a product for sale when it is listed on the market. Customizations that pleased you and made it a home may not be conducive to selling. This means a neutral décor is essential.
• If you have large furniture that overwhelms a room, then it should be placed in storage or sold. It will make the room look small if you leave it there.
• If you have a room that is small, install items that demonstrate functionality like wall shelving.
• Use neutral paint colors for most areas, with an occasional accent wall or bright picture to draw visual interest.
• Remove all clutter from floors and surfaces. The “Rule of Three” generally applies, meaning no surface should contain more than three items. Things like tooth brushes, fridge magnets, soap, toiletries, mail, keys, food items should be put away before buyers see your home
• Lighting is very important, as dimly lit rooms feel small whereas bright rooms (especially with natural sunlight if available) feel large. Updating your lighting is a cheap but effective way to achieve the feeling of more usable space.
• When a buyer walks into your house, there should be a positive sensory experience in every way possible, not just a pleasing visual experience. This means crisp refreshing scents (think Airwick!) throughout and soft relaxing music playing (just say “Alexa, play classical music for the next 2 hours”!). And if appropriate, leave some wrapped candies, or if an open house is going on, fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies to please the taste buds.
• Don’t fall for the common trap many sellers do, which is that when they’ve been in a home for a long time and learned to live with certain deficiencies, that you think a buyer should be okay with those deficiencies too.

Want more insight on how to stage and prepare your home for a quick sale? Fill out the form on this page to get more information or setup a free consultation, and let’s get that home sold.

Price

No single factor can have as much influence on whether your home sells or not as PRICE! A careful analysis of the market is key to pricing your home right. A few things to note about price.
Pricing Tips...

• An appropriately priced home ALWAYS sells, no matter the condition, the marketing or any other factor. Remember, price is only an issue for the buyer when there is an absence of value, so make sure you build value and you can command the price you need.
• If you’re going to err in pricing, err on the side of underpricing where the market of buyers have the option of bidding the price up, versus overpricing, where those same buyers won’t even see the home in the first place because it’s out of their range.
• Buyers tend to search at price intervals of $10K, $25K, $50K and $100K. So if you’re pricing your home at $279,900, buyers who are searching from $250-275K will miss it and now you’re competing against homes attracting buyers searching from $275-300K. In a scenario like this, consider pricing at $274,900. If you think that’s too low, re-read the prior tip in this list…

Still unsure of what the right price is for your home that didn’t sell the first time? You’re not alone, and you need a professional market analysis to ensure you get the price right. Fill out the form on this page, and get your Free Market Analysis.

Marketing

The lifeblood of every business is marketing. Real Estate is no exception, because if people don't know about your house, and see it in its best light, then you have a 0.000001% chance of selling it. Click to see a few basic marketing tricks of the trade for real estate.
Marketing Tips...

• Got Professional Photos? If you don’t you better get some! If your agent’s idea of professional photos is pulling out their flip phone with the wide-angle lens attachment, you might be in trouble. Pro photographers have tools to combine multiple exposures to ensure perfect lighting, wide angle or narrow angle settings, drone cameras, high-end digital editing software, visual walkthrough equipment and more. You only get one chance to make a first impression.
• A professional write-up may not be everyone’s specialty but you have to have this accompany your listing on its journey over the entire internet if you want to compete for the best buyers. If your agent can’t do it, get someone who can.
• Yard Sign with flyers – its old school, but if you’re on a high visibility street, then you need this easy exposure. You can have a QR-code on the flyers to drive walkers-by to the online details about the property. Voila – old school meets new school for the WIN.
• Open House! Most buyers who attend open houses are in the early stages, but the objective feedback they can provide to you or your agent early in the process can be invaluable. Even if the nosy neighbors show up, that’s great because they may know someone who’s interested in buying in that neighborhood.

There are so many more creative ways to give your property the exposure it deserves, and quite frankly requires, to compete in this market where buyers can see every competitive property with the click of a link and the swipe of the screen. If you need a customized, professional , and FREE marketing plan for your unique property, fill out the form on this page.

Other Factors

There are several other important factors to getting your home sold that fall outside of the Price, Condition or Marketing. Click to see some other tips I recommend.
Other Tips...

• Try not to be home when buyers are touring the home. It’s hard for them to imagine your property as their future home if they feel uncomfortable because you’re eyeing their every move.
• Stay as flexible as possible to accommodate showings. While a 4-hour showing notice may be convenient for you, it is terribly inconvenient for a buyer who may already be searching in the neighborhood and will be done with their search for the day 4 hours from then.
• Before you take your home off the market for an offer, be sure that any accepted contract has a buyer with a firm loan approval and a lender with verified credentials and track record. Your agent should have an in-depth discussion with the lender.

It takes an experienced agent to evaluate your home and put it in its best light to attract the maximum number of buyers. Don’t take the risk of hiring the wrong agent and losing both time and money on your biggest investment. Fill out the form for a free consultation and get your home sold quickly and for the most amount of money!

Case Study

One of my recent clients had a home that was listed with another agent, and it wouldn’t sell. In fact, she could barely even get showings. And what was most deflating is that her house was well-maintained and competed well with other homes in the neighborhood which were listing after hers but going under contract while her house languished.

What made it even worse was that she had a new home under construction, slated by the builder to be completed within a mere 90 days. With no takers on the sale of her house, she reached out to me for advice.

I looked at her listing and saw a few areas of immediate concern. I suggested she go back to her agent and get professional photos and a better write-up. Nearly 2 weeks later and all she got was a very basic write-up and cell phone photos, with no marketing plan from her agent. With the clock ticking, she made the tough decision to pull the listing from that agent and list it with me.

I came and toured the home with her, and we decided on some basic changes and updates, consistent with many of the tips I’ve already shared on this page. Click the button to see step-by-step what we did...
Case Study Step-By-Step...

1. Decluttered her basement – the basement was a huge space and by minimizing items, one could get the true sense of how much usable space was there.
2. Hauled away unneeded items now, rather than when it was time to move. Since it would need to be done anyway, why wait?
3. Changed out all of the recessed lighting throughout the home with inexpensive yet much brighter, and more modern LED lights from Amazon. They came to her house in 2 days and were a breeze to install.
4. Hung pictures she already had and bought an inexpensive mirror for a specific area of the house where it had maximum effect on buyers walking through.
5. Bought a few bottles of wine for staging purposes before listing (and celebratory purposes after the sale!)
6. Re-painted only as needed, not wasting money repainting the entire house as her agent had suggested. In fact one room with a black accent wall actually showed better because the seller had a great eye for design and it would have been a shame to re-paint this wall.
7. Cleaned all the carpet
8. Got professional photos and a virtual tour, all posted with the listing. These photos were absolutely jaw-dropping!
9. Did a fabulous write-up to truly describe all of the benefits of this property, including neighborhood attributes (location, location, location!)
10. Made a very small adjustment to the net list price (less than $2K)
11. Placed a full-sized LED-lit yard sign in the front yard, along with a QR-Code rider that linked to the property landing page on my website
12. Created flyers with the same QR-code and placed these in the brochure box of the sign, so passers-by could get all the of the details of the property using their smartphone.
13. Held an open house with my loan officer– and this open house attracted 5 buyers and 1 neighborhood lender keeping an eye on things for his clients. None of them ultimately bought, but they were considering it, and gave invaluable feedback.
14. HAD THE HOUSE UNDER CONTRACT IN 6 DAYS!

In this particular case, the property condition only needed minor adjustments and the pricing and the positioning in the market were not too far off. But the marketing technique and timing made all of the difference in the eventual result. It’s the collection of a lot of small details that makes the difference between success and failure. Click to see the difference in quality between the old MLS listing and my MLS listing of this Case Study Property.
Before & After Photos...

The Bottom Line

If you have a home that didn’t sell, or if you’re reading this and just need to sell your home for all it’s worth, fill out the form on this page and let’s talk!