Part of what makes an agent good is the ability to find a property in their buyers’ price range that meets their criteria — and move quickly.
As you’re looking for homes in your buyers’ desired area, you have to look for both a property that ticks all their boxes and one that’ll close the deal. You’ll have to rely on your experienced eye to find homes that will sell. Being able to sift out the homes that are unsellable to your buyers quickly will save you (and them) time and headaches.
So, how do you define an unsellable home? It’s both a property that your buyers most likely won’t want, despite that it might be within their criteria, and a purchase that the buyers might regret. You certainly don’t want to mistake an unworthy property as viable and make the deal worthless, not to mention create a possible blemish on your credibility and reputation as an agent.
Here are five red flags that you should be able to spot immediately. Learning to spot these listings will save you some major time and allow you to focus only on the listings that will close the deal.
- Look for price drops and a high number of days on market: Unsellable properties usually hide among the listings that have been posted a while ago and the ones that have had a significant and dramatic price drop.
- Pay attention to homes with too many digitally staged photos: You don’t want to know what the owners are hiding. It could be anything from the lack of storage space to serious plumbing issues.
- Avoid listings with mentions of third parties: You don’t know if it’s a short sale or how long it will take to close the deal with many parties involved. And you don’t have the time to find out.
- Watch for too many trees around the property: This can turn out to be a buyer’s nightmare not only because getting rid of them can be pricy, but also if they can’t because of TPO (tree prevention order).
- Steer clear of prefab homes: Prefabricated or prefab homes, as well as steel-, timber- and concrete-framed houses, can turn into financial black holes.
There are many properties with issues that you, as an agent, can work around, so it’s telling the difference between the problems that can be fixed and the ones that cannot that matters.
Your clients will appreciate your ability to steer them toward houses that will make smart long-term investments, which will help you stand out among the sea of other agents out there and keep your clients coming back and referring business your way.
Marina Garan is a residential and commercial real estate agent with Explore Miami Real Estate in Florida. Connect with her on Facebook or Instagram.
