Are you trying to sell your home in the Iowa City area yourself without any success?
The real estate market is doing well and yet you can’t get your house sold. Why is that? I think a contributing factor is that buyers are working with real estate agents and have access to homes on the MLS. It’s human nature to take the road of least resistance and even with the Internet it’s a time consuming venture to find FSBO listings. (Homes For Sale by Owner).
Selling a Home in the Iowa City Area is a Full Time Job
There is no database of homes for FSBO listings, and finding listings for sale by owner is challenging to say the least. Even when I’ve found homes for sale by owner. There’s still been the challenge of setting up showings. Recently, the inventory of homes on the market in North Liberty under $250,000 was low on the MLS and my buyer client and I needed to broaden our search to for sale by owner listings. It wasn’t easy and took scouring multiple websites and driving neighborhoods before we ultimately found 5 potential for sale by owner listings to view. Did we look at all 5 houses? Nope. One of the houses had an accepted offer, (yes, according to statistics it does work for about 10% of for sale by owner listings), 2 sellers did not return my calls or emails and one had to cancel on the day of the showing. Ultimately, my client ended up viewing just one of the 5 potential listings available for sale by owner. That got me thinking about another major factor why sellers trying to sell their homes themselves doesn’t work out – It’s simply because they already have a full time job. They don’t have the time to market their home or field the many calls or emails that come up. The fact is that selling a home is a full time job and you’ll get the best results when you hire a full time Realtor to do it!
Listing Your House on the Iowa City MLS is the Start – Not the End!
Of course it goes without saying that just getting your for sale by owner home listed on the the MLS is not going to get it sold.
Listing a house is one thing. Marketing a house is something else. An agent who tells you that the MLS is the Holy Grail of listings is only looking at part of the picture. With most buyers looking for homes online it’s become more important than ever to make sure your house gets noticed in what is now a sea of homes on the Internet. Quality photos and a compelling description of the property will get your house noticed. I know this, because it’s worked for every one of the houses I’ve listed this year. Most recently for this one on Carlyle Dr in North Liberty.
Marketing + Accessibility + Communication = Home Sold
What will get your for sale by owner listing sold? Preparation and Pricing are two important first steps. A Top Notch Marketing Plan is what you’re missing when you try and do it yourself. Not to mention the time and effort needed to take care of all the details. This is our specialty at Cardinal Realty. We take care of the details and give you the peace of mind to get on with all the other important things in your life, like that full time job you have for instance, or taking your son to soccer practice. Before you lose anymore valuable time, (or sleep), wondering what else you can do to get your house sold, give me a call at 319-400-0268. Let’s get started on getting that SOLD sign in your yard!
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