My home isn't selling, what should I do?

Many sellers list their home for sale, and then shortly thereafter begin to stress out about how and why it hasn't sold yet. How quickly this happens depends on the seller, and often how motivated they are to sell. After all, every day your home hasn't sold is more money lost on mortgage, electricity, gas, water, and more home value is lost as the days on market (DOM) rack up.

Consult with your agent

A good real estate agent will not only set expectations at the listing appointment as to how long it might take to sell your home, but will also give you at least weekly reports with the number of showings, internet activity, feedback from showings, market conditions, and keep you posted on their activities performed to sell the home. If they're not doing that, you need to ask them.

Absorption rate

The "absorption rate" is an estimate of how long it will take, if no new properties are listed, for the remaining inventory to be "absorbed" into the market (sold). The analysis should look something like this:

Days on Market (DOM)

Pay attention to the listed homes around you. How long are they taking to sell? If they often sell in 60 days, and you've been listed for 30, there's no reason to fret, just be patient.

The three P's: Product, promotion, and price

If you're past the typical DOM in your neighborhood, you have a problem, and it's for one of these 3 reasons:

Product

Is your home in "show ready" condition when buyers come around? A clean and tidy home will give buyers the impression that the home has been cared for. Are there any deficiencies? If so, you should try and have them remedied, if you can afford to do so. The vast majority of buyers want "move in ready" homes, they don't want to move in and immediately have to deal with repairs.

What kind of constructive feedback are you getting from showings? Anything actionable?

Promotion

And for this I'm speaking specifically about the home listing. If you've looked at a few listings, you know it is unfortunately all too common for agents to list homes without professional photos. This will dramatically impact the appeal of your home to potential buyers. If you don't have them, get them, now.

Pay attention to the order of the photos. Many agents will download photos from their photographer, click the upload button and call it a day, or often they'll just use the front of the home as the default. This is a mistake. Buyers may move on to the next listing before they have a chance to see your home's best features, and the front lawn and the 4 foot tall tree obscuring the home isn't going to separate you from the competition.

Does your home have any special features? A modern kitchen? An updated bathroom? A pool? A nice patio? If so, you may want to consider putting these as your "top 5" photos, and especially the primary photo that buyers will see as they scroll through a list of dozens. Your first 5 photos should highlight the home's most appealing features, whatever those may be.

You may also consider just shuffling the primary photo. Much like advertisers on YouTube and Facebook will do A/B testing, so should you, to get new eyes on the property or have buyers take a second look, and analyze the effects on web traffic.

Make sure the property is listed correctly. A good agent will run the listing by you to verify for accuracy before publishing, but if they haven't, have a closer look and make sure. Buyers will be using digital filters to find homes based on school zone/garage/pools, etc. and if you have those things but they're not listed properly, those buyers will never see your home, the one they're specifically looking for!

Price

Ah, this one is a large source of contention among sellers and their agents. But to put it very bluntly, if it's not 1 or 2, or you're unsure why it's not selling, it's time to drop the price.