Night of the Living Listings

Reviving a stale listing without dropping the price

By Myrna Traylor

Even though brokers and agents work hard to prevent it, sometimes there are houses that just don’t move as briskly as they should. Every community has an average number of days a home is on the market before it is put under contract, and every market has stragglers that are dragging down the bell curve.

Listing agents are a clever lot, though. They have developed a portfolio of methods that can brighten a home and recharge its marketing so it can get its very own sold sign.

Time for a Makeover

John Young, CRS, REALTOR® and team leader at RE/MAX Excellence Realty in Silver Spring, Maryland, took over a stalled listing in the D.C. suburb. The owners were an older couple who wanted to get every cent out of their home so they could enjoy their retirement in Florida. Young had seen the listing online when it was with another broker. “It didn’t draw me in and I thought it looked overpriced. The previous brokerage had it listed for four months,” Young says, in a market where nicer homes typically sell in about seven to 14 days.

When the owners asked Young to take over the listing, he noticed little things about the home’s interior that were not helping matters. “The home had a nice-sized foyer, but it was dark and looked a little worn. The light fixture was dated, and some of the outlets were two-prong.” When he told the owners that small updates were called for, they got a little nervous about the cost. He reassured them. “At a minimum, you are going to get back any repair money you’ve spent dollar for dollar, if not more,” particularly in a case like this where they didn’t have to do anything major, just little spruce-ups.

Young called in a painter and an electrician, who tackled the foyer and put in three-prong outlets throughout the house. Even though the kitchen was dated as well, Young feels that the new first impression made in the foyer helped potential buyers overlook issues in the kitchen.

Betsy Pepine, MBA, CRS, broker/owner of Pepine Realty in Gainesville, Florida, has also suggested that sellers undertake light cosmetic updates. “Once we removed a wall of cabinets to open up the kitchen to the family room, it changed the feel of the entire living space,” she says. “We also suggest adding a closet to a room that doesn’t have one to be able to call it a bedroom. Or making a half-bath a whole bath.”

Even in the second-home market, where some listings stay open for months while others can sell in days, exterior and interior fixes can help push a sale closer to the finish line. Mary Lockman, CRS, managing broker at Windermere Real Estate Methow Valley in Twisp, Washington, is used to the regular routine of getting homes listed, showing them to buyers and cultivating interest. Even on higher-priced properties that might take a little longer to move, she isn’t willing to let things slide. Communicating with the seller about fixes is an ongoing process, she says, because buyers want second homes to be nearly turnkey. “I’m in constant touch with sellers, and I give them feedback about what buyers are seeing and saying.” One of her sellers is a single dad who has undertaken repairs himself, and Lockman has told him that the buyer feedback has improved as things get nailed down—literally.

A Shiny New Presentation

For any listing that’s gotten stale, “I would say that it’s 50-50 whether there is legitimately anything wrong with the price. Whoever marketed the house first might not have done a good job,” Young says. So, if a property is heading past its sell-by date, look at how it is being marketed. Young’s listing in Silver Spring needed more than a facelift. “When I first pulled up, I saw that the house was on a small cul-de-sac with three other homes, and this house was set at an angle, facing the house next door. It was an unusual orientation,” he says. “The previous agent had taken photos of the front of the house, but at an odd angle. I hired a drone photographer who was able to get a better view of the front, as well as the entire lot, which was extensive.” Young put the house back on the market with the same price and new images and it sold in one week.
Even if you aren’t taking over another agent’s listing, Pepine advises mixing things up on your website. “We take new pictures or reorder the existing pictures and change the text in the listing,” she says. “The lead photo should be the feature that sells the house—and that’s not always the front of the house.” Sometimes the new presentation is enough to spark interest in potential buyers who might have scrolled past the home before.

And if it wasn’t done at the outset, digital staging can help turn things around. “If an owner is in the home with pets or children, I won’t bring in new furniture [from a physical staging service]—there is a chance it could be damaged,” Pepine says. “Digital staging is more convenient, and you can choose the theme and style. And even if the owners are not in the home, we’ll still do digital staging.” Pepine makes the virtual staging do double duty: Not only are the images used online, but she has the photos blown up, printed and set on easels, countertops and frames in the home to remind buyers at showings what they saw online.

“Photos are key in the second-home market,” Lockman says. “Understanding why people are coming to your market and weaving that into your marketing is critical.” Twisp is about four hours east of Seattle, and prospective buyers from the rain-soaked city want to see a slice of paradise, which means properties are shot under sunny skies.

“Refreshing our listings is part of the job,” she says, including changing photography with the seasons. “For example, ‘close to ski trails’ would be winter marketing and ‘close to hiking and biking’ would be swapped in for spring and summer time frames.”

Sweetening the Deal

“We’ve added renovation loan signs to the property so buyers know they can roll a renovation into the loan,” Pepine says. This can be a good tactic when the home is in a great location, has great bones and systems, but could use significant renovation in one or more areas. The agent can offer the loan to a potential buyer who wants to finish a basement or gut a badly dated kitchen.

Having a renovation loan accompany the sale is extremely useful in her Florida market, where properties over 3,500 square feet with no pool will face an uphill battle. “At that home size, most people will expect a pool or a yard that can fit one,” she says. To get around this perceived negative, Pepine has “a renovation lender put their sign in the yard next to our sign. And if buyers want a pool, as long as the appraisal comes in on target, the buyer can apply and get that loan done at closing.”

Myrna Traylor is a freelance writer based in the Chicago area.

For guidance on how to market expired listings, check out our education catalog by visiting CRS.com/learn.