[This is part 3 of the original blog post Why didn’t my house sell]
This homeowner has almost given up hope of selling their beautiful custom built home on 8 acres after 4 failed attempts with 4 different agents during the last several years. Here are a few photos from the previous listings of the home. (You'll see our photos, the "after photos," a little later in this post).
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A local mortgage lender, after hearing their story of disappointment and frustration, suggested they contact us. They did. After an initial discussion over the phone, an appointment was set.
I began doing my research and several possible issues came to mind during my online investigation. I created a list of potential concerns.
The issues of concern included:
• Even though custom-built by a quality, reputable builder, the exterior “look” of the house was not a common home style in this price range in the region. (In other words from the photo, the house didn’t look like a $600K home
• Although the owners had paid a good amount for the land and the home they had built, the owners had received three low appraisals on the property that were over $100,000 below what they paid for the property.
• The interior styling of the home was overly simplistic. We concluded the style of the home was rooted in 18th century Shaker or a primitive "collected" style.
• The homeowners hadn’t really decorated the home. Usually, the problem with many homes is that they are overly decorated or cluttered. The problem here was not their decorating style, but their lack of décor.
• Previous agents failed to really discover and highlight the “special” features of the home in their marketing.
So we toured the house in person and pretty much checked off each of the potential issues as valid.
Our discussion with the homeowners was a bit awkward because it required me to be brutally honest about my assessment of their situation (having been listed 4 times already), their style selections when building, and what I believed needed to be done to end our journey together with a different result, a sale!
Sellers were gracious with my commentary on their home and we began our work together to meet their goal of selling their home.
We moved forward with our pre-listing preparations which included….
1. Staging the home to warm up the home with decor, which widened the pool of potential buyers.
2. Gathering information about the special features of the property and area, which included Cowen Lake State Park and the World Equestrian Center.
3. Researched the special features of the home for marketing purposes which included a famous custom cabinet maker, David T Smith.
4. Worked with the photographer to capture photos that built on the strengths of the home and property.
Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I’ll stop talking and share a few of our listings photos (or "after" photos).
This beautiful property sold and the owners were free to move on to their next real estate adventure.
Here is what the owner had to say in his review on our Google business profile:
I owned a custom-built home that was unique for the area I built and at the high end of home values in the area. I had listed my home for sale several times with other agents in the past with very few showings and no serious offers. Don & Cindy were referred to us as agents that will get the job done. Don & Cyndi took the listing and had the home under contract in 30 days. I would recommend Don and Cyndi to anyone who wants an agent that will be transparent and will walk the talk. Great experience selling my home and would use them again without question.
If you are wondering why your house hasn’t sold, please give us a call or text to 937-241-2124 or email to info@MiamiValleyDreamHomes.com`