All posts by Carter Smith

We’re currently in the middle of one of the most sustained periods of economic growth this country has experienced over the last century. Stocks are up, interest rates are low, unemployment is close to zero, wages are increasing, and houses are selling like hot cakes.

So if your house is listed for sale, but nobody is making any reasonable offers, you have to wonder what the problem is.

The 6 Most Common Reasons Why Houses Don’t Sell

If your house has been on the market for a few weeks or months without any serious traction, there’s almost certainly a justifiable reason. Here are some common culprits:

1. It’s Overpriced

There’s nothing wrong with pricing your home at a premium. However, if it’s too far above the real price, you’ll turn people away. Buyers simply won’t make an offer, even if they like the house. The obvious solution is to lower the price.

“When lowering the price, the key is to only do it once,” Green Residential advises. “Avoid creeping down and down over many months – taking off $500 here or $2,000 there. Bite the bullet and make a significant enough price change to pique the interest of buyers. This might look like lowering the price from $548,000 to $529,000 (even if it’s worth at least $535,000). Significant drops like this mean your property now fits the criteria of people who previously weren’t looking at your listing.”

2. It’s an Oddball

Quite frankly, your house might be a little weird.

There’s nothing wrong with having a quirky house with a unique style. (Obviously you liked it enough to build or buy the house.) However, it does limit your pool of potential buyers.

If your house has strange architecture or style, you can still find a buyer. You’ll simply have to be patient, or you’ll need to lower your asking price.

3. No Curb Appeal

Beautiful curb appeal can make a powerful first impression – even before buyers see the property for the first time. Likewise, unattractive curb appeal can intimidate prospective buyers and convince them to move on before scheduling a showing.

While you’re somewhat restricted by your home, the property, and the neighborhood, there are always little improvements you can make to beautify what’s already there. Professional landscaping, for example, goes a long way.

4. Too Many Problems

Does your house have a long to-do list of repairs and issues that need to be fixed? The average buyer wants something turnkey. Your lack of traction could be due to its condition. If your property has a long history of needing plumbing and heating service repairs, then that can majorly play a huge factor as to why you can’t seem to sell it easily.

“Not everyone wants to take on a project, so if your home is in poor condition and in obvious need of some repairs or a good cleaning, it’s not going to be attractive to buyers, even if the bones are good,” Moving.com explains. “The same goes for if your home is decorated boldly, in a style that says “niche” more than widespread appeal.”

5. Your Listing is Terrible

Very few buyers drive around looking for for-sale signs these days. Most showings are scheduled after a buyer or agent sees a property online. This is why your online listing is so critically important.

If you aren’t getting showings, consider switching up your listing to include more effective descriptions, better photography, and all pertinent details. This is basically an ad for your house – go all out!

6. No Promotional Strategy

Even if you have a great listing, it’s possible that nobody is seeing it. In order to schedule showings that eventually yield offers, you need a promotional strategy that pushes your listing out to as many people as possible. This includes online and via word of mouth.

On a related note, a poor or non-existent promotional strategy is likely a sign of a poor agent. If you don’t like the service you’re getting, you have every right to fire your agent and hire another one.

Set Yourself Up for Success

When selling a house, there are dozens of uncontrollable external factors in play. But there are also plenty of factors that you can control. The key is to understand your situation so that you can make educated choices that positively influence your ability to sell your home at maximum value.

CES 2020 is around the corner, which means all the tech specialists are launching their predictions, while companies are teasing their wares, and home tech brands are no different. Reports suggest that these 5 trends will dominate the smart home sector in 2020, reshaping how we all live and bringing upgrades to already popular devices.

Cameras Everywhere

Connected cameras have gained substantial market share over recent years, primarily as part of wireless home security systems, but that’s hardly the only place we’ll see cameras next year. No, in addition to more conventional surveillance, Digital Trends reports that we’re likely to see video-equipped robotic vacuums next year. The idea is that they may act as an extension of the home security system, but at a more practical level, camera-equipped vacuums will be better able to deal with obstacles in the home environment, such as wires, pets, and furniture.

Energy Enhancements

Today’s consumers are deeply concerned about reducing energy consumption and moving toward more sustainable practices, and smart home technology plays an important role in this shift. Advances are also making it easier to combine discrete appliances and devices in new ways. For example, homeowners can opt for an energy efficient gas fireplace and then pair them with smart thermostats and voice assistant technology, controlling when the heat runs. As long as the home is wired properly, it’s fairly easy to connect any appliance to the larger home network.

Outdoor Upgrades

As with energy waste, modern homeowners also want to cut back on water waste – and in some parts of the country, like California where droughts are common, reducing water waste is actually a legal mandate. Next year, expect to see a shift from the old standard automatic sprinklers that run on a baseline schedule to more sensitive smart sprinklers. These sprinklers will use weather analysis and moisture sensing to recalibrate the watering schedule so that the sprinklers don’t run just after that big storm.

Health Comes Home

Most of the major health tech innovations in recent years have centered on wearables or professional applications, but in 2020, connected health will come home. In particular, Humana plans to demonstrate some of its Studio H projects, its in-house technology and design arm, alongside connected devices that will help seniors live independently in their own homes. Looking even further ahead, Studio H hopes machine learning technology will transform health for all Humana’s members, linking the individual, home, and clinician.

A Smart Sous Chef

Kitchen appliances have been slowly moving online, but most of what we’ve seen so far are things like networked ovens users can preheat from their phones or refrigerators with touch screens in the doors. In the next few years, expect the emergence of fully connected kitchens, allowing home chefs to plan out meals, remotely operate smaller appliances, and generally prepare multi-course meals with minimal labor.

We’re not quite living like the Jetsons, but today’s smart homes are starting to reflect our visions of the future and the underlying technology is only getting better. As sensors continue to improve and basic networked devices start coming standard on new construction, we’ll start to understand just how much these devices can do.