So, you’ve been trying to sell your home for the last few months, either by yourself or with an agent. There are some visits, but not many… you might have had a few verbal offers, but nothing serious. It just doesn’t seem to be working out. You ask yourself, why won’t my home sell?

Well, the answer is very simple: The price is too high! Read that last sentence over and over again until you finally understand. It’s that simple. You may think that your house is fairly priced, you may think that it is a mansion, you may think that anybody in their right mind should buy it in a heartbeat. You are wrong. If your property has been on the market for a few months (think 2-3 months) and it has not sold, then the market is telling you that the price you are asking does not justify the value of the property. It’s not your agent’s fault, it’s not the overall market, it has nothing to do with newspaper ads, photos, descriptions, etc… it’s the price.

What can you do about it?

There are three things you can do to correct the problem.

1) Don’t sell. Take the house off the market. If you think your house is worth so much, why bother selling it at all. Just hold on to it. It’s an investment, right? It will keep increasing in value forever, right? Sure it will.

2) You can reduce the asking price. Get aggressive and chop the price. CHOP IT! Take off 20k or 30k. Get the price a bit below what other people are asking for a similar property. This will make buyers take notice. Don’t think that buyers will just make you an offer even if your price is way above market; they won’t. Get the price in line with the market.

3) Increase the value. If you want to stick to your guns and keep your price high, then you will have to justify it by increasing its value. Sorry, a splash of paint won’t do anything. Tidying up and de-cluttering will not increase the value. It may make the house look better, but buyers are not dumb enough to pay you an extra 20k for it. You will have to renovate a kitchen or a bathroom. Install new hardwood floors, fix your leaking roof, repair the cracked foundation… nitty gritty stuff. You can’t expect to sell a dump for a fortune.

According to the statistics, the average time it takes to sell a property is about 70 days. But this is a false statistic since it does not take into account all the homes that never actually sell. Only about 30% of homes actually sell each time they are listings, the others just expire. Some are re-listed, others just never sell. Basically, if you want to sell your home, you should be able to sell it in about 6 weeks (45 days). If it takes longer, then the market is telling you something. A wise real estate agent once said, “there is nothing that price won’t fix.”