Every house will sell at the right price.

But what if the price is really, really good and the house still isn’t getting any offers or even any showings?

Location

Many times you could have a really nice house but the neighborhood has a little “reputation issue” or maybe the school district ain’t that hot.  Maybe it’s too far from the nearest store of maybe the neighbors have junked up their lawns and back yards and the place looks like a war zone.

There are a number of reasons that location is more of a consideration than price.  Of course, even in a less-than-desirable location, the right price will attract some buyer even if that buyer is a real estate investor who may be planning to rent out the property. Real estate investors just look at the numbers.  If the numbers look good, the house looks good. Of course, part of the calculus in determining if a house is a good investment is how fast it might rent out and a number of other factors.

Condition

If the house for sale is in rough condition and needs a lot of repairs or even if it’s just the cosmetic stuff like paint and carpet or a new roof, the price may need to reflect that.  Most buyers nowadays wither don’t have the money or don’t want to spend the money to fix a place up.  Even a little bit.  They just want to move in, set up the furniture and the big flat screen and register the kids in school.  If they need to spend a lot of money to paint and re-carpet, they may pass it by.

The general cleanliness of the place falls into this category, too.  If someone visits your home and the dishes are in the sink or the clothes are on the floor, dogs are barking and running around, yadda, yadda, yadda…. the buyer wil most likely walk out and check out another house.

Tenants

It seems more and more that people who were “waiting for the market to turn around” had decided to move and rent out their old home.

Many times, the owners are in the military and get reassigned elsewhere or people get a great job opportunity in another part of the country.  There are lots of reasons people move and if they can’t sell their place right away, they rent it out themselves.  Not because they want to be real estate investors.  Many don’t.  It’s because they can’t afford to carry two mortgage indefinitely while the house tries to sell.

Tenants can be a problem, though.  Many times, the tenants don’t want to move.  If that’s the case, they may make access to the house by potential buyers a little more difficult than it should be.

Tenants also tend to have a little less, er, respect for the house itself and may trash it out a little.  This is not true of every tenant but a lot of people don’t want to rock the boat by calling the landlord about things that really need to be repaired.  Thus, there may be a lot of deferred maintenance.

Third Party Approval

I’ve come to learn that not all homes that need Third Party Approval are short sales or foreclosures.  In fact, I have a house listed that needs Third Party Approval by the US Army Corps of Engineers for a program called the Homeowner’s Assistance Program (HAP) which helps active duty military families who are underwater make up the difference between the market value of the house and the amount they owe on their mortgage.

This is so our men and women in uniform who are reassigned through no fault of their own can sell their homes and keep their credit intact. It also keeps the banks out of the way.  However, HAP does require that they approve the sale so that they can see that the home is being sold at the true market price and not some artificially low price just to “unload” the house.

Back To Price

So, there are mitigating factors to the sale of a house that don’t have anything to do with price…directly.  Of course every home does eventually sell at the right price.  It’s just finding the right price taking everything else into consideration – location, condition, tenants, third party approval.

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