Months – even years – have passed but you still do not have sold your property yet: why? What should you do? Stefano Petri, Great Estate CEO, answers you.
We have already told a lot about Great Estate Method, which allows us to reach a rapid property sale (click here to discover more).
Today, I want to tell you about a different situation which, sometimes, may occur: after months – or even years – and despite the great advertisement done, some properties still remain unsold. So, a growing sense of powerlessness will crowd their owners’ minds who, from this moment, will be willing to do everything, including selling their home out.
Why does it happen? What should you do in this situation? How can you anticipate it?
The property visits and information requests have slowly decreased. The agencies which had always contacted you regularly before have almost disappeared. So, you are trying to do something desperately: you start to call them, you get angry because they do not dedicate the right attention to your home, because they do not understand its beauty and features and because, at the end, they are not able to understand the market.
“It is so weird that no client is able to understand the unicity of my home. The last buyers who had visited it seemed to be very interested, they congratulated me.. but then, they had disappeared.”
“My neighbour had sold, and even my friend. So, I will find the right client soon, because my home is better than my friend’s one.. you cannot compare it to his/her!”
Mass media will affirm that, in this period, selling a home is something very difficult to do because of many reasons. So, you will start to blame the crisis and convince yourself that it is only a matter of time, the right client will arrive very soon. This will momently cheers you up, helping you to find a justification for your “property non-sale”. However, will it be really true?
The most structured agencies – as Great Estate – will send you a newsletter including the last sold properties list and the interviews to their vendors monthly. Finally, by reading all the above mentioned sources, you will verify that the sales number has increased.
“So, why is my beautiful and unique property still not finding its right buyers?”
“What should I do to reach the sale? What should I do to avoid the selling out of my property?”
Since 2010, in 95% of the cases the property values have statistically decreased of a 5%/year, so:
“if, today, my property is worth 1 million euros, next year it will be 950.000,00€, the year later 900.000,00€ and, in four years, its value will be of 800.000,00€. This means that I will have lost the 20% of my house value!”
The first thing you should do is the one NLP defines as “Active listening”.
Some agencies you contacted said that your property value is of 1.000.000,00€; others that it is of 1.200.000,00€ and you entered your property on the market at 1.400.000,00€, in order to obtain a good tractability margin and not to diversify your choice by your neighbour’s one who is asking 1.300.000,00€ for his/her property.
In the Real Estate world, what does “Active listening” mean? First, it means listening to the specialists of the sector.
If a professional agency, supported by objective data, presents you a precise analysis about the surfaces, annexes and property features and then compared it both with the market and other similar properties which have been sold, your active listening is needed. The biggest mistake you can do is thinking that the best agency is the one which always agrees with you and estimates your property at its first visit. It is precisely the contrary, as agency is doing a “non-work” or an easy one which will cause you many economic problems, years of questions and doubts.
Instead, you have to carefully listen to the agency using very modern IT tools, which asks for different information regarding your home and produces a structured estimate of it. This agency is offering you a first but fundamental consultancy: listen to the GE consultants who, thanks to our The Best Price system, are able to give you this service.
Ok, I know it well. At the beginning, the 50% of sellers will not understand that the right agency is the one offering you the lower estimates. Who will be able to be impartial will have also more possibilities to be one of the next interviewed on our Magazine, happy to have found the right buyers.
We know that well and, by entering your property in the market at a 10% higher requested price compared to the one of our estimate, we do not confirm your request, but we are respecting your willing even if we had already clarified you the consequence of this decision.
There is a good news: even if, during the first consultancy, you did not use your active listening, you still have the possibility to do so by listening to the market. If, during the first months, you had some visits and those buyers who wanted to purchase your home offered the exact amount estimated by GE and you think that it is probably because the agency was not able to manage the negotiation well, try to analyse two elements:
- Great Estate estimate accuracy;
- Market response to that value.
If those initial clients have then disappeared, it means that, in 90% of cases, they will have had already purchased your neighbour’s or friend’s property. But their properties are less beautiful than yours. You would have never wanted their property. And you are right: for you, your property is the best and, above all, it is unique because.. it is yours.
According to some American universities researches, every owner attributes to his/her property, because of subjective reasons, a 20%-100% higher value compared to the real one.
So, which is the good news? The market is saying out loud that your property is bad positioned, a situation which may come from the requested price or the advertising channels used.
Property prices exceeding the 10% of the real property market value, non-professional photos and descriptions or inappropriate advertising channels are all conditions which will make you wasting your time.
However, it is easier to believe in the subjective estimates, giving the assignment for sale to those who propose you the lower fee, or not to invest into the marketing or improve your property. Yes, it is true.. but it will make your property loose value and time. Remember that no one in this world achieve the best result easily.
So, the best solution is, once again, the one suggested by the Great Estate Method. A rule that all the GE professionals know well, that constantly improve and that try to let you understand but, as I already said, your active listening is needed.
So, what should you do?
Start from the beginning again. After many months, you now own a different knowledge. You are ready to take the right decisions, including the ones which you may be consider “extreme”.
Probably, the value of your property is not one million anymore. 4 years have passed since you had put it into the market so its value may be of 800.000€ now. You can thank that agency, the experienced one, the one which did not ask you property documents or, after an hour property tour, gave you its consultancy and approved the price you requested.
That is right and, probably, that agency had also said you some sentences we hear every day and that we know very well. They all bring you to waste your time and your property value. Sentences like:
“we already have some buyers ready to purchase it and who may even give you 1.200.000,00€, as Russian or Arabs. This is because, if they like something, they simply buy it, without focusing on its price”.
So, it is time for you to entrust yourself to some professionals, the ones who have really proved their successes. Click here to know our sales or here to read our vendors’ interviews.
“Restart” your property positioning with some new and powerful bases: discover here how to do so.
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