Why Is My Home Not Selling?

2020 was a year in which buyer demand for our homes exceeded the listing supply on the market.  This means that more buyers were chasing fewer homes often creating more than one offer (multiple offers) on available homes.

For homes that didn’t sell or took longer to sell than what the homeowners were anticipating, there are a variety of reasons this happened.  

The easy answer is that the home was over-priced and that may well be the answer.  But over-pricing can be the result of key underlying factors:

Was the home thoroughly inspected before going on the market? If it was inspected, what were the key findings that required significant repair or replacement?

Was the home remodeled or cosmetically updated (painted, new counter tops, kitchen appliances, hardwood floors refinished) prior to being marketed?

Was the home staged to look its best?

I have found one of four outcomes will occur when the home comes on the market:

  1. Prospective buyers’ agents do not show the property. The seller inquires of his/her agent if the agent put the home on the multiple listing service (MLS). Translation: the property is way-overpriced;

  2. Prospective buyers and their agents visit the new listing, but are not heard from again. When the listing agent calls these buyers’ agents, the typical response is “the home is lovely, but it is too dark, too small or the floor plan doesn’t work for the buyers.” Translation: the home is over-priced by 5% to 8%.  Adjust the price and the home will be just right and sell

  3. The asking price is spot-on and the seller reviews an offer within a week or two

  4. The asking price is lower than what the market will bear and the listing agent becomes the most popular agent of the week among prospective buyers’ agents with multiple offers on the property.

Published by Michael Thompson

I am a seasoned residential real estate professional with over 36 years of expertise in the Oakland Hills real estate market. Over the past three-plus decades, Michael has helped hundreds of buyers and sellers successfully buy and sell their homes. Many of these same clients (and now their kids!) have come back to Michael to help them with additional home purchases. With his extensive real estate background, Michael offers his clients a level of knowledge, experience and insight that gives them a competitive advantage in buying their next home or selling their present one. With a passion for sailing on San Francisco Bay, Michael and his wife Julie Ann Poppi currently are in the process of finishing the restoration of their 1981 Islander 36 sailboat.

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