Selling a property can be challenging especially when the market is competitive or there are fewer buyers than sellers. If you are selling for the first time, the whole process can seem particularly daunting. Before taking on this task, please remember that there’s a possibility of things not going your way. However, instead of panicking, there are certain steps you can take if your house is not selling.
In the past, we’ve discussed a few techniques to help you as to how to sell your property quickly, but in this blog, we’ll discuss what you can do if your house stays on the market for far too long.
Things To Do If Your House Is Not Selling
Selling your property means you will need to put in a lot of time, effort and money to get a desirable offer. If your house has been on the market for quite some time, you might get discouraged and unhappy, especially if you had associated certain plans with the sale, in terms of future investments. Don’t be disheartened if you don’t receive any offers too soon, though; there are a few things you can do with your house to fix the problem.
Below, we’ve listed five important steps you can take if your house doesn’t sell:
- Postpone the sale
- Renting the property instead
- Selling at less than market value
- Change your real estate agent or home staging
- Try Zameen.com
Postpone The Sale
You can sell your house in any market you want. Sometimes, through contacts and references, you may also find a buyer outside of the city, but it is very rare. But, what if the house has been listed for a very long time and it is slowly moving towards the status of an expired listing? Don’t lose hope because it might not be the season for you to sell your home.
Real estate prices also fluctuate, in line with economics’ basic demand and supply rule. It is possible that the time when you put your house on sale, it was a buyer’s market in which there were more options for buyers that can lead to lower capital gains for sellers. At such a point, you might want to consider postponing the sale and taking your home off the market.
If you have asked your agent to sell the property during the holiday season, the buyer is more likely to indulge in the negotiation because they expect bargains and it may hit your soft spot. If it’s none of these, then another reason could be that the real estate market is not doing too well and buyers and investors have less spending power. In any of these cases, postponing your plan to wait for a better season is an option you should take if you expect higher returns.
Renting The Property Instead
If your house isn’t receiving offers close to what you have in mind, you should probably delay the decision and rent it out instead provided you have any other place to live. It is also possible that you are selling your house in haste but can’t find a buyer who will give you a fair offer or that you are relocating and you don’t feel the need to own that house. While it is on the market and you find a suitable buyer, rent it out. It will be beneficial for you in two ways. One, it won’t look like an abandoned property and two, you will start earning a steady income.
A vacant home also takes the money out of your pocket since you have to pay line rent for utilities installed in a home, like electricity, gas, cable and telephone. So it’s better that you rent out your space to a party and enjoy the rent while you find buyers for the house.
Selling At Less Than Market Value
It is a popular belief that real estate investment doesn’t incur losses unless there is a major economic downturn. There are a few reasons why you will need to consider selling at less than the market value. For instance, you need money for some other use or you are permanently relocating and there is no way you can take care of your current property.
Making steep price reductions is the last resort for every seller if they are having trouble selling a house. Everything sells if the price is right and, in this case, if you make it attractive for the buyers and investors, it will sell easily. You will obviously make less on the sale but it will take less of your effort and time. It is very common that real estate agents themselves buy such properties because they then sell it at a higher price when the market conditions are better or they have a buyer for that price.
Change Your Home Staging or Real Estate Agent
Staging your home is the best way to help the potential buyer imagine how the place will look. This improves the chances of locking the sale. A staged home has better chances of being sold quicker than the one that is not. If you cannot stage the entire house, you can also make partial staging work just to give an idea of how they can use the space in future if they buy. For this purpose, the living room is the best place in the house to stage where most of the day time is spent by households especially on weekends.
In addition to staging, do look out for minor tweaks that your house needs like the paint job, door adjustments, etc. because you don’t want to give the buyer a reason not to buy the house. However small the adjustments may look to you, the buyer will point them as additional work and count it in their expenses and negotiate the price even further. Remember, you are not just selling the house, you are also selling the idea of a “home,” so it’s best that you stage it well.
Another reason why your house wouldn’t sell is that your realtor is not putting in any extra effort to sell your house. However good an agent might be, there are few factors that may reduce their efficiency, such as family problems. Choosing the right agent is essential to get the desired results. Putting the ‘for sale’ sign outside and waiting for buyers to contact is not all a realtor should do. Proactively looking and pitching potential buyers through ads should also be done by a professional realtor.
Selling Property Through Zameen
If you sell on your own, it will take a lot of your time and effort. You will need patience along with the flexibility to show your house to potential buyers. Imagine taking some of that burden off your shoulders by assigning someone the task of connecting you with a buyer. Feels a lot less work to do, doesn’t it? This is what Zameen.com does. It connects buyers with sellers and tenants with landlords through its nationwide used real estate portal.
Zameen.com is the pioneer of real estate portals in Pakistan and currently, it is the biggest in the country. People from all over the country use Zameen’s listing pages to buy, sell and rent their properties. You can use Zameen’s portal by registering yourself online and hunt properties like never before.
You can either view Zameen’s listing pages for properties in different cities or narrow your search by providing some specifics and all the available options will be shown. There are certain projects too that are exclusively marketed by Zameen which pose handsome return on investment and better rental yields. You can check ongoing projects by following the link to Zameen’s projects pages. For more information about our new projects, follow Zameen Blog, the biggest property blog in Pakistan.
Do provide us your valuable feedback about this blog by writing to us at blog@zameen.com. Stay tuned for more updated information about property and real estate trends in Pakistan.
