Interesting question, and a lot of answers--some good, some not so good. I realize since you posted this in May, your own issue may be resolved, but here's an answer for someone else in your situation.

The issue wasn't one of price. The fact that you had "many showings" indicates that prospective homebuyers--who search for a particular type of house in a particular price range--felt that your house was in their price range for what you were offering. Sure, you could keep cutting your price until it sold. But let's say your house was priced at $400,000 and that was competitive with other similar homes. Fine, price it at $200,000 and it'll sell. Michael--the answer below mine--will buy it. But what if you want $375,000-$400,000?

The potential buyers were coming to view your home, knowing the price and knowing its basic configuration and size. They decided on something else instead. Why?

Good advice below to have your Realtor contact the other agents and ask why. That's a good beginning. You may or may not get useful information. Lots of times, buyers and their agents don't want to offend others so instead of saying something like "The house looked like a little old lady lived there" or "The house smelled of cat urine," they'll simply say, "They found something they liked more." Still, it doesn't hurt to ask.

Regarding selling "emotionally"--that ties in with staging. Ironically, a lot of staging really involves neutralizing and decluttering--removing a lot of your own emotional connections to it. That may mean packing away your thimble collection, or those pictures on the wall of your 4 kids as they went from elementary school through college and their weddings. It may mean putting your grandmother's overstuffed sofa in storage. It may mean putting away all of hubby's diplomas, commendations, and certificates. Yes, those are emotional, but they won't work for the buyer. The buyer will be so overwhelmed with your presence that he/she won't be able to envision him/herself living there.

You also get rid of the blue carpeting in your kid's room that he chose when he was 9 years old. And all the magnets and notes on the fridge. And so on.

Then the place gets thoroughly cleaned. Walls are painted off-white or beige. New carpet goes down wherever necessary. Then it's staged--the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter, the table settings in the dining room, the clean fluffy towels in the bathroom, and so on. You make the home attractive, warm, and inviting. You allow the buyer to form an emotional attachment to the home--their home--because you've eliminated the barriers to that emotional attachment.

You do the same with the curb appeal. Get rid of the old and clunky--the overgrown plants. Trim them back. At the least, repaint your door, or install a new one. That sort of thing. You want your home to be warm and inviting from the first moment a buyer sees it. You want them to imagine themselves living there. You do not want them to feel like they're moving into your house; you want them to feel like they're moving into their own home.

Hope that helps.

PS you said realtors on Trulia gave you suggestions about this "emotional" aspect.............truthfully, none of us have seen your home, so no one can really suggest you need an "emotional" approach........your home may already be all spiffy anf show beautifully - we can't tell...................ask the agents who have actually seen and shown the home.......ask your agent for their feedback............then decide what needs to be done.......my guess is a reduction...........

Hi Rose
Price trumps emotions any day............emotions can kick in when the buyer perceives real value....they will just fall in "love" when they see a good deal! How's that for a positive emotion?

Many showings...+...no offers = price reduction

ps............why didn't you take the offer you got?

Good luck
Debbie Rose
Prudential NJ Properties

Price and presentation. Price gets them interested and presentation makes them start to picture their own furniture in the house and what they could do in this room and that room. In this market, the competition is fierce where price is concerned. You have to be extremely negotiable and look at what is selling in your neighborhood and be realistic about your competition. Like them or not, beat up foreclosure properties with not appliances and holes in the walls are your competition. Most buyers have come to the realization that they are going to have to do some work to the house after closing. You have a lot of benefits, however, if your home is move in ready, you respond back to offers quickly (instead of the buyer having to wait 10-15 days to hear back on their offer on an REO or 3-4 weeks to hear back on a short sale). Play up your assets...its what will take your house from For Sale to Under Contract to CLOSED! Let me know if I can help you. 757-237-0494. Good luck!

You might need to drop the price to sell your house in this market.

Rose,

Realtors suggest you need to sell your house "emotionally". Translation...attempt to con the buyer. This is classic realtor mindset: fraud, deceit, obfuscation, lies, omissions.

The current market is in a state of collapse that has really just begun. Everywhere are shell shocked sellers and clueless agents in an uneasy state of denial regarding bogus realty pricing.

During the bubble years(peaking in mid 2006) most everyone bought on emotions and became heavily invested in real estate.

This link is to a graph of home ownership rates:
http://bp1.blogger.com/_pMscxxELHEg/R59JrWQ3QBI/AAAAAAAABi0/…

Looks very similar to the nasdaq in 2000 as it began to stumble then later collapse. 9 years later and nasdaq has not recovered.

My point is that most everyone that could have bought a home has already done so and at much higher prices due to being emotional decision makers as opposed to logical/critical/reasonable decision makers.

That being said your pool of buyers consist of the following:

1. new, naive, and unsavvy buyers willing to burden themselves with significant debt.

2. older, wiser, cash only buyers patiently waiting for much better pricing whom are currently renting.

The unsavvy buyers will become the next round of foreclosures as they are now buying discounted properties that will be considered overvalued in a years time. These buyers will simply walk away from their properties as many are doing today.

if you are going to sell your home to either one of these groups you need to understand that the unsavvy group will be the hardest to make work. This is due to the fact that they have little money to put down and banks are really not wanting to lend to sub 600 credit scores with rapidly increasing prospects of unemployment.

That leaves you with the smart group of folks that will not overpay for housing but will not be reliant on banks to buy your place.

Walmart and dollar stores are doing better than any other business today. One must offer a good product at a great price to move anything these days.

I suggest the following:

1. Fire your realtor if you have one. Agents are clueless as to what is going on and they are generally unprofessional.
2. Your home must be absolutely clean, have zero clutter, appear spacious, and smell neutral to wonderful.
3.Whatever the market price for comparable homes is...drop your price 15% under that figure. This kind of pricing will definitely get a buyer emotional in a desirable area. Buyers must feel like they are getting great deals.
4. If after a month and no activity then drop the price another 10%. Do not do what everyone else does and drop by 2% because it makes you appear uninterested in selling the home.

To sum, price sells the home today because the real buying pool is composed of dreamers who can't get loans and of wise cash buyers that refuse to buy unless the price is excellent. These are the facts so work within reality. Price lower, cut every month until you sell. Be a fierce competitor!

A warning: sell before 2010 because realty is truly going to be much worse going forward with years of stagnation to come. In other words get out quickly and consider yourself lucky to do so.

Rose - Don't become discouraged...become creative!
All great input from the others!
I think Ron hit the nail on the head...Why not ask the Realtors who showed your home why their clients chose other properties?
Also, as the others mentioned, your home needs to show well and be aggressively priced . But understand that standard price reductions are not the most effective way to increase market potential and expand your pool of qualified buyers. When you reduce your price by $15,000 it lowers a potential Buyer's monthly payment by only $80. Consider offering a "concession package" of $10,000 which the Buyer can use toward closing costs or to discount his rate/payment. This is a great option for first time homebuyers.

Calculate your cost and savings for Buyer: http://www.321advantage.com/sellers-calculate-your-rate

Rose,

Selling a home, in our opinion, is all about PRICE and VISIBILITY.

One of the typical buyers first and last considerations is .....price!

The visibility of a home that is for sale goes far beyond curb appeal and a nice sign in from of the home. 90% of today's buyers are searching for their future homes on the internet. There is no substitute for a powerful internet marketing presence. The more people that are aware of the property and what it offers, the greater the chances of selling it.

Good luck

Rose
Emotions only work if the property is priced right.

Ask your Realtor, how many Homes, like yours, have sold since your home was listed? That is the true picture.


THEN you can work on everything else. Staging will not sell an overpriced home in a buyer's market.

Hire a stager - this is their specialty. Clean and neat doesn't do it. Search for Accredited Staging Professionals and hopefully hire someone in your area.

I would add this to the wisdom shared previously: make sure you or your agent creates an attractive brochure featuring the sales points for your house including beautiful photos with captions such as, "Enjoy three season dining on the deck." (if you have one) and make sure the deck looks inviting in the photo, and a photo of the kitchen that has been completely decluttered with a caption that invites the cook to prepare meals in the updated kitchen, and so on. The brochure will help the buyer remember why they wanted to see your house and why they want to buy it. It is critical that the photos be the best possible and the sales points listed on it. Use quality paper.

The brochure should be at least the front and back of one page and preferably the front and back of two pages.

Good luck!

Staging definitely helps. The presentation of the space helps. Those are things you can do to help sell the place emotionally when you aren't there. The biggest problem is some buyers agents don't emotionally sell the places to either clients. They just walk them in and out and on to the next.

A much better approach is to ask them. "Could you see yourself here?" "This would be perfect for your little daughter!" Words and phrases that help people see themselves in the property.

Imagine this: You're home for an appointment, the agents can't make it and a homeowner stops by. You ask a few questions and find out they have 2 small kids and need a bigger house for their family. You tell them just go take a look. And wait. Or worse you tell them, this place is kind of small for a family starting out. As you can see the backyard isn't fenced in and there is little yard for the kids to play in, there is only one bathroom in the house and it's downstairs, yet the bedrooms are upstairs, so you'll have to walk downstairs everytime you have to go to the bathroom, that's what I hated the most about this place.

Or Instead.

-This neighborhood is very family friendly, there are great kids out everyday playing. In the backyard here, just imagine your kids playing out here on the tree and being able to come in from outside and wash up in the downstairs bathroom without tracking little muddy foot print up the stairs. Oh and the backyard, I already checked with the city, and you could put a nice fence in if you want. I choose not to put up a fence because the neighbors are so great on both sides. It's a great space in here, let me ask you something, would you put your tv on this wall over here, or do you think it would go better over there? I tell you what, sit down, and get comfortable in your new home, oops I mean make yourself at home...

Word imagery. It does wonders. Paint word pictures.

If you can't be there to talk to them about the house, just make sure it shows well. I'd even go as far as adding blank picture frame, clear as day as far as location, and put in it "Image your family picture here." Trust me, just for a split second, they will do as you say and image it.

Rose,

I did interiors for model homes in California and Nevada and making the home appeal emotionally is just what we tried do. The first questions to ask yourself is who is buying this type of home, is it a young family with children, a retired couple, maybe someone moving up from a smaller home. Once you know who your buyer is you can market the home to them. For example is this home is being sold to a buyer with kids, put a board game on the family room table. This makes the buyers think about all the cozy evenings they will spend with their families. If the home is for an empty nester, place a some travel books on the coffee table and get inexpensive black and white travel posters framed and hang them in the hallway or den.
In the kitchen clear the counters and place a cookbook on a stand opened to a mouth watering recipe. You can even leave some of the ingredients on a cutting board for the showing so it looks like you just stepped away from making an gourmet meal. Use plug in air fresheners that smell of cinnamon or vanilla.
In the bath use white towels and candles and a jar full of bath salts, to help buyers visualize the bath as a place of quite serenity.
Keep bedrooms neutral with splashes of color again giving the illusion of serenity. You can also place a good book (not a paperback) and a cup of tea on the nightstand again giving the image of relaxing with a good book. Peppermint tea will add fragrance to the room. Remember to use a pretty cup and saucer.
One of the most important things is to keep it simple and completely de-clutter your home. Clutter brings anxiety to many buyers and you want your home to be serene and inviting,
Best of luck

Hey Rose. I believe what they are portraying is the need for a buyer to feel "at home" when they view your property. Have all of the lights on, soft music in the background, scented candles burning to give a "homey" feel, clean and neat. The hardest part of selling a home is the understanding that is no longer your home. It is now a product for sale. The first impression is just that! If someone walks through your home and it's messy or there are repairs needed, unless you price it to reflect those issues, the buyers won't see past the issues. And they won't come for a second look as there are many properties on the market for them to choose from. Do a very simple exercise, if you can be unbiased. Drive up to your home. Would the exterior be something that would cause you to want to come inside? Come through your front door with the eyes of a buyer. Would you pay the asking price if you were buying? What features made you purchase the home? Play those up! Have a feature sheet outlining all of the qualities of your home. When searching for a home buyers may see quite a few houses during their search and the particulars of each property become a little muddy. They need something to remind them about the features of each home they've viewed. The feature sheet you provide will help them to remember yours. Unless the purchaser is an investor they are going to buy "emotionally". Just as you will when you purchase your next home. I hope this has given you some help. I do wish you the very best.
Candy C. Dennis, Sales Manager Long and Foster Real Estate
757-623-2500 candy.dennis@longandfoster.com

Ask the buyers why they went with the other homes instead of yours. Ask them what changes you could make to the house short of a rehab, that would make it more attractive to a buyer. In the end it could just be the price which you may have to lower or offer the buyer incentives. Throw in an LCD/Plasma or credit to do the backyard. Anything that could potentially swing the pendulum in your favor.


Ron Miller http://www.buyrenter.com