What To Do When Your Listing Expires

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If you’re trying to sell your Kamloops home, and your listing expired in the past few months, you’re certainly not alone. In fact, more MLS listings in the Kamloops area expired sinceliving-room September than the number of homes sold! In other words, you had a much better chance of an expired listing than you did selling your home. If you’re among the home owners that are faced with the dilemma of re-listing your home, there are ways to improve your odds of selling. Before you re-list, consider all your options and ask yourself these questions:

  1. Marketing – How was your home marketed on and off of the MLS? Was there other marketing techniques used to promote your home to the public besides Realtor.ca (MLS.ca)? Or was there only a link to your agent’s home page, advertising other listings? Was your home advertised on other web sites? If you don’t think good online marketing matters, you should know that buyers today are turning to the web to start their search. If your property does not have a web presence you are at a disadvantage to those who do.
  2. Presentation – Did your Realtor help you stage your home or give you tips about what you should do to improve you home’s appeal for showings? Did you take an objective look at your home, and fix the things that might not be appealing to buyers? Did your Realtor ensure the pictures taken of your home were high quality, clear and enhanced the look of your home? How about custom print ads? What were the highlight sheets at your home like? Dull photocopies or professionally produced custom colour sheets?
  3. Communication – Did your Realtor communicate with you numerous times each month, sharing current market conditions and factors affecting the sale of your home? Did your Realtor keep you informed of sales in your neighbourhood? Did you receive feedback from every showing and open house held at your property?
  4. Negotiations – Did your Realtor coach you on how to deal with offers and what to expect? Did they explain all your options? What about dealing with lowball offers (which we have been seeing a lot in the Kamloops area recently)? Did you feel you were prepared and in control of the offer process (if you even got any offers!)?
  5. Price – How did your asking price compare to the sale price of similar homes that sold while you were listed? Did they help you determine a reasonable price for your home or just tell you what you wanted to hear?

bedroomIf you want to sell now, should you try the same strategy that has already failed you, or a new strategy? Should you try selling your home with better marketing and presentation, a more experienced negotiator and a more realistic price?

The Kamloops real estate market is getting increasingly more competitive for sellers. With the number of listings increasing and the number of sales decreasing you need to be ahead of the curve. Buyers have numerous homes to chose from. If your home doesn’t get the exposure and marketing, doesn’t present well and isn’t priced competitively it will be overlooked. Be realistic, take an objective look at your home and price right from the beginning.