You can’t sell your house, whose fault is it?
14th June, 2010 - Posted by admin -
How to privately sell a house - I want to stop selling my property through an agent - sell your own home - private sale traps - dangers selling house with agent - exclusive versus general agreement - can you sell privately after contract with agent - effective marketing property - can I sell direct to someone introduced by an agent - help selling house.
Those are some of the keywords people have been typing before finding my site. This clearly indicates that vendors are confused and don’t know what to do.
Driving past my local streets, I can see houses for sale changing from one real estate company to the next every few months, hoping that each one will be able to do what the previous one couldn’t do: Selling their property.
Others start the private way first and if they don’t see any result fast, they sign with a company only to realise that it’s not any better.
Providing your property is attractive, well priced and the right marketing has been implemented, nobody is to blame if you don’t find your buyer.
We need to separate 2 things here. The 1st one is our ability to expose the property to a large audience. Some companies are better than others, but know that they are not better than you. You can do a much better job because your motivation is optimal and your attention focused on one property.
The 2nd aspect is finding this buyer among the people who view your property online and make an inquiry to visit it. This aspect has nothing to do with marketing anymore. Your marketing job was done for that particular buyer since they found you. What will happen after that will depend on the most simple equation. Does the buyer love the property and can they afford its price?
If the answer is Yes to both questions, chances are you may have your buyer. If the answer is No to one of the questions, you will have to wait for the next inquiry.
Other than a decision to modify the price or renovate the house, you don’t have a big say into the 2nd aspect. So your focus should be on the 1st one, the marketing.
Read my view.net.nz website suggestions for some ideas. It’s pretty simple and cost effective. Real estate agents in New Zealand will not do more than what I suggest unless you are prepared to pay for a big campaign in national and local newspapers.
In the online world, there is what’s called ‘a Qualified lead”. A qualified lead is a prospect who is already looking for what you have to sell increasing the probability of becoming a buyer.
People visiting your property online are more likely to be in the market for what you have to offer than paper readers. Even if they visit your property online -translating into an increased traffic- the qualified leads will be at their lowest. The big spending incurred by paper advertising is -I believe- not justified considering the low return.
So who is to blame?
If your property hasn’t been exposed to a large audience, you’ll have to take responsibility for it. Even if you put your trust in an agent and they haven’t done their job properly, you’ll still have to take responsibility. It was your choice to follow this path.
On the other hand, if you’ve done what’s required and haven’t found a buyer, you may want to look at your site stats and tweak a thing or two, may want to look at your asking price, but overall you can relax, you’re not to blame. The economy and factors out of your control may be to blame but what would be the point in blaming anyone or anything? Simply enjoy the time left in the house you once loved because when it does sell, everything will speed up and you’ll be gone for good.
Posted on: June 14, 2010
Filed under: Observations on real estate
1 Comment
Frans
August 20th, 2010 at 9:13 am
It is the old story the more you tell, the more you sell. that is why I developed this website http://www.go2trademe.co.nz which enables people to promote their private listing on trademe through newspapers and other media.
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