Why Do Some Homes Sell Quickly While Others Sit?

I know what you're thinking.

What about location? Condition? A lousy floor plan? Terrible photographs? An inexperienced agent?

Yep. All of those things matter. Some matter enormously.

But here's the distinction: Those are reasons a property may be worth less than the seller thinks. They aren't reasons it can't sell.

A house on a busy road will sell. A house with an outdated kitchen will sell. A house with a peculiar floor plan, neglected landscaping, or neighbors who haven't discovered the joys of yard maintenance will sell.

At the right price.

The problem is that sellers—and sometimes their agents—confuse what they want a property to be worth with what buyers are actually willing to pay.

And buyers can be remarkably unforgiving when a property doesn't deliver what its asking price promises.

But simply reducing the price isn't always the best solution. Sometimes we can change the property, change the presentation, or change the way buyers perceive its value.

That's where things get interesting.

In every real estate market, there's an existing pool of active buyers who haven't found what they're looking for.

In a strong seller's market, that pool may be enormous. In a slower buyer's market, it may be considerably smaller.

But it's there.

These people aren't necessarily browsing real estate websites for entertainment. They're looking for a home. They've been watching listings, visiting properties, talking with their agents, and waiting for something that fits.

Many receive automated alerts whenever a new property matching their criteria comes on the market. Their agents are searching, too.

And when your property first appears, those waiting buyers are among the first people who will see it.

Think about what that means.

You've got a ready-made audience of people who have already decided they want to buy something. Some have been searching for weeks or months. They know the available inventory, and they recognize something new almost immediately.

You don't have to convince them to start looking.

They're already looking.

Your job is to give them a compelling reason to stop looking.

Here's something I've seen agents do that absolutely drives me crazy.

They put a property on the MLS before the photographs are ready.

The listing goes live. Buyers get their alerts. They click.

And there's nothing to see.

No photographs. Maybe one lousy exterior shot. Perhaps a description that tells them the house has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a kitchen.

Well, there's a revelation.

Those buyers move on.

Or perhaps the agent has photographs, but they're amateurish, poorly lit, badly composed, or show a house that hasn't been properly prepared.

The buyers look, aren't impressed, and move on.

And here's the part that matters: Many of those buyers won't come back.

They're waiting for the next new listing.

The agent can upload beautiful photographs a week later, rewrite the description, and finally finish the marketing. But the property isn't new anymore.

That first wave has already seen it—or thinks it has.

You can fix the photographs. You can fix the description. You can even fix the price. But you cannot give a listing its first day on the market back.

That's an expensive opportunity to waste.

When I take a new listing, I tell my sellers something very clearly:

We're not going online until we're ready.

Not almost ready. Not ready except for the photographs. Not ready except for the landscaping or the staging.

Ready.

First, we determine what the property needs to present itself at its best. Sometimes that's a thorough cleanup and a little landscaping. Sometimes it's paint, flooring, repairs, staging, or a carefully planned cosmetic remodel.

Then we do the work.

The house is cleaned, prepared, and staged. The professional photography and video are completed. The marketing materials are created using the finished photographs. The descriptions are written. The presentation is reviewed. Everything that needs to happen when the listing goes live is prepared in advance.

And because the marketing depends on the final photographs, much of that work can't be completed properly until the house itself is finished.

That's why I don't believe in making it up as we go along.

It's a production. Everything has to be in its place before the curtain goes up.

Ready. Set. GO.

I think of myself as the architect of my clients' successful real estate moves. And the launch of their property is one of the most important things I design.

The objective isn't simply to get the home listed.

It's to give that waiting pool of buyers the strongest possible first impression, at the moment they're most likely to pay attention.

I've said for years that negotiating starts a long, long time before a contract is signed.

This is one of the best examples.

Imagine two similar properties.

One launches fully prepared, beautifully photographed, professionally presented, and priced to make sense to the buyers most likely to want it.

The other launches with unfinished preparation, weak photographs, uninspiring marketing, and a price based more on the seller's hopes than the property's actual competitive position.

Which seller is more likely to have interested buyers making appointments immediately?

Which is more likely to create competition?

And which seller may find themselves negotiating from a position of weakness after the property has sat on the market for weeks?

That's why I treat the initial asking price, the property's condition, and the marketing as parts of one coordinated strategy.

The goal is to create the strongest possible buyer response before anyone writes an offer.

Sometimes that response leads to multiple offers. Sometimes it produces one excellent buyer who recognizes the property's value. Market conditions and the property itself will influence the outcome.

But the opportunity to make that first impression is too valuable to leave to chance.

Let's get back to the ugly dog in the pound.

If the price is right, somebody will love that dog. But wouldn't it be nice if we could give him a bath, brush his coat, and make him a little more appealing before introducing him to his future family?

That's essentially what we're doing with a property.

Some things we can improve.

Condition: We can clean, repair, paint, landscape, update, remodel, and stage. The question is which improvements are worth making and whether they'll produce a return that justifies their cost.

Presentation: We can use professional photography, video, thoughtful descriptions, and marketing that shows buyers why the property deserves their attention.

Positioning: We can identify the property's strengths, understand its competition, and present it to the buyers most likely to appreciate what makes it special.

Price: We can establish an asking price that reflects the property's actual advantages and disadvantages, current market conditions, and the buyer response we're trying to create.

And some things we simply cannot change.

A busy road is still a busy road after a $100,000 remodel.

High-voltage transmission lines don't disappear because we installed a beautiful kitchen.

An awkward lot, an undesirable location, nearby commercial uses, neighborhood conditions, and school assignments aren't problems we can necessarily solve with better staging.

We have to recognize those limitations and account for them.

That's not being negative about the property. It's being realistic about how buyers will compare it with their alternatives.

You can change the condition of a house. You can change the marketing. You can change the price. But you can't change where the house sits.

And spending money trying to disguise a permanent problem is rarely a brilliant strategy.

Here's where sellers can get into trouble.

They look at a nearby home that sold for $900,000 and conclude that theirs should sell for the same amount.

Maybe it should.

But what if the other house was on a quiet interior street and theirs backs to a busy road?

What if the other property had a terrific floor plan, while theirs has bedrooms in awkward locations and a kitchen that feels disconnected from the rest of the house?

What if one has a beautifully landscaped, usable backyard and the other has a steep, oddly shaped lot?

Those differences affect the number of buyers interested in the property and what those buyers are willing to pay.

A property's value isn't determined by adding up the owner's improvements or finding the highest sale in the neighborhood.

It's determined by what knowledgeable buyers will pay for that particular property, with its particular strengths and limitations, in the current market.

That's why I spend so much time evaluating properties before recommending a listing price.

I'm not simply trying to predict a number.

I'm trying to predict buyer behavior.

What will buyers love? What will concern them? What will they compare it with? What objections can we eliminate before they arrive? Which objections will remain no matter what we do?

And most importantly, what combination of preparation, presentation, and pricing is likely to produce the best result?

There are two things I preach to every seller:

You can lose money by pricing your property too high. And you can lose money by pricing it too low.

Overprice a property, and you risk missing that first wave of motivated buyers, creating a stale listing, and eventually chasing the market down.

Underprice a property without understanding its actual value, and you may leave substantial money on the table. You might sell quickly, even receive multiple offers, and still never discover what a properly positioned property could have produced.

And here's something that drives me crazy.

People sometimes make these decisions using an automated valuation, a few nearby sales, or a number they simply hope the market will support.

You can't hope and guess your way to the right price. And you certainly shouldn't let an algorithm make that decision for you.

Pricing requires understanding the property, its competition, its limitations, the buyers most likely to want it, and how those buyers are likely to respond.

Sometimes a deliberately attractive asking price is exactly the right strategy. But that decision should be made with a clear understanding of the property's value and a reasoned expectation of buyer behavior.

The objective isn't to choose the highest asking price or the lowest. It's to choose the price and strategy most likely to produce the highest successful selling price.

Here's something worth thinking about.

An agent with 13 years in the business may have never worked through a genuinely strong buyer's market.

Thirteen years!

Now think about an agent with ten years of experience. Or seven. Or four. Or two.

What happens when buyers aren't beating down the door for their new listing?

For much of their careers, many agents have operated in markets where attractive, reasonably priced homes could generate considerable buyer interest. Sometimes multiple offers. Sometimes offers well above asking price.

But when market conditions change, the methods that worked yesterday may not work tomorrow.

And that creates a problem for sellers.

An agent who's uncomfortable with a slower market may recommend an unnecessarily low asking price simply to generate activity and avoid having a listing sit.

I've seen pricing decisions in my own neighborhood that have made me question whether the property's full value was properly recognized.

Add automated valuations and comparable sales that may not adequately reflect changing conditions or the property's individual characteristics, and it's easy to see how mistakes happen.

But there's an important question every seller should ask:

Is the recommended price based on a thoughtful analysis of my property and the market—or is it based on what someone hopes will produce a quick sale?

A quick sale isn't necessarily a successful sale.

And lowering the price isn't a substitute for knowing how to attract buyers in a market where buyers have more choices.

Experience matters. But not simply the number of years on a business card.

What matters is whether that experience has taught someone how to recognize changing conditions, anticipate buyer behavior, and adjust the strategy accordingly.

Let's say a property launches at an unrealistic price.

The photographs are good. The marketing is good. The house looks terrific.

But buyers compare it with the alternatives and decide it isn't worth the asking price.

So they pass.

A few weeks go by. Showings slow down. The seller becomes frustrated.

The agent suggests a price reduction.

Now the price may be closer to where it should have been originally, but something important has changed.

The buyers who were waiting when the home first appeared have already made their initial decisions. Some have purchased other properties. Others remember the listing and wonder why it hasn't sold.

New buyers continue entering the market, of course. The opportunity isn't gone forever.

BUT...

Those new buyers—and their agents—can see the Days on Market (DOM) and Cumulative Days on Market (CDOM). And when a property has been sitting substantially longer than comparable homes, what's one of the first things that goes through their minds?

“I wonder what's wrong with it?”

They haven't even seen the house yet, and we're already starting from a position of suspicion instead of excitement.

Maybe there's nothing wrong with the house. Maybe it was simply overpriced when it launched. But now the seller has another problem: buyers are looking for a reason it hasn't sold instead of a reason to buy it.

In real estate, we call that a stale listing.

And some buyers may assume that a seller who's been waiting that long will be more willing to negotiate.

That's a lousy way to begin a negotiation—especially when it could have been avoided.

A new listing attracts curiosity. A stale listing invites suspicion.

Once a listing has become stale, there's another trap sellers need to understand.

The price gets reduced a little. Buyers notice, but they still don't see enough value to act.

A few weeks later, another small reduction.

And another.

Meanwhile, Days on Market continue climbing. Buyers who've been watching begin thinking, “Why buy it now? They'll probably reduce it again.”

That's called chasing the market down.

It's especially dangerous in a declining market, where property values may be falling while the seller is making reductions too small to catch up.

Sometimes the only effective response is to get under the fall.

Instead of another timid adjustment, that may mean repositioning the property with a decisive reduction—perhaps 5–10% below where buyers currently perceive its market value, depending on the property, competition, and market conditions.

That sounds dramatic. And it can be a difficult conversation.

But consider the alternative.

If the market is already heading toward that price, the seller may end up there anyway—after months of smaller reductions, growing frustration, and lost opportunities.

The purpose of a decisive adjustment isn't to give the property away. It's to interrupt the pattern, make buyers reconsider the opportunity, and give them a reason to act now rather than continue waiting.

If renewed interest creates competition, the eventual selling price may even be higher than the new asking price. There's no guarantee, of course, and the strategy isn't appropriate for every property.

But it can be considerably more effective than repeatedly making small reductions that fail to change buyer behavior.

Sometimes the best way to stop chasing the market down is to get ahead of it.

Occasionally, a seller wants to hurry.

I understand. People have deadlines, moving plans, financial concerns, and plenty of other reasons to want their homes sold.

But rushing a property onto the market before it's properly prepared can undermine the very result we're trying to achieve.

I explain that to my clients before we begin.

My reputation is on the line, certainly. But more importantly, so is their money.

If I've recommended a preparation and marketing strategy because I believe it will produce a better result, I'm not going to casually throw that strategy away just to get a listing online a few days sooner.

We can adjust a plan when circumstances require it. We can decide that certain improvements aren't worth the time or money. We can even decide that selling as is makes the most sense.

But those are deliberate decisions.

Launching before we're ready because we failed to plan properly? No thank you.

The seller deserves better than that.

And frankly, so do I.

When a property has been on the market longer than comparable homes, I want to know what buyers are telling us.

Are they seeing it but not scheduling showings?

Are they touring the property but choosing something else?

Are they expressing concerns about the location, floor plan, condition, or asking price?

Are we reaching the right buyers with the right presentation?

Or is the seller expecting buyers to pay a price that doesn't make sense compared with the available alternatives?

Those answers matter because they tell us whether we can improve the property's appeal or whether we need to adjust the price.

Sometimes the solution is relatively simple.

Sometimes it's expensive.

And sometimes there's nothing meaningful we can change about the property at all.

But the underlying principle remains the same.

If a home isn't selling, the market is telling us that buyers don't see sufficient value at the current price.

The important question is what we can do about it.

And the best time to answer that question?

Before the property ever goes on the market.