7 1/2 Reasons This House Hasn’t Sold In Over 800 Days

OK, I started some chaos by making a post to my followers asking why they think this house hasn’t sold in over 800 days. The answers were funny, odd and sometimes spot on. But I did promise to give my thoughts on the subject so here’s my explanation. It’s not my listing so I can’t say some of these things are for sure but I’ve only been doing this for 25 years. So whatever. I’m probably pretty close to being right.

After you read this I would love your thoughts on whether you agree or disagree or what I’m missing.

1. Photos Are Everything!

There is only one single photo in the MLS and other portals online.

Photos are everything especially high quality photos. That’s how most buyers make their initial buying decision.

Also you need the right amount of photos.

Some agents only upload the best photos. This can be a mistake because then the buyers expectations may be set too high. When the prospective buyer shows up, they’re disappointed because suddenly all the shortcomings are revealed.

On the other hand doing a photo dump of 80 photos showing every single nook and cranny is too much and leaves nothing open to curiosity.

You don’t want people eliminating your house by giving them too much. You still need buyers to see it. Balance is key.

2. Blah Blah Blah

The description is super generic.

Other than bedroom count which we already have in the property details, the only ‘feature’ listed is “Quiet Home on a cul-de-sac. Kitchen has granite counters”. None of this evokes any kind of emotions.

If you go to a new home builder site to tour the model homes and grab a brochure, you’ll see well crafted descriptions that evokes an emotional response, even if it’s subtle. New home builders pay expensive copy writers to create their descriptions. If they can get you feeling or sensing (smell, sounds, visuals) just by the use of words, you’re already hooked.

For most buyers the description is the second most thing looked at after the photos so you better get it right. If you’re selling a house and your agent can’t explain why they have a crappy description, have someone else write it for you and insist they use it. But keep in mind, there are times when a toned down description can be effective. This is probably not one of them.

3. Making Thing Difficult

Very restricted showing instructions tell us agents, “DRIVE BY ONLY, please make offer subject to inspection. Do NOT disturb occupants”
For investment properties this isn’t uncommon to only allow drive by viewings with a follow up inspection if your offer is accepted. But, if investors who are usually good number crunchers can’t seem to make the numbers work to warrant a drive by offer then it’s probably time to make some kind of arrangements with the tenant. (I’m assuming there’s tenants and not just a grumpy owner living in the property).

After 2 years if you can’t convince your tenant to allow for showings then it might be time to get rid of that tenant.

It’s a catch 22 for many individual landlords where if they get rid of their tenant, they lose the rental income and can’t pay their mortgage. But in this case, by keeping the tenant it makes the home less salable. Even though the market has softened, for a home like this, if it was in reasonable shape, it could be sold pretty quickly if people could get in and see it.

Moral of the story, make your house available for showing if you want it to sell.

4. Lack Of Service

According to Google Maps, the listing agent’s office is 33 miles away and a 45 minute drive with moderate traffic.

Before I make my comments I’ll admit I have taken listings much further than that before but only after explaining to the seller the potential downside.

Think about it like this. Is it worth it for an agent to drive 45 minutes each way to accommodate a 15 minute showing? What if you have 2 showings the same day but spaced hours apart? No one wants to do that. This may also be why it’s drive by only.

But even if it’s not the reason, the simple fact remains that distance makes it very hard to properly service a difficult to sell home.

If you’re priced right, the place looks good and has easy access, then it’s no problem.

5. Same ‘ol, Same ‘ol and Shop worn

The price has not been changed once since 1/17/21. Over 2 years on the market. The longest Days On Market in the MLS in Orange County as of this post.

There’s a term used in the real estate industry called “Shop Worn”. In other words, ‘that house’ has been on the market at the wrong price or some other factor preventing the sale for so long that everyone has seen it and knows about ‘that property’ and avoids it like the plague.

The only people who may even show the slightest interest are buyers brand new in the market place but even they see the property listing quickly and realize it’s been on the market for ages and as a result is probably a dog. Even if they like it, they may fall victim of one of the following reasons listed below.

Here’s a pro tip for home sellers insisting their house is absolutely worth the price they chose despite no showings.

People all across the internet sign up to all kinds of web portals and apps to get notifications of new listings. There’s literally thousands of them. When a new property comes on the market place that matches their criteria, they get notified. But if that property doesn’t tickle their fancy instantly, they put it in the rejected group never to be seen again.

Depending on the portal or app they’re using, there’s a couple of things that could trigger that property to show back up to that buyer. The most important one thing that is universal across all portals and apps is price.

Every time you adjust the price even by a dollar up or down, it will trigger that property to show up in their list of potential properties again.

So despite our best efforts to price a home properly, if we ever have a property that is difficult to sell, we’ll recommend a sizeable price adjustment to match the market but if the seller is reluctant, we’ll suggest at least drop it by $1,000 every week until it sells. Again this causes the property to show up EVERY WEEK on anyone’s app that is searching for a property that fits their criteria.

It is repeated exposure and increases curiosity of the potential buyer which is all we need some times.

6. Steering. And I’m not talking about navigating your car.

What I’m talking about is highly illegal for real estate agents to do but it is a very common practice that no agent will every admit and it’s hard to prove.

Here’s how it goes. As a buyer you tell the agent you want to see a specific handful of properties. They pull up this property, for example, in the MLS and see that the commission being offered was only $3,000. I know you’re saying that $3,000 seems like a lot of money. Without going into the details of why it amounts to almost nothing for an agent in Southern California, just trust me, after all is said and done, that buyers agent nets essentially nothing at that rate.

Because of that, your agent ‘steers’ you away from the property. After all there’s plenty of other good properties out there that are paying a fair commission so they’ll show you those instead. This is considered to be NOT in the best interest of the buyer and is illegal. And I agree.

I’ve shown homes where the commission offering was only $500 and selfishly for me I was glad when the buyer said it wasn’t the right home for them. But if they did say they wanted it, I would have still serviced them just as if they were buying one that pays much more commission.

But this is a huge mistake by the listing agent. They chose to list it with a commission of
$3,000 between 1/17/21 and 1/24/22, then they raised the commission to a reasonable
2% from 1/24/22 to 3/29/22 (2 months) and then down to
1% from 3/29/22 until current.

Not sure if this is greed on the part of the agent trying to keep all the commission for themselves or if the agent just doesn’t know how to explain the value of leveraging the real estate community by offering a reasonable commission.

In this case the agent is offering 1% and because of that I don’t see many agents getting excited to bring the buyers they worked hard to acquire to only earn that much. Look in the local MLS and see what is commonly being offered for homes in your price range and consider matching or exceeding that amount.

Disclaimer, all commissions are negotiable and are not set by any rule or regulation.

7. Comparable Values

The good thing about having other similar sales is to help get a benchmark or comparable sales of what this home’s value might be.

There is never an exact answer as to what a home’s value is. Value is only determined by the person buying it. But you can use the comparables to see what other similar homes are selling for in the area.

And after taking a look, the price for this home is actually BELOW comparable values. What???
That of course is assuming the property isn’t completely trashed, which we wouldn’t know because it’s drive by only and no interior photos.

But comparables isn’t the reason the home isn’t selling. So that leads me to one conclusion. Bait House!

8. What’s a bait house?

It’s a lead generation tactic. I’ve heard stories of agents listing friends and family homes (with permission) or even their own homes to put in the MLS just to get leads.
Is it illegal? Not that I know of.

Is it unethical?
I would say so. It looks like they have no real intention of selling this home and are just using it as a tool to generate leads.

Right and Wrong!

There is the right way to sell a home and definitely the wrong way. If you find other properties that you wonder if it’s a questionable listing send it to me to look at or if you want to talk strategy about your house, feel free to call any time.

Happy House Selling

Anthony Nitz
EXP Realty
714-900-2710