4 Reasons Your Home Is Not Selling

There is nothing worse than listing your home only to see it stay on the market for longer than you anticipated. You might feel as if no one appreciates your home the way you do and this can lead to feelings of frustration.

The longer it stays on the market, the more your brain starts playing tricks on you: is there really something wrong with your house? The house you have been living in and worked on for so many years?

When the weeks start turning into months, it might be time to regroup your strategy and look at it with a fresh perspective. 

Before we jump in and look at some of the reasons why your home is not selling, you need to consider the possibility that there really might be nothing wrong with your house. Maybe the market conditions are just not favourable or maybe homes in your neighbourhood just sell at a slower rate than other homes.

Work with your real estate agent and take a closer look at the market in your area. You might be worried about nothing, but there might also be some things that you need to take into account:

No.1 - Your listing pics are not great

We live in a digital age, so the first place buyers are going to look when buying a house is online. This means that they rely on the pictures you post to the website.

Buyers are probably going to dismiss your house if they scroll through it and the pictures are bad in quality.

A professional photographer will help in this regard if you are not a pro with the camera yourself. It will cost you a bit more but it will enhance your online presence drastically.

No.2 - Your home is just...meh

Maybe your home is just plain boring. It is a truth that many homeowners do not want to hear but your buyers want something new and modern.

If it looks like the kitchen is still stuck in the 1970s then the chances are big that a buyer will dismiss the house immediately. You need to send out the right signals and this means that you need to make effort with your house.

Staging the home can easily impress the buyer. If you are unsure about home staging and what it entails, you can hire a professional stager to do it for you. 

No.3 - There is too much 'you' in your house

We are not judging your taste in pink flamingo sculptures or purple living room walls but a buyer might just do that.

It is important to appeal to buyers of all types which means that your house should take on a neutral tone. There should be nothing in the room that says something about you or your personal tastes.

This could mean repainting the walls, getting rid of personal items, and getting rid of yourself when a buyer comes for a viewing. They need to see themselves in your house; not the traces of the people who used to live there. 

No.4 - The price is too high

So, you have now tried all of the above and still, no one is biting. Consider the fact that your house is overpriced.

A vital point to note about the value of the house is that you do not set it; the market sets it.

No matter how much you love the built-in braai you built from scratch, the next person might not see it as justification for an inflated price. If you reduce the price by a little bit, you will not even feel the hit, and buyers might then start flocking to your home.