BEFORE YOU RE-LIST YOUR HOME © 2013 by Wayne D. Lewis, Sr.

Theme: Will you be repeating the same approach if you re-list your home for another 6 months?

If you have listed your home for any number of months, with no success in selling, it’s possible that the listing expired. After your home’s listing expires,  you are face with 3 options: Relist, sell it yourself, or just wait awhile.  Chances are that if you listed it once, you will list it for sale again.  But before you re-list your home, consider several factors as to why it did not sell.  Here are some questions for consideration:

1.      Did you price your property above the recommended price of your Realtor?

2.      Did you leave your home at the same price from start to finish of your listing period?

3.      Did you have any showings?  Were there any offers?

4.      Did you receive offers and did not counter by not responding, or totally rejecting the offers altogether?

5.      Did you turn away showings?

Enough questions?  Well, here is one more:  Do you still want to sell your home?

If the answer is “no”, then there is no need to read any further.  But if the answer is “yes” to this question, then the answers to the above questions are more important than just for the sake of conversation.  Let’s review.

If you said “yes” to questions #1, 2, 4, and/or 5, re-listing your home without a strategy or commitment to make some type of change going forward, will only result in your home going through the same motions of sitting on the market.

Bear in mind the questions that we put  to you in this posting.  As much as you, as a seller, believe that buyers will offer less or close to what your home should sell for when you over price it, buyers have their strategy as well.  They often wait for sellers who overprice their homes to reduce their homes to below the market price.  Whether that is the entire six month listing period or a follow up period, buyers are well informed, and are just as patient. 

The usual six month period should not only have showings, but offers.  If it has offers, then there should have counter offers, not just rejections, regardless of how low the offers were.  If the six month listing period does not include showings, or offers to purchase, then the real question becomes, how serious are you, as a seller ready to sell your home?  The window to sell your home closes very quickly once it is listed.   Here is why.

Once your home is listed, there are those who are ready to put an offer on it, if it is priced accordingly.  If not, the most that your home may go through are a number of showings.  During these showings, buyers are assessing how far the listing price is from where it should be, and that is according to the market.  If no offers are being made through a six month period, that means that the window of opportunity has gone to another home. 

A six month listing period is not really necessary if the home is price correctly.  But if another listing period is on the horizon, be sure that between you and your real estate agent, the goal is to sell your home for the price that the market is willing to bear.  Otherwise, your home will sit out another six months, and in essence, loose its viability as a great home to buy.

What should re-listing your home mean?

A.    The price has been reduced by at least 10% to 12%.  For example, on a house listed at $250,000, that has not been gradually reduced over the listing period, that could mean as much as a $30,000 reduction.  While that may sound harsh and a big drop, it could have been less dramatic over the listing period;

B.     Relisting means that the seller is willing to counter the offers made and not reject offers made well below the listed price;

C.     It should mean that showings will increase, and offers are a greater possibility because the price is closer to market value;

Relisting your home may mean too, that you are serious about selling your home, but only if you show those who have been watching your home, from the sideline, or online, that you are open to negotiating. 

So, give it a lot of thought before relisting and discuss with your agent a great strategy going forward, to improve the possibility of selling your home.  Good luck on selling your home.

Disclaimer: Information provided here while deemed be from reliable sources, is not guaranteed.  Information here is not intended to solicit the business of any broker or agent.