How to deal with no showings after 3 weeks?

Question

Our house has been on the market for 3 weeks with no showings, which is beyond frustrating. It's a great family-oriented neighborhood in a fantastic school district, with swim and tennis amenities. The 4 bd/2.5 ba house with a large loft was built in '96, but has been updated with new paint (inside/out), new roof, new hardwood floors throughout downstairs and all new carpet upstairs and kitchen has been updated with granite and SS appliances. We've had one open house and received positive feedback but no bites. We've reduced the price twice ($20.0K). Any suggestions or creative marketing ideas to drive traffic? Thank you in advance!

Jay Hinrichs · Answer

are you competing with new construction ?   in the same price points and area.. ???

Jay Hinrichs · Answer

WEll then market there has slowed or is slower than others.. the day of selling homes in the first week is kind of over in many markets.

we all got spoiled..

Laura Ball · Answer

Jay - no, we are not competing with new construction in our subdivision or local area. In fact, any new construction would be $500K+. Our current home is one of the smaller sq ft homes and lower end of price in our subdivision.

Laura Ball · Answer

Thanks to everyone for your feedback - really grateful for the input!

Caleb, the updates to our home are in line with this subdivision/area - it would actually hurt us if we didn't have them.

Russell, I do believe timing could be part of the issue. As you mentioned, Spring and early Summer are definitely better since families want to get settled prior to school starting, which was last week. Interesting about using pricing with 4's and 7's, will share with my realtor.

Gabe, agree with you that the floor plan could be an issue - in fact, the house we just purchased has an open space look/feel. All the bedrooms are upstairs, my realtor did mention that might be more attractive to families with young children who prefer to be on the same floor, so that is a factor too.

Gabe Waldrep · Answer

The photos look great. Staged well and clean. The are only two things I can think of based on what buyers want in my market:

1. The floor plan is a little closed off from what a lot buyers are wanting. Buyers want an open floor plan. Not much you can do about that, but it may drive down the price.

2. Are there any bedrooms downstairs? In our market here, homes without a bedroom downstairs, especially the master, tend to sit on the market longer and sell cheaper.

Obviously I have no idea how your home is priced compared to other comparable sales and active listings, but I would definitely revisit those with your realtor and have him/her show them to you broken down by price per sqft. Good luck to you.

Russell Brazil · Answer

One tip, price it as $399k instead of $399,900. When it gets rounded to short form on many sites, it shows as $400k instead of $399k. So just psychology in pricing. Most of the sites use the $500 mark as where this changes, so under $500 rounds down and over it rounds up. I price most of my properties with $477...so $399,477.  Properties with 4s and 7s in the pricing drawn more attention.

Pictures look ok, copy could be better.

You should not comment on the quality of the school district, your agent should know better on that. But given that....top rated shool districts in my market sell best in the Spring time, so people move late Spring and summer, so they are settled for the school year. The top rated school districts here dont move as well as we approach the start of the school year....do you know if maybe that phenomina is true there as well?

Caleb L. · Answer

If I had the money, I'd buy that house from you. It looks amazing. Unfortunately, I don't know that market, so I couldn't tell you the problem.

Have you asked your realtor about it? They would know more than any of us.

Most importantly, does the house match up to the others in the neighborhood? Meaning, it might be to expensive and fancy. Remember what J Scott says about flipping, "Don't buy granite countertops when the rest of the houses have tile countertops, it's just not what people are looking for". I probably butchered it, but that's the general idea.

Laura Ball · Answer

Yes, absolutely - thank you! Click here for Zillow link

Russell Brazil · Answer

Whats the address? A lot of times if we can look up the property, we can pick apart the problems.

How to deal with no showings after 3 weeks?

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