Expired Listing? Here's What Sellers Get Wrong

Expired listing, canceled listing, or your home sat on the market and never sold? Or buyers pulled out after making an offer, and now you're thinking about bringing it back to the market? Then listen carefully, because the second time around, you cannot afford to make the same mistakes and get the same results. What I'm going to share with you here should make sense to you. These are not complicated secrets or theories that sound clever but do not hold up in the real world. These are real strategies, and if you stop and think about them, they work. They would make sense to you.

We use them all the time and we get results. In fact, this may be some of the best advice you will get if your goal is to sell your home this time around, avoid the carrying cost for another 6 months, and avoid the disappointment of going through this process again. Because carrying cost can get very expensive. The advice is very simple. If it makes sense to you, act upon it. Trust your judgment, especially in a contracting market like today, in a buyer's market like today.

Doing the same thing again gives you the same result. So if you're serious about getting your home sold, there are 3 things you need to focus on: pricing, presentation, and preparing the home in advance of the inspection or offers. My name is Dar Mardan. I'm a CPA and a Realtor in Orange County, and I am going to explain this entire process to you.

I'm going to start first with the presentation. Before we even talk about pricing, let's talk about presentation, because presentation matters enormously. The way a home shows has a huge impact on how buyers perceive the value. The moment the buyers walk in, they're taking everything in: the curb appeal, the brightness, the furniture, the layout, the condition of the kitchen, the bathrooms, even details like light fixtures and shower curtains. All of those affect how they feel about the house.

And make no mistake, buying a home is an emotional decision on the buyer's side. People need to make an emotional connection with the home. They need to walk in and feel something. They need to feel comfortable, excited, and at ease. They need to be able to picture themselves living in your home and being happy.

That is why presentation matters so much. A house needs to sell itself. Listen to what I said: a house needs to sell itself. A house needs to do the heavy lifting, and we have to prepare it for that. It's not enough for an agent to walk in and say, "Here's the kitchen, here's the living room." Buyers are not stupid. They can identify where the kitchen is.

What matters is how the house feels. It has to feel bright, warm, inviting, and easy to fall in love with. That is why we need to prepare the home through the eyes of the buyer. My wife, Vida, is incredible at helping with that, and we can guide you through that process. If a home feels dark, heavy, dated, or closed in, buyers feel that immediately, and that hurts your ability to sell your home.

Now, there are some homes where it makes no sense to spend major money to make any upgrades. The condition may be such that the amount of money required to fully improve the home does not have the proper return on investment. We can't justify the cost because we can't get that money back. And in those cases, we either don't want to spend anything, or we want to be very stingy where we put our money.

Let me give you an example. Decluttering a home and improving the lighting has nothing to do with the house. Clean it thoroughly. Improve the curb appeal. Make smart, selective changes that create the strongest first impression, even if the house is old and dated, particularly lighting. Sometimes just changing the old light fixtures, using brighter bulbs, bringing in lighter furniture, or adding natural light can make an enormous difference in how a house presents itself. And yes, there are upgrades you should not do before selling, because they will never give you your money back. I have a video on that topic, and I will put the link to that at the end of this video.

Before we leave the presentation section, let me just cover one more item. Go back and review the comments you received from the potential buyers and agents who came through your home the first time. Write those comments down, study them carefully, and then discuss them with an expert agent, or call me or Vida, and we can try to make sense out of it and see if there is anything we can do, and if it makes sense for that matter. A lot of times, the problem has already been identified. The feedback is already there. We just need to pay attention to it and incorporate it into the plans for how we bring the house to the market the second time around.

And if there is something that is easy to fix and not very expensive, then it may absolutely be worth it to do that. So pay attention to that feedback. And as I said, if you need help dissecting those comments and figuring out what to do next, we are here to help you with that process. I'm also going to attach a video at the end of this. I have so many videos, and every one of them has a purpose, so I'm going to put 2 or 3 videos at the end of this.

The second item we are going to talk about, probably the most important item, is pricing. The number 1 reason a home does not sell is pricing. Make no mistake about it, and I'm going to be very direct about this. Again, the most common reason a home sits on the market and fails to sell is because it's overpriced. There are only 3 different pricing approaches.

The first one is what I call unicorn pricing. This is when a seller prices the home high, above the market, and says, "I'm going to leave some room for negotiation," and hopes that a magical buyer comes along, falls in love, and pays much more than the market justifies and the house is worth. That buyer is a unicorn buyer. And the reason we call it unicorn pricing is very simple: unicorns do not exist. Neither do those buyers, at least not in a crazy, contracting buyer's market like the one we are in right now.

Maybe during the frenzy of 2020 and 2021, when buyers were falling all over each other trying to secure a home, you could do something like that and get away with it. But that strategy is dead. It does not work in today's market, and it's the biggest mistake you can make. And I'm going to discuss that when we talk about traffic. If your home did not sell the first time, there is a very good chance wrong pricing was the biggest reason why.

The second pricing strategy is pricing the home reasonably, around the market price. We call it mid-tier pricing. This is when you price close to the market and hope for reasonable engagement. That is better than overpricing, but still not the strongest strategy, because we are in a buyer's market. Everybody's cutting the price of their homes. And if your goal is to generate the maximum traffic and create momentum, then that pricing is not the optimal pricing strategy for you.

Here's the truth. Let me explain it to you like this. When you're selling any expensive item, whether it's a home, a boat, an airplane, an artwork like what's behind me, or anything of significant value, the way you sell it and get the highest price for it is by putting it in front of as many qualified buyers as possible. That is what marketing is supposed to do. Marketing is supposed to create traffic to the item that's supposed to sell. It's all about traffic.

Traffic. Traffic of buyers is what gives you leverage. Traffic creates demand. Traffic creates competition. And competition gives you the best chance to get the strongest offer. Which brings me to the third pricing strategy, and in my opinion the most effective one: value pricing.

In a contracting market, in a buyer's market, if you want to sell your home, you price your home attractively enough to create a perception of value. You don't want to make it look overpriced. You price it in a way that pulls the buyer in. You might consider pricing it slightly below the market. Then the potential buyers want to come in and see it, because everybody, everybody likes to get value. Everybody likes to get a bargain, and people feel compelled to come and see it.

And when more buyers come through, you create the possibility of multiple offers, even in a market like this. I just sold a home in this crazy market with 5 offers. This is how you generate momentum. Pricing brings the buyer in. Without the right pricing, the presentation becomes secondary, because nobody will come and look at it.

The best time to sell a home is in the first 2 to 4 weeks after it gets listed. And if you want to avoid having your listing sit on the market for 4, 5, 6, 7 months with very little activity, then price it right. The reason many homes sit on the market and nobody wants to see them is because they're overpriced. It is the price that creates the traffic, and it's the high price that kills the traffic. And without the traffic, the leverage disappears.

Remember what I said: it's all about the traffic. I know I sound like a broken record, but the right pricing brings the buyers in, and the home needs to sell itself. Without pricing, we can't sell that home. I hope that makes sense to you.

Item number 3 is to prepare your home in advance of the offers and in advance of the buyer's inspection. Now, let's say you price your home properly and you improve the presentation. Before the offers are even in, you need to prepare the home for what is coming next, and that is the inspection. An inspection is a professional review of your home. It's a thorough review of your home. It's a long report, and it's going to find a lot of things that are wrong with the house.

That's common. You see it in every property. The comments come in 3 different colors: green, yellow, and red. The red items we need to address. Those are usually safety issues that we need to take care of. But preferably, we like to take care of those before the buyer finds them.

Let me get a little more elaborate. Most deals fall apart after the inspection report comes in, because it scares the buyers. Every buyer is going to do a home inspection in today's market, and every inspection report looks like a book. You can easily get a long report full of issues, comments, recommendations, and warnings. That is normal. Do not fear the report. It's the reality.

But not every item on the inspection report matters equally. There are 5 major areas that can seriously impact the deal, especially when buyers are already stretching financially or feeling nervous about paying top dollar for the home. These are the 5 items: HVAC, plumbing and water leaks, roof, foundation, and electrical. These are the areas that can create fear, uncertainty, and second thoughts. And if buyers are already emotional or financially stretched, these issues can absolutely cause them to walk away from the deal.

So before you relist your home, you need to look carefully at those areas, especially if you lost the deal and a buyer pulled out. Get your HVAC serviced. Get the plumbing and water leaks taken care of. Have a home inspection and look for the major repairs. Have the roof inspected. If needed, repair the damaged areas, replace the broken tiles or shingles, seal the problem areas, and get documentation that you've done that. Review the electrical safety issues and fix the problems. Look at the foundation and cracks to make sure there's nothing serious out there.

You want to remove the major objections before the buyer even notices them. You want to take the no out of the transaction. You want to take renegotiation out of the transaction. Because if a buyer already loves your home, the last thing you want is for the inspection to suddenly make them wonder: How much more money? How many more problems exist out there? What does it take to fix this? This is already too expensive.

There's a lot of psychology here with the buyers. This is how deals get weakened. This is how buyers ask for big credits. This is when buyers cancel the deal. And we don't want to have that happen to us. If you want a different outcome, then you need to act differently. You need to put certain processes in place so those issues don't repeat again. Take care of the big 5 issues and prepare your home before the offers even start coming in.

Let me try to wrap it up. If your home did not sell the first time around and you're serious about getting a different outcome the second time around, remember this: you need a different approach, because the first approach did not give you the result you wanted. And that approach has 3 parts: pricing, presentation, and preparing the home in advance of the buyer's inspection, before the offers start coming in.

Price your home correctly so you can generate traffic. It's all about the traffic and the number of people who come and see your home. It's only about the traffic. Present your home properly so buyers fall in love with your home and have an emotional connection. Purchasing a home is an emotional decision. Prepare your home in advance so the deal does not fall apart once the buyer does their inspection and finds things.

Selling a home is not a simple process. It's not as simple as putting it on the market and hoping somebody comes and makes you an offer. It's a complicated process. You have to understand the psychology of the buyers, and you have to understand the market conditions under which you're operating. Buyers are smart. They can see things on their own.

You need to make sure your home is positioned correctly in the market, priced right, with the right upgrades, even just the cleaning, even if you don't want to do many upgrades. What do we have to do to prepare it? And we need to make sure there are no major issues with the house. This is where the right strategy matters. This is where the right agent matters.

I help my clients through this process step by step. I do a lot of hand-holding, because I feel it's my job. We talk strategy, preparation, and guidance so we don't repeat the same mistakes and we can get the best possible price. The reason we price your home this way is not to sell your home below market value. The reason we price your home below the market is to generate traffic and create demand for your home. Remember that.

I can help you dissect the previous feedback, guide you on presentation, help you identify the most important repairs, and connect you with the right professionals. It will cost you a lot less when I bring somebody in than when you go hire somebody yourself. If your listing expired, got canceled, or did not sell, or fell out of escrow because buyers pulled out, you need help figuring out what went wrong and what needs to change in order to get a better outcome. And I can help you with that. I would love to help you with that.

Remember, I know I sound like a broken record: if you want a different outcome, you need a different approach. And that approach is pricing, presentation, and preparing the home in advance of the inspection, before the offers come in. Give me a call. I would love to connect with you. Take care.