From Trulia:
In today’s market, most listings aren’t instantly flying off the market. While we all know price is one of the most important factors in the sale of a home, there are other factors they can improve the saleability of your listings. Here are a few tips to get that stale listing sold (besides the most important – lower the price!):
(1) Offer incentives or alternative financing options
Incentives can make a big difference for buyers who are stretching to find the down payment to buy a home or who may be sitting on the edge of loan limits. Seller incentives such as paying for closing costs, inspections, or repairs, or providing allowances or credits for home upgrades after closing can make a big difference to home buyers short on cash.
Other alternatives could include pre paying taxes, homeowners dues and insurance. Consider offering buyer incentives to encourage on the fence buyers to take action on your listing.
(2) Make it accessible
Take a hard look at the accessibility of a home. Today’s home buyer is impatient. They want to see homes and they want to see them now. Make sure your listings are simple and easy to show. Carl Medford, an agent with Prudential California Realty in the San Francisco Bay Area believes home accessibility is the #1 reason homes don’t sell. “If we can’t get in, we can’t show the house. If we can’t show the house, we can’t sell it. We frequently end up showing less than six homes because we can’t get access to homes on the list.”
(3) Expose it- everywhere!
We are often surprised by the number of homes with property addresses undisclosed on the internet. It’s no secret homebuyers are looking on the internet for homes, make sure they can easily find it. Two popular search filters we see prospective homebuyers using on Trulia.com are filters for listings with open houses and filters for listings with price reductions. Want more eyeballs on your listings? Make sure they are updated weekly on popular real estate search sites like Trulia and Craigslist and be sure to list your open home times to get the max exposure for your listings.
(4) Refresh your photos
Today’s homebuyer spends a lot of time online. As your listing becomes stale, so do the property photos. Consider retaking the photos, especially if seasons have changed. If taking new photos is out of the question, you may want ot consider changing up the order your photos display online to give it a fresh appearance for web browsing buyers. Many agents start their photos with a picture of the front of the house when they would be better served displaying the huge backyard or the amazing chef’s kitchen.
(5) Put some zing in your marketing copy
In addition to stale photos, your marketing copy may be putting prospective buyers to sleep. “Check out my 3 bedroom, 2 bath home in a great location.” Yawn. Add some zing to your headlines and descriptions to draw the attention of homebuyers. Your marketing copy needs to tell a story that appeals to the people most likely to buy your listing. Your copy can get old too. Simply freshening it up frequently is a good way to capture more attention to your listings.
Looks like Trulia still hasn’t caught to Jim’s videos. A video of the property with commentary does a nice job of addressing points 2, 4 and 5. Point 1 is essentially lowering the price without admitting you’re lowering the price.
What about re assigning the listing agent? Don’t see that one in there. After 100+ DOM people stop looking. If you re assign the agent you get a fresh MLS # and your days on market starts back at 1. No?
I hate zing in listing copy. Just give me the facts… less fluff. I can do my own imagining.
I’m aslo surprised at listings with bad spelling or grammer. Copy In All Title Case Is Really Annoying Too. Horrible pictures, ack. Do the homeowners not check the listing after the agent has put it into the MLS?
Jim, there are a few things good agents here also do, some of which pertain only to country properties. Get a pest report and complete home inspection and post them to the MLS, fix the problems if you can afford to. With country properties get the well and septic tested and post that information as well. These are all issues that can cause complications when a home is in escrow and might cause a deal to fail. It also tells agents for buyers that the seller is serious and that the listing agent is competent.