Your Vienna home has been sitting on the market for months and with growing concern you ask yourself, “my Vienna home won’t sell, what next?”.  The current listing agreement is about to expire and you must decide your next step:Take the house off the marketFor Sale by OwnerList it again with the same agent, orList your home with a New agent.

Taking Your Home off the Market

After putting your home on the market and seeing it not sell, you’re getting upset.  You may be thinking that no homebuyer in the marketplace thought the house was worthy of the list price.Because you are upset, you may start to rationalize that selling wasn’t that important after all and say,“Well, we didn’t really want to sell the house anyway. This idea of moving right now probably doesn’t make sense.”Don’t rationalize your dreams away. Instead, consider the reasons you decided to sell your Vienna home in the first place. Ask yourself and/or your family this simple question:“What made us originally put our home up for sale?”If that reason made sense months ago when you originally listed the house, chances are it still makes sense now. Don’t give up on what you hoped to accomplish or on goals your family hoped to attain.Just because the house didn’t sell with your last agent doesn’t mean the house will never sell or that it shouldn’t be sold.

Re-Listing with your Existing Agent

For whatever reason, your house did not sell.  Perhaps you now realize houses do not sell themselves even in Vienna or that maybe the listing price was too high. Perhaps you’re now acknowledging that you didn’t exactly listen to your agent’s advice.If that is the case, you may want to give your existing agent a second chance. That’s a perfectly okay thing to do.However, if your agent didn’t perform to the standard they promised or they just did not actively search for buyers, you should try a different agent. Make sure your listing agent, at minimum, did these 5 things to get your home sold.  I would also recommend an experienced agent who is an expert in the local Vienna real estate market.

For Sale by Owner

You may now believe that listing your house with an agent is useless because your original agent didn’t accomplish the goal of selling the house. Trying to sell on your own this time may be alluring. You may think you will be in control and save on the commission.But, is that true?Will you be able to negotiate each of the elements that make up a real estate transaction? Are you capable of putting together a comprehensive marketing plan? Do people who FSBO actually ‘net’ more money?Zillow, National Association of Realtors, and Core Logic have all reported that selling a home, For Sale By Owner, nets less money than working with an Agent.  Remember, Vienna home buyers are savvy and they already know your home has been on the market a while.If you are thinking about FSBOing, take the time to first read: FSBO’s Don’t Save on Commission.

List with a New Agent

Failing to sell your home in Vienna VA, you may no longer trust your listing agent or what they say.  The agent may not understand the Vienna market, or maybe they just don't know what it takes to get potential buyers into your home.  Did your agent aggressively seek out potential buyer, or what for buyer to come to him/her?Don’t paint all real estate professionals with that same brush. Have you ever gotten a bad haircut before? Of course! Did you stop getting your hair cut or did you simply change hair stylists?There is good and bad in every profession— Just because there are good and bad in every line of work doesn’t mean you don’t call on others for the products and services you need.   Make sure your new listing agent can meet at least this criteria, Your Listing Agent Must Do These 5 Things .  Hire a new agent who has a stale listing marketing plan to refresh your home for the market and give it the appearance of a new listing!  I will mention again find an experienced agent who is an expert in the local Vienna real estate market.You initially believed that using an agent made sense. It still does.Need a new agent experienced at selling stale listing in Vienna, or anywhere in Northern VA?  Email or call me to sit down and evaluate what makes my marketing strategy uniquely aggressive.