Top three reasons your home in the GTA is sitting on the market without any offers for too long.
You’ve listed your home for sale and now anxiously await offers. But as time passes, your home either hasn’t received any showings or you aren’t receiving any suitable offers. And now that your home has been on the market for over 30 days, you should be questioning why it is not selling and making necessary adjustments. The average days on the market, or the number of days it takes for a home to sell, is different in every area in Ontario. On average, it takes about 15 days to sell your home in Toronto. And it takes a little longer in other areas across the GTA:
Vaughan – 20 days
Newmarket – 21 days
Aurora – 22 days
Richmond Hill – 23 days
King city – 32 days
“But generally, you can expect your home to sell within the first 30 days, considering it is priced according to its market value, and your real estate agent has spread a wide net and is promoting it strategically across various marketing platforms,” says Jay Frenkel, Broker of Record at BuyRealty.ca
Not Enough Showings?
While there could be many reasons why your home isn’t being looked at or hasn’t had any decent offers, more often than not, the main reason is the price. If the price is the problem, the rest won’t carry as much weight but should be assessed and re-assessed to ensure you aren’t jeopardizing your home’s success.
Here are the top 3 reasons why your home isn’t selling:
1. My Home is Overpriced and not selling
The price is one of the most probable reasons your home isn’t selling.
It is natural to want to get the most for your home, and often sellers set the price based on their wants or what they think they should get rather than what makes sense for the current market conditions.
Today’s buyers are informed and tech-savvy.
If your home is overpriced, your buyers will know it. Even before booking an appointment to see your home, prospective buyers can assess the home’s worth using various online home valuation tools and market assessment reviews provided by their real estate agents.
Comparative Market Analysis
Your real estate agent should do the same when pricing your home. A good agent will do a proper comparative market analysis of recently sold homes in your area within the past 30-90 days (or more, depending on the state of the market).
This type of analysis helps establish a realistic and fair price range and eliminates the guesswork of what price a home will likely sell for. Neither you nor your agent can guarantee with 100% accuracy what your home will sell for. But doing a proper strategic assessment will get you close to what it’s likely to sell for.
2. Under-Exposure Due to Insufficient Marketing Can Lead to Emergency Selling
With the growth of digital media, the real estate industry has also evolved drastically – enabling access to numerous marketing and promotional tools and strategies. If your real estate agent doesn’t utilize these online platforms, it might be one of the reasons why your home isn’t selling.
Social media alone is an outstanding channel to maximize the exposure of your home to thousands of people. Your prospective buyers are on social media, and most use it daily.
Here are some staggering statistics to highlight the power of social media and what it can do to help sell your home.
Instagram has 1 billion monthly active users, and more than 500 million use the platform daily. 38% of users check Instagram a few times a day. And 500 million use Stories daily.
There are 1.5 billion active Facebook users worldwide, and Canadians are the most active ones in the world, with over 19 million users from Canada. Most check their feed daily.
260 million LinkedIn users log in each month. And 40% of active users access it daily.
As an informed and digitally-savvy home seller, you have to expect the same (and higher) level of marketing expertise from your real estate agent. To sell any product, and especially at a high price point, you have to cast a wide net with promotional strategies and leverage as many available strategies from the list below:
Social media channels – Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn
Blogging strategy
Print materials
Local newspapers and magazines
Professionally designed and crafted brochures to leave behind
The listing callout on the website
Professionally developed videos and Photography
Social sharing buttons on property pages
“With an impressive in-house marketing team, we have an inside joke here at BuyRealty.ca that we’re running a high-end marketing agency within our Real Estate Brokerage. But that’s because we recognize the impact of proper marketing efforts on the successful sale of our client’s homes,” says Jay Frenkel Broker of Record of BuyRealty.ca
3. Home selling in a Neglected Condition
While professional photos can often mask the problems within your home and attract buyers to view it, a physical visit to the property won’t be able to hide the imperfections.
If your home shows any visible damage, cracked walls, water stains on the ceiling, outdated kitchen cabinets, leaking faucets, or strong odours – your prospective buyers will see this as a “project.” And unless the price reflects the poor condition, not everyone wants a fixer-upper. Neglecting to take care of the home’s problems ahead of time might affect how long your home sits on the market.
Preparing your home for showings, fixing what needs to be fixed, undergoing minor renovations, and ensuring your home shows well can be a deal breaker.
Knowing what type of renovations will have the biggest impact on the successful sale of your home is critical. Check out our latest article on 11 steps to get your home ready to list and sell fast.
GET HELP IN UNDERSTANDING WHY YOUR HOME ISN’T SELLING
If your home has been sitting on the market in the GTA area without any offers, it’s time to reassess your situation and understand the contributing factors to the lack of activity. Reach out to one of our agents at BuyRealty.ca, and we’ll be happy to take on the sale of your home and help you make the necessary adjustments to sell fast and with a fair profit. An experienced, resourceful and knowledgeable real estate agent is often the difference between a successful sale and an expired listing.
