You may have heard the buzzwords “expired listing” before.
If you’re a real estate agent, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. If you’re not, here’s a short definition.
An expired listing is where a home that has been listed for sale has run the duration of its contract with the listing agent without selling.
Because I tend to the niche of luxury real estate, this article will address luxury homes that have expired.
For a homeowner, this is a bad situation to be in. Now, you have a pressing question.
Are you going to be able to sell your home?
In short, yes. You will absolutely be able to sell your home.
But how we get there is a little bit more involved. Let’s talk about it.
Why Luxury Homes Expire
Before we can begin working towards a sale, we must understand why the property didn’t sell in the first place.
There are many different reasons why homes don’t sell. But what I’ve found is that it comes down to two main reasons.
Pricing
Price is the standout factor for why a listing expires.
A $3 million dollar house cannot sell for $4 million in 99% of scenarios, even if the marketing is amazing and the staging is perfect.
To add one million dollars to an already high price point and push yourself out of the market is a recipe for expiration.
As someone who has consulted and helped sellers with expired listings, I have always recommended some sort of price reduction despite the confidence I have in my marketing plan.
The weight of a price reduction is situational. Sometimes a simple drop of $50,000 to change the price range is enough to make the listing more attractive.
But nonetheless, a reduction is basically required.
Marketing
I’ve mentioned before that marketing a property is my favorite part of real estate.
It’s extremely important that you choose a good luxury real estate agent with a well-thought marketing plan to list your home or it might just end up sitting on the market until expiration.
If the pricing was correct and the property still didn’t sell, plus it was staged, then the next thing that went wrong was the lack of people who actually saw the house.
Exposure is very powerful. With online tools and technology, luxury real estate agents have the ability to reach thousands of people per day.
These are living human beings that are physically seeing your home.
The problem is that most agents don’t know how to utilize these tools. In fact, 39% of Realtors cite that the most beneficial technological tool to their business is the digital lockbox that holds the key to your house.
Seriously? The lockbox?
39%!
That’s two out of every five agents you’ll meet.
Be very careful about who you’re hiring to sell your house.
What You Can Do About It
As a homeowner, you have a variety of routes you can take.
First, you can simply consider using a new luxury real estate agent. This gives you the best chance at a new outcome.
I can promise you that nine times out of ten if your $3 million home has been on the market for a year, signing an agreement with the same agent for another year will not yield a sale at a price you want.
I call this “days on market attrition”.
The longer your home stays on the market, the less attractive it becomes.
Buyers begin to think (the worst thing for a seller) and usually what comes to mind is the question “what’s wrong with it?”
On a good hand, this sparks curiosity and they come to see what’s wrong only to find a beautiful home with an awful price.
On the bad hand, they simply move on to something else.
Let’s say you get a buyer in the door a year into your listing. They’ll walk through the home knowing that it’s been there for a long time and they’ll also have their savvy agent telling them that they can low ball an offer because of how long it’s been on the market.
What do you think the buyer is going to do?
If they really like the property, they’ll still low ball an offer because everyone likes a bargain and you, the seller, are put in a terrible position because of the lack showings you’ve garnered over the past year.
You no longer have the ball in your court.
You either pass up on what might be the only offer you’ll receive during your listing period, or you accept a sales price lower than what you wanted.
This happens way too often.
Final Thoughts
Odds are, your listing expired because it was priced wrong or incorrectly marketed, or both.
The best way to combat this issue is to simply seek a new luxury real estate agent who can bring a fresh perspective and ideas.
I’ve written an article about the traits you should look for in a luxury real estate agent.
Follow that guide and you should be able to find a good one in all circumstances. Plus, if you live in Asheville or Charlotte, NC you can always hire Berri Luxury Properties.
