If Your Home Hasn’t Sold After Months on the Market, It’s Time to Get Creative and Refresh Your Listing

When a 400-square-foot studio in a newly built condo in Manhattan’s Carnegie Hill neighborhood languished on the market for months, Dawn David, a real estate agent with the Corcoran Group, stepped in with staging and a small price change that sparked a quick sale.

“I brought in gorgeous furniture and accessories because when you add in furniture, it makes a place look bigger,” David said. “The studio was priced at $1.05 million, and I suggested they lower it to just under $1 million because a lot of buyers have a hard stop on their search at $1 million.”

Whether it’s an urban condo, a grand suburban home or a rural oasis, a luxury home can often take longer than an average listing to sell. But when a high-priced property lingers on the market for months, agents may need to step in with a new strategy.

When Jarek Jastrzebski, a real estate agent with eXp Realty in Chicago, showed a recent listing that included a chicken coop, he handed fresh eggs to prospective buyers as they left. Memorable moments like those can sometimes lift a luxury listing out of the doldrums.

“I focus on potential buyers and create an avatar of what they might be interested in depending on their age, gender, family status, financial profile, profession and lifestyle,” Jastrzebski said. “My goal is to help buyers visualize how they would live in the house and market it accordingly. That listing had 200 oak trees and a vegetable garden, so I marketed it to buyers who would be interested in the healthy outdoor life there.”

Targeted Marketing

When agents take on a stale listing from another agent or need to reinvigorate their own listing, they start with a careful analysis of why the property isn’t selling.

“Geography and statistics make a big difference in how I market a stale listing,” said Farah Levi, director of residential estates at the Agency real estate company in Los Angeles. “I need to know what the turnover is in the area, and I look at the buyer pool. A vertical house with lots of stairs will appeal to a younger buyer, but not a young family with kids.”

An extremely large property, such as a 20,000-square-foot home, is more likely to appeal to international buyers, people who entertain often or who have live-in staff, Levi said.

“We do targeted prospecting for buyers, and virtual staging or cosmetic staging to help people see themselves in a home,” she said. “I take new photos and videos, especially if something has changed such as the house next door being torn down and replaced with a gorgeous new home.”

In addition, Levi considers where prospective buyers might come from. For example, she knew that buyers from Atherton in Northern California appreciate the large lots in that area, so she marketed a listing in Claremont to prospects relocating to Southern California.

“Sometimes it just takes convincing a buyer about a property,” Levi said. “I told one buyer looking at a $16 million house in Hollywood Hills that a nearly identical house was on the market in Brentwood for $8 million. I showed it to him and told him he could buy a vacation home with the savings if he picked the Brentwood house—and he did.”

Looks Are Everything

Ginny Stewart, a real estate agent with Jameson Sotheby’s International Realty in Hinsdale, Illinois, outside Chicago, said she is “brutal” with sellers to get them to prep their home, especially if it’s not selling.

“Everyone needs to declutter, especially if it’s an older home,” Stewart said. “You need to thin out the furniture and accessories in every room and stage it to look like a showplace.”

Many sellers think their home is perfect and don’t believe they need to stage it until it lingers on the market unsold. Once the staging is done, Stewart takes all new photos and videos and rewrites the listing description.

While decluttering and fresh paint are tried-and-true ways to spruce up any listing, the opposite approach may liven up a sterile-looking new construction. In those cases, David opts for wallpaper.

“Wallpaper offers a creative way to add color and texture, especially in model residences,” David said.

Creative Marketing Techniques

Twilight open houses, art shows, intimate dinners, and exhibits of fancy cars are used to generate interest in luxury listings.

“These kinds of events don’t always work, but visibility is important,” Levi said. “Sometimes someone comes to the event and calls someone they know who ends up buying the property.”

Jastrzebski often invites affluent influencers to open house events since they are likely to share photos or mention the property on social media and may know a potential buyer.

In Chicago, Stewart sometimes hosts wine tastings and invitation-only open houses for top brokers and their clients. She said one broker hosted an all-day event at a luxury home where visitors could test-drive Ferraris—but that didn’t sell the house.

“We really rely on other brokers in the New York City luxury market, so we try to come up with curated events and hand out treats along with marketing materials,” David said. “We like to collaborate with local businesses, such as a florist, a boutique for little gifts and specialty restaurants for the food.”

David attended a “lunch and learn” held by another broker in a building where they had several listings.

“It was so smart because we looked at several open houses, got lunch and a great session of social media training,” David said.

Price Adjustments Sometimes Required

Luxury buyers are more price sensitive right now because of economic and political uncertainty, Levi said.

“We do an inventory check to see what the price difference is for similar properties,” she said. “If there’s less inventory, then we’re less likely to reduce the price. But if there are six houses like our listing with lower prices, then all we’re doing is helping sell those houses.”

How much the price should be reduced depends on how quickly the sellers need to move, Levi said.

“I also educate sellers that the longer they sit on the market, the more likely it is that a buyer will offer a lower price,” Levi said. “It may not be worth it to stay on the market in the hope of getting $50,000 extra, especially when you consider what you’re spending to keep the house running for an extra six months or more.”

If similar homes sell more quickly, then that can be an indication that a home is overpriced, Jastrzebski said.

“If a home has no showings, then it’s 12% overpriced,” he said. “If you’re getting showings but no offers, then it’s 6% overpriced.”

Take a Break

Buyers and their agents can easily find property history on sites such as Zillow, Redfin and Realtor.com and know that a house has been delisted and relisted. However, taking it off the market for 90 days and relisting makes the house appear as a new listing on local Multiple Listing Services, Stewart said.

“New photos and a new description can also improve the chances of a listing looking new after a break,” Stewart said.

Sometimes taking a property off the market generates an offer.

“When we take a listing off the market for three days or 30 days, that often generates a lot of calls from agents asking us what happened,” Levi said. “Sometimes that can be leveraged into getting an offer. It’s all psychology. Some people love the idea that they bought a house when it wasn’t on the market.”

Stewart suggests that selling a listing off market through a private network and the broker site can be a good option for some luxury properties since it’s easier to avoid the stigma of sitting on the market for too long.  

By: Michele Lerner I Mansion Global I July 19, 2024