Last Updated on August 13, 2022 by HortonTeam
You’ve spent all this time planning the sale of your home, preparing for your Open House, and searching for your next home online. Although you can hardly contain your excitement, your home has failed to produce any showings. Can’t figure out why buyers are not interested in your home? See if you’re guilty of any of these missteps.
1. You’ve got the wrong P.A.C. (Price, Area, Condition)
We decided to group these three together because they’re probably the three most popular reasons buyers aren’t interested in your home, and they might also be the three reasons you’ve already thought of.
The price of your home might be the most important factor. Aside from being out of reach for buyers who can’t afford the payments, an overpriced home may cut out a large portion of potential buyers before they even get a chance to see the home. This is because the first item that most buyers look at is the price — meaning they’ll skip right past your home if it’s substantially higher than what similar houses are selling for.
Another pricing issue comes from the way your home is priced. The modern home buyer searches almost exclusively online to find homes they’re interested in. With the way that home searches on many popular real estate websites are set up, a buyer shopping in the $100,000 – $125,000 range will not be shown your home if it’s priced at $99,999 — that is derived from an outdated and incorrect pricing strategy. Condition is another common issue if your home isn’t attracting buyers.
You may be desensitized to the mess or uncleanliness since you live there, but try to think from the perspective of a potential buyer — would you want to see the home in its current state? If the answer is no, spend some time cleaning your home (both inside and out!) and staging it for curious buyers.
Finally, location (area) is another common problem that can arise. Even if your home is priced correctly and looks superb, there are several locations that buyers simply don’t want to move to. You can’t do anything about your home’s location (please don’t relocate your home!), but addressing some of these other issues can help you overcome your location problem.
...an overpriced home may cut out a large portion of potential buyers before they even get a chance to see the home. Click To Tweet2. Buyers Can’t See Themselves in Your Home
Have you ever heard someone say your home has “too much personality?” When buyers aren’t interested in your home, this is a nice way of saying it’s still full of your personal your junk!
Don’t get this confused with clutter–things like shoes, video games, clothes, and so on. Personal memorabilia deals more with things like pictures of your family, cultural or location-specific trinkets from past vacations, trophies, and personal collections to name a few.
Not everyone keeps an assortment of antique dolls behind a glass case! When your home is full of these types of items, buyers have trouble visualizing themselves in your home. It still feels like someone else’s home to them in a way, so instead of picturing themselves inside, they develop more of a “trespassing” emotion. Fortunately this is an easy obstacle to overcome; simply remove as many personal items from view that you can.
Not only will this help alleviate the intruder sensation, but it will also get you ahead of the game when it comes to the moving process!
PRO TIP: you can go a step further when it comes to using psychology to attract buyers to your home. Try picking up a few mirrors at your local crafts store and placing them throughout your home. As silly as it sounds, science shows that buyers really will feel a sense of “homeliness” when they physically see themselves in your home.
3. It’s Outdated
When buyers aren’t interested in your home, another popular reason is that it’s just too out of date with modern home trends. This can be a tough pill to swallow, especially since you’re probably emotionally attached to your home and the memories you’ve made there.
It’s important to remember, however, that not all home buyers will like the same styles and trends that you originally fell in love with. The good news is that staging and updating your home isn’t all that difficult, and even better news: if you update the right items, you’ll most likely double (or sometimes triple!) your investment.
Focus on items that buyers expect to be updated, such as new carpet or kitchen flooring, new paint, new appliances, and whatever you do, be sure to get rid of all that wallpaper! Updating the interior and exterior to a more modern standard will not only attract more buyers to your home, but it will also raise your final sale price.
4. You Aren’t Using a Real Estate Agent
You may be thinking, “Oh wow, a real estate website is telling me that buyers aren’t interested in my home because I’m not using a real estate agent,” but the message couldn’t be more true. What you pay in commission is more than made up for by the actions of an expert team of real estate agents, especially when you break it down into palatable examples.
First, a good real estate will thoroughly market your home in ways that a consumer cannot. Where would you advertise your home if you were selling on your own? The newspaper? Your Facebook timeline? Even if you go above and beyond by finding various For Sale By Owner websites to post your home, you still won’t be able to match the efforts of a real estate agent.
Whether it’s through their own network of fellow agents, the use of expensive technologies like virtual 3D tour-creating devices, using their privileged access to programs and organizations such as the local Multiple Listing Service (MLS), or any combination of these tactics and many others, an agent has more tools available to create an effective marketing plan for your home.
Aside from marketing, an agent also helps with showing availability (a good agent will be available to show your home at any time, not just when you get off work) and overall buyer attractiveness. According to the National Association of REALTORS®, “87% of buyers [in 2017] purchased their home through a real estate agent or broker—a share that has steadily increased from 69 percent in 2001.” This means that the vast majority of buyers interested in your home will be represented by an agent who is expecting to receive some kind of compensation.
With that being the case, many lesser agents will actively dissuade their clients from visiting homes that are for sale by owner (FSBO). Offering to pay a buyer agent’s commission can help alleviate this problem, but that offering is often overlooked by the agent until it’s too late. Not selling your home with an agent immediately cuts off a major portion of your buyer pool.
At the end of the day, the fact that buyers aren’t interested in your home may be due to a combinations of these common factors and other issues we haven’t even addressed. As mentioned before, the most cost-effective and result-producing strategy is to list your home with an expert team of real estate agents like the Horton Team. If you’d like to discuss other reasons why buyers aren’t interested in your home, contact us today on our website or by calling our team at 812-518-0411.
