Money / Financial Planning
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The real estate market during the past year and a half has seen tremendous growth.Thanks to historically low mortgage rates, and over 15.9 million people moving between February 2020 and July 2020, houses are selling at record rates. More than 7.1 million home sales were completed in the year 2021, which was the highest number of sales in the past decade. Consequently, houses were on the market for less time than usual. Though 30 days is usually about how long it takes for a home to sell, Zillow reported homes selling after just 25 days on average in 2020.
It’s only natural to want to get in on the action in such a hot market. But, maybe you’ve put your home up for sale and you’re not getting any bites. You know the timing isn’t the problem, so what else could it be? Here are a few reasons behind why your home might be sitting on the market.
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The “Entitlement Effect”
If you’ve lived in a house for a while, chances are you’ve become emotionally attached to it. You’ve celebrated holidays, raised kids, and achieved big milestones, all while living in a space that you’ve developed a fondness for. That fondness might have caused you to overlook some of the quirkier parts of the house (read: hard to sell), and simultaneously caused you to overprice the home. This was described as the “Entitlement Effect” by Richard Thaler, a Nobel laureate economist.
The best way to fairly assess your home is to compare it with other similar homes in the area. Similar means the same number of bedrooms, roughly the same square footage, and about the same number and value of “selling points” like a view or a pool. If you feel you can’t fairly do this, bring in the experts. Hire a realtor who you trust to take a fair look at the property and price it accordingly with similar homes.
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No Curb Appeal
It’s a harsh reality, but even if you’ve sunk thousands of dollars into renovations, if your home looks unkempt and run down when people drive by, they’re not going to want to give it a second look most of the time. If your property has spent over 30 days on the market, it might be time to examine how it looks to passersby. This can even be as small as moving objects left in the …….
