The NOT Solution to Selling Homes

Why do REALTORS think that the solution to sluggish sales of their listings is simply to put them on more websites online? Recently, a barrage of offers for REALTORS have found their way into my inbox, each promising to distribute my listings to more sites, more feeds, more portals than the other guys. The reasoning goes like this: Hey, REALTORS! The reason your listings aren’t selling is because there aren’t enough buyers seeing them. Or the “right people” aren’t seeing them. Or someone online isn’t seeing them. And the solution is to spread them around - feeds, blasts, blogs, blurbs, ads and spam - until everyone, everywhere knows you have another listing they might want.

Oh, sorry: did I say “might want”? That’s the catch, huh? Maybe the real reason listings aren’t selling online is not that they’re not on more websites but something much simpler:

Nobody wants them.

Duh! Could it be that the reason a commodity might not be selling in the market right now is, well, um, er, nobody wants it? No, no, no, no! That can’t be it! We just haven’t found the right buyer! We haven’t put it in front of enough people. It’s my MLS’s fault or my broker’s website sucks. Nobody visits REALTOR.COM or looks up my listing! It has to be that! Quick, run a newspaper ad!!!!!

Slap! Ok, snap out of it. Let’s try this again: Plenty of people are seeing your listings today. If they’re on REALTOR.COM, Google, Trulia and Zillow, plus a major brokerage website, that’s really about it. A few more eyeballs from Craigslist or some obscure classified site or blog isn’t going to make a bit of difference. Why? Simple: because nobody’s looking there! If they were, those sites would be as big as REALTOR.COM or Yahoo Real Estate. But they’re not. So the answer to the listing-isn’t-selling dilemma obviously isn’t more website distribution.

Now, back to the real argument: The reason nobody’s buying your commodity is because it’s unattractive. No, I don’t mean the ugly rug in the living room, although that has to definitely go. I mean it’s not a valuable commodity. More likely, it doesn’t contain the features people are looking for (notice the number of large new-construction properties sitting on the market, while condos are being snapped up by retiring Baby Boomers like crazy). Maybe - and here’s just a guess - it’s overpriced? If you’re using MLS data to price it, then you’re definitley toast: Pricing your listing to be “competitive” with other “overpriced listings” just adds more overpriced listings to the inventory that nobody wants.

Hmmm… maybe the listing information is poorly written - no staging, just blurb after blurb of features: nothing to make me “want” it, like a BMW ad makes me “need” a new one. More likely there are few pictures - except for the really cool ones, like the moldy shower curtains and curbside shot half-hidden by an oak tree and bus sign. Throw in a few “BR” and “BA” descriptors and you’re wondering why you’re not reeling in more customers? Well, even a fish won’t bite a rotten worm on a rusty hook.

Of course, none of these could be the reason, could they? I don’t know: Check your hits. If a few dozen people are checking out your listing a week (or day) and nobody’s inquiring, could it be that all the buyers are wrong? Just jerks, right? Couldn’t possibly be that the consumer has judged your product inferior - to their desires, or at the least, their desire to overpay for it?

Nah.

More website… that’s it… more sites, more data, more spreading. That’s going to solve everything….