Help, My Listing Won’t Sell!

Transcript from Podcast.

Today we are going to talk about what to do when your listing just won’t sell this is a fairly common question I get asked usually after an agent has spent months trying to sell a property for not having luck and the seller is getting frustrated and the sellers putting pressure on the listing agent to make it happen find a buyer for the listing agent might feel like that exhausted all of their options and they’re trying to figure out what they can do so they reach out to me for some ideas so the first thing I usually do is ask the agent a couple questions to analyze the situation and figure out where we’re at the first question I ask is if the agents getting a traffic so in the beginning of a listing usually there’s always traffic everyone’s curious there’s a new property on the market in the area it has very few days in the market everyone’s going to take a look or most people are going to take a look well traffic naturally kind of Fizzles after a while for the question is if you’re a month or two months into having your property listed and you haven’t received an offer yet has traffic died completely is it crickets or is there a little bit of traffic that said only trickles through this is an important question so if the answer is yes that there is traffic let’s say we’re 60 days plus into this listing and there are still agents coming through and showing your listing to Byers then I would say what are these agents in because no agent should go through your listing without you as the listing agent calling that buyer’s agent and asking for feedback and asking for candid feedback because a lot of buyers agents if they get a call from a listing agent they’ll say something like oh my buyer liked it but they’re considering a few different options will get back to you or will let you know if that we’re going to ride well that’s not very helpful to a listing agent it’s just kind of a pleasant courtesy and not true critical feedback like quite frankly your listing is dated and looks not in a very presentable condition relative to other listings in the area your listing doesn’t have blank when all the other homes in the neighborhood do my buyers money goes further with other homes could buy I mean that’s a sort of critical feedback That’s essential and one of the main reasons why critical feedback is essential is if you was a listing agent start telling a frustrated seller that all these opinions and reasons that you have while their property isn’t going to sell it less effective then if you get that feedback from buyer’s agent should have come through because if you can tell the seller that out of however many buyers agents came through they’re all saying the same thing that all the same critical feedback they’re all telling you or there’s a pattern that they’re telling you that the property is overpriced and there’s some issue with it they don’t like they don’t like that it might backup onto another sort of property or something loud like a freeway or whatever the characteristic might be that makes the listing less attractive if you take that information to the seller then it doesn’t put you in the position where the seller looks at you like you’re the problem you’re the negative person because let’s face it listing agents have to be Optimist listing agents get listings by telling a seller that they’re going to give to get that seller the top of the market price the highest value excetera they go through the house and they compliment the seller on him how nice the upgrades and the work that the sellers put into it is and I see a lot of agents are consistently busy by just overpricing properties and that’s part of the whole optimism that listing agents have for better for worse that’s just a characteristic that successful listing agents have their very optimistic with their sellers about price about condition and then when reality sets in they and they may not get that very high top of the market value then they’re also good at talking with their clients their sellers about when to do a price adjustment without causing me sort of awkward tension between the listing agent and the cellar because the listing agent just says you know what seller I think that you’re asking too much we need to reduce and there’s no sort of evidence backing up that listing agent suggestion the seller is going to look at the listing agent like okay you were up what’s going on that same spark that same attitude that you had its kind of diminishing why is it just not easy for you so instead you’re going to just have me lower the price and receive less money to make your job easier or you going to really Market my property so if you if you have feedback from all these buyers agent to come through these aren’t your words of negativity you’re just passing the message so you can say something like look I’ve talked to ex number of buyers agents have come through and these five of them said all had an issue with the price and I took that feedback and I did some market research and I see that if if you’re a buyer that has x amount of dollars to spend in this neighborhood well that house down the street just went pending is bigger for the same price that you’re asking and the other house down the street is bigger and has a pool and yours doesn’t but you’re asking more than that house and then your reframing the sellers thinking so the seller understands that from a buyer’s position if they go into a neighborhood and they have a certain budget how far will their money go because every cell even agents that are experienced to sell their own homes have this problem it’s the seller delusion where you know as a seller firsthand all the work that went into a property you know. When you get a choice to use a better product or a more expensive product when you were doing renovations you chose a more expensive one there for your your property has more value well somehow or another through thinking like that the seller just sees of course the top of the market value for their property right and actually if you own an asset you want to get the most you can when you sell it it just common sense so is this as the listing agent you also need to break through that seller delusion of getting the absolute most money you can for your property and bring that seller back down to Reality by using empirical data and Imperial data is the buyer agent feedback that I’m talking about so you can follow up with these agents and take notes the more diligent you are the better case is going to be because you can come in as this optimistic listing agent and say look we’re testing the market we have buyers coming through here’s their feedback and it’s going to be critical and it’s going to be negative and you have to tell them haters going to be negative you can just tell the seller and let the seller decide the less of your negative opinion that you that you input into the conversation the better really you’re just trying to convey a message that there’s a pattern so the seller can come to their own conclusion because if you start telling the seller I’ve concluded your overpriced and you need to reduce then the seller will look at you like you’re the problem and you’re not because let’s take a step back and look at listing and selling a property and you’re you’re the reason why you’re not the problem at this point in listing real estate as an agent we’re in the internet age everyone’s looking online everyone buyers are looking on their own through consumer sites like zillow.com and realtor.com and you name it there dozens and agents are looking on the MLS and a molasses indicating that data to all these consumers sites so so homes are bought and sold through the internet they’re discovered on the internet through Discover online and then an agent facilitates the sale that’s the reality of it there are rare cases where someone drives by and sees a sign and there are cases where someone wanders into an open house but those are anomalies those are not the standard standard is at when someone wants to buy a home they have the laptop and they’re sitting on the couch in the evening and they’re looking on all those consumers sites and their finding properties and are emailing to the agent and the agent is probably emailing listings to the buyer or is create an automated search in the MLS so that the buyers aware of any any listing it comes available I mean I’m shocked at somebody’s buyers how diligent they are because I knew listen to become available and in almost real-time from the from the moment that a listing agent upload the listing to the MLS it’s been syndicated to a site like realtor.com and then the were the buyer is going to get an update on their on their phone or whatever app they use that they’re doing their search with and so I’ll tell the agent hey it’s just 2 hours ago can I see it in the agents thinking oh my gosh shut it mean it’s impossible to compete with buyers that have access that same data so so getting back to the point here homes are sold through exposure online that’s how people are looking now being a listing agents competitive when you’re doing the listing presentation you’re promising all these different marketing efforts to the seller you’re telling the seller going to do open houses you going to do a mailing campaign you’re going to post on social media the reality is those for the most part have a negligible effect in fact mailing a new listing flyer to the whole area is more beneficial as a marketing material for the listing agent then it is to exposure to the home in the old days that worked in the pre-internet days with the days of door knocking and the days of the MLS being on an old computer that buyers and have access to before data was in the kid sure you wanted as much exposure as possible so naturally to send Flyers out was one more way to tell everyone locally that hey this is for sale if you or someone you know is interested let me know but no one’s looking just at Flyers right people are looking online that’s where everyone’s looking and buyers are funding their own listings for a while buyers would come into our office and walked by my office and if I bumped into buyers that might have been in the office for whatever reason I would ask them hey just curious did you find your listing or did your agent send it over to you every single one told me they found their listing and notified their agent about it and this is over a two-and-a-half-year. With dozens of buyers obviously that’s not the best Market sample but just saying that a lot of buyers and I believe the large majority of buyers are fighting their own listings so my point all this is not most of the other stuff that you do as a listing agent is kind of a dog and pony show to show the seller that you’re breaking a sweat and you’re earning your commission so when listing agents are having trouble selling their property they start thinking they need to do more of the dog and pony show to somehow bring a buyer out of the woodwork and I would say don’t confuse that sort of minutiae of these book. The book emails to other agents with a listing hey here’s my new listing come bring your buyer to me is just such a waste of money and time really what it comes down to is are you getting proper exposure on your listing if your listing is on the MLS and it’s being syndicated to all these consumers sites and you have a real estate sign in front of your listing or in the window of your condo listing or somewhere so that people can identify where it is the property is getting plenty of exposure if your MLS indicates always consumer sites and you’re on the local unless you’re getting overwhelming exposure the problem and this is ultimately where I think all roads lead to when a listing isn’t selling is price and people will give me reasons like well this property is in really bad condition it was Trashed by the former owner and insides is disgusting or has this problem with that problem okay that’s a reason but it’s the price right because someone will pay some price for that property maybe not the price that you’ve had it listed at for 2 months but they’ll pay someone out there will pay something and that goes for properties that might back up onto a freeway or have giant power lines behind them or if all the little characteristics that make properties less attractive it all comes down to price again those characteristics that make properties less desirable they affect price but price is the reason if you drive along the freeway and you’re looking at these homes that are facing some huge freeway with seven Lanes on each side someone is paying for those properties of people are living in them and it may not be as much as the street that’s a half a mile into the neighborhood half a mile away from the freeway right there’s a price adjustment for these homes have backup onto a noisy stinky freeway but someone is paying for it so all roads lead back to price and price is that sensitive such a listing agent to The Optimist that is guiding the sellers of the process it’s a very touchy subject because again if you just say hey seller your property is not selling let’s reduce the seller feels like they’re having a subsidized your inability to bring a buyer to their listing which is not the case right when needs to happen is you as an listing agent you need to gather that data from all of these buyers agents that have toured and you need to tell the seller look here’s the common feedback that we’re getting from these buyers agents and again this is why it’s so important to talk to his agents and when they give you that that nice courteous and answer about why their buyers are interested or they may come back you need to puncture through that veil of politeness and ask them for critical feedback say okay if there’s one what’s what’s the most unattractive characteristic or feature of my listing minis are questions that you need to ask to probe the buyer’s agent to give you critical feedback and then you need to take notes and used to deliver these reports to seller understand this isn’t just you quote unquote giving up your not really giving up the seller just looks at that way when things get tough and you don’t bring a a buyer no buyers are showing up so the bottom line is all roads lead back to price and that’s a conversation that you have to have with the seller and that conversation should be predicated on empirical data which is feedback from people that have come through and I would add on in addition to offering that critical feedback from buyers about why the properties and selling do market research look at the MLS on a consistent basis and put yourself in the shoes of a buyer and look at your listing whatever your listing prices and do a search do a search a half-mile out or even a full mile out of active listings that are that where the max price is your listing price and then see what how far your money will go so if your listing is 900000 put 100,000 in into the area half mile outer where we need to go in the area and see see what how far your money will get you how much house 900,000 will buy because that’s what fires are doing right they want the most for their money and if you look and you see that your properties and selling and other properties have gone pending offer more for the money and that’s that’s very common sense as to why your listing isn’t selling again it’s really about building a case of explain to your seller to be realistic because if you’re getting this out of the exposure holding holding 30 open houses versus 15 is not going to find you a buyer or doing some sort of other marketing campaign or posting on Facebook or doing these desperate tactics like sending a postcard campaign to 500 of the closest neighbors or sending a book email blast to other agents again total waste of time just so absurd agents have buyers are looking online Loki on the MLS everyone’s looking online that’s how properties are sold nowadays so in conclusion remember that all roads lead back to price someone’s willing to pay a price for the home it doesn’t matter how bad the condition doesn’t matter if some hideous crime happened in the home doesn’t matter what the situation is similar to pay the price and if you’re getting that property. Bossier having it online on the MLS syndicated to all the consumer sites then you are you’re putting it in an open-market setting where a pool of buyers the market can determine what they’re willing to pay in conclusion ask yourself as a listing agent are you getting showing still are you getting any traffic even if it’s slow or you getting just crickets if you’re if you’re not getting any showings it’s likely that you’re very overpriced very overpriced remember because even the conditions terrible even if your MLS pictures are just show all sorts of problems in damage though there are properties there that are in terrible condition and they’re getting traffic because they’re priced accordingly so if you’re getting no traffic at all you are very overpriced now if you’re getting slow traffic then make sure we’re getting feedback from the agents lots of empirical data to make the case to the seller that there’s a pattern as to why buyers are not making an offer there’s a common factor in a critical feedback so that you are simply delivering what the market is saying the market has spoken you’re delivering the message rather than appearing like you’re giving up and asking the seller to take a financial hit and reduce cuz that’s what happened it’s unfair to the listing agent but it’s just the reality of it when you get that empirical data bring that back to the seller put yourself in the buyers shoes make a case against deliver more data more evidence to the seller as to how much how much home the list price will get a buyer because the sellers home is competing with other listings so knowing that your listing is in competition with whatever else is available in the neighborhood it’s crucial that you always check in and see how much home a budget equal to the listing price will get a buyer because buyers naturally are going to get as much home as they can for their money and that’s what your listing is competing with it’s really a matter of informing the seller so they can arrive at their own conclusion in terms of getting realistic about what the value of their property is I know that having a sort of conversation about price and having to do an adjustment is not the answer that most agents want to hear usually they’re hoping that there’s a Magic Bullet or there’s some sort of strategy that they haven’t thought of that perhaps myself another agent knows of the they can tell the listing agent to magically get a property sold but at its core selling real estate is actually not that complicated like any asset or good the seller needs to get as much exposure to the largest pool of buyers possible and those buyers are going to deliver a fair market value offer based on how valuable that asset is I hope you found this episode informative and I appreciate you for taking the time to listen thank you