Strategies to Sell a Property Fast

[Katrina Cabral]

Been racking my brain trying to think of all the ways to get my place sold. A few things that I have come up with - not sure if they would have any effect at all - are:

Offer a higher commission than the traditional 3% to a buyers agent with the hopes that buyers agents would steer their clients to my place.

Do a 3D/Virtual walk through to increase odds of out of state buyers who might be willing to buy sight unseen. I'm frustrated that my agent has not done this.

Do a YouTube video. Ive seen these on YouTube featuring houses - mine isn't spectacular but seems like it could help. 

Since this feels like a numbers game and all I need is the for the 'right' person to see my property - does it matter if my place is listed with a small agency vs a large agency. I'm currently listed with a small agency and spoke with an agent from Compass realty, he said that they sell more properties than any other agency in the nation. And said that listing with a large agency gets more visibility. Is there any truth to this?

My agent said that they advertise on social media - but he did not and it seems they do not. Another agent contacted me and offered to the same - I asked him to send me a link to an example of a Facebook or Instagram ad of one of his properties and got crickets. Seems like social media advertising is just lip service in the industry?

Any other strategies that I should consider employing? Please don't say lower your price. I'm looking for strategies that I can employ besides lowering the price. 

My property is unique. Address is 2500 Kalakaua Ave #201 & 206 combined, Honolulu HI. Asking $450K. I AirBnb it while I try to sell it. I'm new to Airbnb so  trying to figure out how best to get it booked up. Every other unit in the building is booked out months in advance. This is the largest unit in the building at 1,544 sq ft interior and a lanai that's almost 1,200 sf. It is smack dab on the beach in Waikiki with awesome views and the sound of the waves. It has so much potential - a large primary residence, split it back up and live in one and rent the other, or sell one and keep the other, or sell both, or rent both, or rent the entire combined unit. If any one is interested in buying it off market then I would love to discuss. 

[Theresa Harris]

Find an investor to buy it or lower the price.  Both of those assume you just want it sold and do not want to get market value for it.  Call some property management companies and see if one of their clients wants to buy it.

[Katrina Cabral]

@Theresa Harris thank you for your reply. I will reach out to some property managers. Thank you for spelling out your assumptions. I would like to get market value for it and that is why I'm looking for strategies rather than simply dropping the price. Dropping the price is the only idea that my agent has come up with. Seems to lack any creativity or effort. And is still not a guarantee that it will sell. Seems like there must be other strategies to employ besides dropping the price. 

[Theresa Harris]

Quote from @Katrina Cabral:

@Theresa Harris thank you for your reply. I will reach out to some property managers. Thank you for spelling out your assumptions. I would like to get market value for it and that is why I'm looking for strategies rather than simply dropping the price. Dropping the price is the only idea that my agent has come up with. Seems to lack any creativity or effort. And is still not a guarantee that it will sell. Seems like there must be other strategies to employ besides dropping the price. 

 Has your agent done and open houses or agent caravans?  I know bringing agents through a property helps a lot and I know a few houses that sold as a result of the increased traffic.  Agent caravans are literally when a group of agents tour a number of homes often as a group for a few hours.

[Mason Hickman]

@Katrina Cabral

There's usually two major reasons something isn't selling: ineffective marketing or bad pricing. 

I would go back to your original listing and review the photographs and ask yourself the following questions: are there enough photos, are they professional quality or taken by your agent with their smart phone, are they staged well, were the photos taken at the best time of day, are they recent and current to the season you are in, have you included any photos to showcase the lifestyle and community, are the photos representative of reality?

Go back and read your property description. Will the listing make the buyer want to move right in or is it a cold and uninspired description of the house specs? The purpose of the writeup is to help the prospective buyers imagine themselves living in the space, not explain information that is already captured elsewhere in the listing.

Have your agent gather honest feedback. Assuming you had buyers tour the property or your Realtor held open houses, you should review the agent feedback you received from each prospective buyer. Oftentimes in the written agent feedback, buyer agents will not want to be negative, so it is worth having your Realtor call the buyer agents in order to gather more candid feedback. Your Realtor should ask what the buyers liked and did not like about the property and why they decided against putting in an offer.

The other items I would be asking or insisting on are:

• - Plan an open house and invite all the neighbors. They may know someone that wants to move into the area. Confirm all the major real estate search tools advertise your open house.
• - Have your agent email your new listing to all contacts in their database to drive additional interest.
• - Canvas the neighborhood with “Just Listed” postcards and advertise in community publications.
• - Have your agent create an email marketing campaign to send to all agents who are actively working with buyers in the area.
• - Submit the house to the broker housing tour.
• - Launch a targeted advertising campaign on Facebook, Instagram and other social media outlets.
• - Create a video walk-through and post it to the MLS, Youtube, and social media sites.
• - Ensure your agent posted the property to your multiple listing service ("MLS") and it has syndicated to all other real estate affiliated websites.

AND price it competitively..... 

[Katrina Cabral]

@Mason Hickman WOW, that's a comprehensive list! Thank you for taking the time to write that all down for me. I totally appreciate it!! Thank you for your reply. I'm on it!

[Katrina Cabral]

@Theresa Harris great suggestion!! I had not heard of agent caravans. I'll see if I can sign my property up for that. Thank you for the suggestion. 

[Jennifer Mendoza]

@Theresa Harris, I think if they are separate units, you should list them separately with the option to purchase together.

I looked online and on zillow, it shows listing was removed on 7/12. Is that correct?

On Redfin it shows the 2 units together on the address and the maintenance fee is at least double what others show. And the HOA Dues show almost $4k per month??! I'm guessing because it's two units.

You also have no interior photos.

My thought is the home does not show well and the agent may not be marketing well. Split the two and list them separately if you can. In the description of the home, add that the other unit is also for sale. Please double check all these crazy looking fees. Even if the home is not priced too high, those fees can easily push a potential buyer over their range.

[Joseph Beilke]

@Katrina Cabral

Let's be talk about the 3 real reasons a property doesn't sell

1 Location, if the location is not desirable for your target customer you need to adjust the price. You said its an AirBnB, it sounds to me based on what I have read that your income from rent does not justified the price. The ROI just isn't there and investors are passing on it. You may need to consider taking off AirBnB and selling it vacant and AS IS. Let the next investor figure out a way to have it cash flow or hopefully get an homestead owner.

2 Condition, You may feel the property is priced well for it's current condition or level of finishes the property has.  Are you selling the view or are you selling the property? In my opinion again only based on what I have read you are selling a 450K view because you said it "mine isn't spectacular". Might be time to ask yourself if you would pay your asking price.

3 PRICE,  All roads always lead to price.  If location is great but won't sell, adjust your price.  If the condition can't justify the price, adjust the price.  If your feed back is priced wrong, adjust the price.  

You are in an area that is definitely desirable but you are in a state that many investor are going to steer clear from for a while.  I personal worked with a seller in Hawaii, I was working with them as buyers here in Florida and the horror stories I heard from him and his agent that was listing his home in Hawaii were crazy to me.  He was in a very similar setting and ended up last summer when (everything went over asking) reducing he home by about 10% to final sell and had to replace the roof.  It took me having a real heart to heart with him to understand that it is all about the numbers.  Nothing more Nothing less.  

I hope it sells, I know the stress is probably giving you sleepless night.  Good Luck

[Marcus Auerbach]

@Katrina Cabral with your permission I'll be very frank, because I believe that will be most helpful: you have hired a professional, who you feel performs like an amateur and now you are asking for tips how you can DIY-improve what your agent is not doing? That's like saying my mechanic was not able to fix my transmission, what are some tips to correctly fix a transmission? Change the mechanic.

20% of the agents do 80% of the deals - hire one of those! 

Brokerage makes no difference, your agent does. 

There are only 2 things you can improve if a property does not sell: price and condition.

I assume you have at least okay pictures online? More and better marketing only improves reach, excellent marketing helps with creating a bidding war on opening weekend, but that ship has sailed for you.

- How many showings did you have?

- How many offers did you have?

Based on the number of showings and offers you can tell how far your price is off. If you had very few showings you are just totally unattractive to buyers - you are way off the mark! If you had a lot of showings but no offers, you are just off by a little. I can tell you where this % are for Milwaukee, but you have to ask someone local for your market.

Buyer's are smarter and a lot more educated than sellers think. Most buyers have studied hundreds of properties online and seen many in person. So they recognize value. Most sellers have never seen their competition and don't understand why buyer's seem to find more value in all these other listings that have already sold while theirs did not.

Social media adds won't make a difference just by themselves - you have to look at all these items listed above to work with each other as an orchestra, not individually. And they have to be executed well, which only comes from experience and having done it many times before.

You can't DIY fix a weak agent, hire a better agent (who personally closed 25-50 deals or more in the last 12 months)! That agent can tell you why your property did not sell and if you should improve price or condition. 

[Joseph Beilke]

@Marcus Auerbach

I agree with you almost 100%. I don't thing the number of closing an agent does is as important as how well or close to asking price an agent sells the listing. My wife and I do about 15-20 a year.   Only one listing in the last 6 years we did not close.  That was for a number of unusual reasons, nothing to do with price or location.  So taking that one odd ball off the list we have a 100% closing rate for our sellers and we got 98% on average of asking price.    I think if @Katrina Cabral does explore the idea of changing agents, it might be wise to have a better understanding of what make a good agent.  Not just volume, some of the worst agents in my town, do the most volume and are horrible to work with and when a buyer likes there listing you dread having to work with them, mainly because you will have to do some of there work also to make the deal come together.

My wife and I were recently were told buy a past customer that we should have a tag line that goes something like this,  "Do you want an agent or do you want the truth". we pride our business on being straight forward and honest, even if what we tell you isn't going to sit well.

[Eliott Elias]

Lost it slightly under market value 

[Michael Borger]

@Katrina Cabral Hello. It looks like, per the tax record, you only have a leasehold interest in the property; you don't own the fee. That will drive a lot of potential buyers away since a leasehold interest is a depreciating asset (it's a march toward zero), and your combined maintenance fees plus lease rents are over $3700/month, all while the lease expires in 2034 and average STR for the building are only $100-$200/night.

[Katrina Cabral]

Thank you everyone for your replies and sharing your wisdom and experience. A quick update, I sold my property. I listed it on Zillow FSBO and that actually generated a lot of calls and inquiries and one panned out. I sold it to an agent investor. He offered to buy it sight unseen as is for less than my asking price with a seven day close. He offered $300K and I was asking $450. It was a fast sale. Thank you again for all your help.