Almost every home seller I meet thinks their property is special, and will sell quicker than other homes that are out there on the market.  Their home is special- to them, but what they think is especially GOOD may be considered especially BAD to a potential home buyer.

What are the top reasons homes in Marin don’t sell?

The home is over priced. If the market data is telling you to price your home at one price, and you have said those famous last words, “yes, but my home is special”, well, you might need to rethink this thought process.  The biggest reason Marin homes don’t sell is PRICE.

Insufficient property preparation and presentation. Unless you plan to price your home at a rock bottom price, property presentation is crucial to the sale of a home.  Preparing a property to sell includes a number of very important factors including:

• General maintenance – paint, functioning appliances, no leaks, etc.
• Landscaping – nice curb appeal is crucial to get potential home buyers in the door.  If it doesn’t look good from the exterior- the majority of home buyers will never get out of the car.  Good exterior spaces can sell a home.
• Interior staging- whether you stage it yourself or a hire a professional stager, staging can sell a home.  Professional stagers are experts at taking awkward spaces and making them functional and beautiful.  The majority of home buyers don’t live their life like you. Or at least they don’t think they do.  Home buyers don’t have vision on how to make your space into their dream home. Professional stagers can help create that vision for them.

Poor marketing. A solid marketing strategy is crucial to the sale of your home.  If home buyers can’t find your home, how are they going to buy it? Once a home is properly prepared, it can be marketed.  The first step to a good marketing plan is professional photographs.  Unless your agent is a professional photographer by night, they probably don’t have photographs that will WOW a buyer.  With lots of other homes on the market, satisfactory photos are not enough- you need WOW.   Think WOW NOW, not WOW later. If you rush to get your home on the market and don’t take the time to properly prepare and market your home, you may miss your window of opportunity.  The initial launch of the sale of your home is absolutely crucial.  Home buyers searching online may look at your home once, but once they dismiss it, is unlikely they will ever return to view it again.  WOW NOW, not WOW later (this includes price too!). It constantly amazes, shocks and horrifies me how many homes are marketed with poor photographs or even no photographs.  Seriously, letting your home go online without photographs for even 2 hours is like breaking your own leg the night before a big race.  Buyers won’t come back.  Period.

Once you have great photographs, your home should be canvased across the web.  Whether I am searching for your property address or parameters like a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home in Tiburon, I should be able to find your home online.  Putting the property in the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) is not enough.  The majority of home buyers are out there searching online themselves- constantly.  They aren’t waiting for their agent to pull it up on the MLS.  Marketing a home online takes skill, hire an expert who doesn’t just feed it to the MLS.

Price+Preparation+Proper Marketing=Offer

Homes are taking longer to sell in today’s market.   Even if all of the above factors are properly done, homes will take longer to sell than a year ago.  Get regular market updates from your agent.  Watch the average days on market for homes similar to yours in similar locations.  If you aren’t selling, something in the above formula is missing.

August is here and the Marin County home sale stats for July are in.  The number of homes sold is still down over last year but the interesting item is the number of Marin homes going under contract.  This number has increased by 27% over last year.  What does this mean?  Home buyers in Marin are writing offers.  This is a good start to seeing some positive signs in the Marin real estate market.

The data above is for single family residential homes in Marin County, California.  Are you a Marin real estate junkie? Sign up to receive very detailed real-time market reports in your email. Just register and let me know which neighborhoods you are interested in. Download a sample report.

Marin County Homes for Sale Pending Rates

Are you a Marin real estate junkie? Sign up to receive very detailed real-time market reports in your email. Just register and let me know which neighborhoods you are interested in. Download a sample report.

Searching for open homes in Marin County? The Marin Association of REALTORS® just launched a new website to help the public find open homes in Marin. The site is very easy to use. You can search Marin open homes by city:

You can also search open homes on a map of Marin:

The site just launched today so it might take a little time to get full adoption by real estate agents in Marin County but it will be the primary listing for Marin open homes going forward. The site is specifically limited to homes for sale in Marin.

Check it out at www.marinopenhomes.com.

The Academic Performance Index (API) scores for Marin County have been released.  A score of 800 is the state’s standard for Academic Achievement.  The Marin IJ reports that 1/3 of Marin schools score at 800 or higher.  15 Marin schools scored 900+, down from 18 Marin schools last year.   According to the IJ,

Tiburon’s Bel Aire Elementary School received Marin’s highest score with 947. Other top-scoring schools included Kentfield’s Anthony G. Bacich Elementary, Larkspur’s Hall Middle School, Mill Valley’s Tamalpais Valley Elementary School and Tiburon’s Del Mar Middle School, whose API score jumped 19 points from 914 to 933.

Many of Marin’s schools could not be scored because they now teach kids in grades K-8, which are not comparable on the state’s scoring system.

Visit the Marin IJ for the full story.