Why Isn't My Home Selling?
No one controls the market. We all are subject to the market circumstances at the time we are trying to sell. There are 3 types of markets
1. Sellers market (Like Toronto with too many buyers and not enough houses with bidding wars where houses sell for more than the asking price.)
2. Balanced market where there are enough homes and enough buyers and buying and selling is normal.
3. Buyers market where there are too many homes for sale and not enough buyers making it hard to sell your home for a good price. (This is the market we are in here locally.)
A number of things have caused this
1. Birth Control We stopped having babies. A generation ago we had 5 to 15 children in a family growing up and buying houses. Now the average Canadian family is 1.6 children.
2. Our economy and migration many of our young people move away for work.
3. Credit tightening !! Because of the hot real estate (Sellers) markets in Toronto and Vancouver and the fear of a national housing collapse the federal government has been making it harder to get a mortgage by changing the lending rules. In Canada most markets across the country are sellers or balanced markets only the east coast is experiencing a buyers market because we have little immigration or job growth.
The end result for all of us here is a buyers market with too many houses for sale and not enough buyers too buy them.
So what do you do if you are a home owner trying to sell in a buyers market ? It depends on your own circumstances.
There are two types of circumstances.
Number ONE-I'll sell my home if i get enough money. (Under no pressure and can wait until the market and prices improve.)
Number TWO- I need to sell my home because of pressures beyond my control personal or financial usually.
Solutions.
Number ONE - List your home at a price you are comfortable with and wait understanding the market is like the lottery and you can't win it if you aren't in it.
Number TWO -Waiting is not an option have your agent do a competitive market analysis. This compares your house to the houses you are competing with. Then make sure your home is the most competitively priced.
All of our circumstances are different but time is the main common denominator. How long can you wait for the market to improve if you want a better price ? Time once lost can never be regained. Circumstances where you do not normally have time to wait can be health (You are sick) financial (You are being foreclosed on) Personal (Going through divorce or separation)
Early in my career I would go out and give some one a recommended asking price to list their house at. They would want more and because real estate prices always went up I would list it and quite often inflation would catch up with their expectations and we would sell their home at a price they were happy with. They were in no hurry and prepared to wait. As demand and available qualified buyers have lessened that is not happening in our current market. The past few years some of my elderly customer's partner's have gotten ill and passed away while waiting for the market to improve. Now when someone tells me they are under no pressure and have lots of time I feel obligated to tell them nobody has lots of time because we all die. Time once lost can never be regained and I've never seen a hearse with a U-Haul. We can't take anything with us.
Over my career I have seen so many people waste so much precious time with their life on hold while they are trying to sell a house. Time that they will never get back and time that is lost forever.
This is time with a loved one, time with your kids, time with your grand kids, time starting a new life in a new location. Precious time.
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