Expired Listings
General Overview
An expired listing is one that didn't sell during the listing period. Sometimes expired listings are re-listed, but often sellers decide to take a break from marketing. This is particularly the case over the holiday season, or during the winter months. Even though an expired listing isn't actively being marketed, it may still be for sale. An expired listing usually reflects a problem in one, or more of four major areas: communication, price, condition or marketing.
Price – The most common culprit. Again, market conditions change from day to day depending on available inventory. Pricing your home competitively to homes that are available for purchase is only half of the strategy. The other half is to price your home in competition with the property owners that were recently successful in selling their homes.
Condition – A house in move-in condition invites a sale, bottom line. Have you fixed the little squeaks and drips, cleaned and painted, uncluttered, brightened up and concentrated on outside curb appeal? Did you know that 65% of the buyers decision to purchase occurs within the first 15 seconds, before the buyer ever enters the house?
And finally... the number one complaint by most expired listings is that their last agent did not keep in good communication with them. So it is safe to say that communication must be the number one most important factor in listing and selling a home.
What were various Buyers, or Realtors saying about price, condition, location? In-attention to a listing can make or break the end results. For example, the day your house was listed it may have been the best deal in the subdivision. But two weeks later perhaps the same floor plan by the same builder in a comparable or better location became available at a comparable or better price. Perhaps you have noticed for yourself that in each subdivision there are X number of builders that build X number of floor plans.
When all is said, and done buyers are typically looking for a particular floor plan that fits their life style; end of story. If you do not know why buyers are by passing your home it could be costing you thousands of dollars, and many sleepless nights. Perhaps your house has been by passed 8 or 10 times by buyers who have actually purchased another property. Did they by pass yours because of price? Was the floor plan simply not a workable floor plan for them? Can you see how lowering the sales price in this particular situation would be of virtually no value to you, therefore giving away your hard earned money unnecessarily?
What clients of expired listings want is good real estate information that will help them to see that their home was overpriced and that perhaps there is hope for them to get their home sold NOW. The expired listing client also wants to know that their agent will be in contact with them over an extended period of time and keep them up to date on the marketing efforts on their home.
Today’s educated buyer does not want a pushy, over aggressive salesperson. What my clients expect from me is communication on a regular basis, in a non-invasive manner. I will always remember to make every effort to give my clients what they want, when they want it, and in the format that they want. For Buyers Expired listings can offer opportunities for buyers who are having trouble finding a home to buy. An expired listing is a property that was listed for sale, but that didn't sell during the listing period. Sellers of expired listings can lose interest and give up when their home doesn't sell during the listing period. They may decide to wait for a different market, or they may shop for a different agent. In any case, these sellers are often anxious to sell. Before you buy an expired listing, find out why it didn't sell. It may have been priced too high for the market. Or, the market could have been soft. Study the comparable sales information before deciding what price to pay. For Sellers The economic principals of supply and demand apply to the home sale market. When there are more buyers than sellers, there aren't enough houses to satisfy the demand. Pricing in this case is less crucial because there are often multiple bidders competing against one another for the opportunity to buy your home. But, when the supply and demand balance changes, as it has this year, and there are more sellers than buyers, you need to undercut your competition price-wise if you want to sell. You need to be brutally honest about home prices in order to sell in a softening market. Otherwise, you end up chasing the market as it moves downward. Buyers know value and they won't over-pay in a soft market. In fact, they expect a discount off the premium prices hit a year ago. If you're not willing to be reasonable, you probably can't sell in today's market. The real estate agent is usually not the cause of an expired listing.
