Why Is My House Not Selling?

Ok so you have had your property on the market for a number of months or even over a year and your property still hasn’t sold. It is causing arguments at home, it is causing sleepless nights and an enormous amount of heart ache. But believe me there is a reason why your property is not selling as everything sells.

What you need to do is identify why your property is not selling and hopefully this article is going to help you do that.

The first thing to analyse is how many viewings have you had. If for example your property has been on the market for 2 months and you have had 30 viewings, the reason the property hasn’t sold maybe completely different than if you have only had 1 viewing in the same timeframe.

Price – It is imperative you get the marketing price of your property correct before it goes to market. Yes, your right this is the job of the estate agent. However, unfortunately estate agents will sometimes over value your property just to get the instruction to market your property. As you perceive the estate agent the expert many will take their advice and list the property at the inflated price. The estate agent will refer to this as the ‘market value’. The definition of market value however is the price someone is willing to pay for the commodity for sale. Therefore, if perspective buyers feel the price is too high they won’t even view the property. On the flip side if people do view and a number of these make an offer at the same figure and its lower than the asking price the property is worth that figure, its just whether or not you agree.

Estate Agent – Have you chosen the correct estate agent? There are good and bad in all industries and the estate agent industry is no different. Therefore, it’s hugely important you choose an agent who is going to do the best job possible and achieve you the best price in the given timeframe. There are a huge amount of estate agents offering so many different price variable and levels of service so I understand why you may find it so hard to make your decision. The first question I know you will be considering is do I go with an online estate agent or a high street one? I believe there are three things to consider

1. Never forget you are selling a house probably the biggest asset you will ever own. You are not selling a second -hand bed on eBay. You are probably thinking where is this going? As previously explained a number of agents offer so many different levels of service, some agents will only offer a listing service. Basically, all they will do is list your property. Although they may only charge £99 you will be responsible for the photo’s, description, booking the viewings, chasing the feedback, taking the offers, negotiating the price and progressing the sale with your solicitor. Not only is this extremely time consuming I am 95% you are either 
2. exposing yourself to not achieving the best price
3. running the risk of the sale taken a lot longer to complete than if you had an agent pushing it through
4. increasing the possibility of your agreed sale not completing as you have no experience in progressing the sale of a property

Due to the amount of time and money you could potentially lose I would advise finding an agent that may only charge approximately £800 no sale, no fee and offer a full service.

• As well as agents offering different levels of service they also offer a variety of different commission and fee structures. One thing I would advise is don’t chose an estate agent who charges upfront fees. If you take a couple of minutes to think about this my thoughts will become obvious. Would you pay a plumber before they tile your new Bathroom? Exactly so why pay the agent before they have sold your house? Think of it this way if you do what motivation have they got to work as hard as possible to sell your home, not much as they have already been paid.

• The final thing to consider is the operational hours of your chosen estate agent. The reason I say this is where do your buyer’s shop? that’s right the internet on the likes of Rightmove. We all know the internet is a shop open 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Therefore, it makes no sense using an estate agent who only opens 9am – 5pm, 5 days a week because its not a marriage. Your aim should be to find an agent open 7 days a week as many hours a day as possible. You will get agents stating they open 24 hours 7 days a week, take this with a pinch of salt. All this is will be is a portal service or e-mail facility. I would suggest finding a company who has actual people on the phones available to speak too. Remember you are not selling a bed on eBay.

The final thing which is key to evaluate why your property is not selling is the feedback you have had from any previous viewings. There is no such thing as bad feedback. Therefore, if your agent is not working hard to get feedback from the viewings, its simple change agents. You need feedback its so important. For example, if six people view the property and their reason for not offering on the property is the same and you are able to rectify the issue it’s not going to happen a seventh time as you will put it right.