The feeling your life is put on hold and you are left wondering why my Maine home is not selling.
The decision to list your home for sale in Maine is because of a handful of reasons. The property is too big, undersized or a transfer means you can not take it with you. Until it is a mobile home that could be trucked down Interstate 95 to you new location in state or beyond.
In a small rural state like Maine, it is often cheaper to buy a better home than try to fix the weak points in your current one. The prices don’t spike up and down and the marketing time can extend while a new buyer for the Maine home is located through effective far reaching marketing. Supply and demand in the housing stock can impact how long is this home selling process going to take. 
So why is the Maine home not selling.
Folks wanting, needing to buy have to know about the new house on the market. Anything wil sell if fairly priced too. It begins and ends with pricing and does the figure used in the marketing match the real value in the current market. Over priced properties are not just the seller’s job to keep them realistic. It is the real estate agent or broker who can through the CMA market analysis to determine if the listing price is too high to ever bank appraise for the figure the seller would like to see written on the real estate closing check.
It is best not to take over priced listings because they clogged the market, give the seller the expection the place could actually sell for this inflated figure.
And the steady flow of real estate agent planting and removing their sign out front happens. Which causes the neighbors, those following the local listings to suspect the property. The agent is blamed by the seller for why the home in Maine did not get to a real estate closing.
If the seller does not want to sell but is enticed to list for a pie in in the sky figure, a responsible agent or real estate broker will politely put the brakes on. Respectfully decline the listing after showing the sale of properties sold in the current market and listed for sale that will be competing with his real estate to locate a buyer. Too many just like this home for sale means better pricing and higher powered marketing is a must. To make it stand out from the rest of the crop for a quicker, hassle free sale. Because we all know time is money in life.
Beyond the pricing, what factors hurt the sale of a Maine home process?
Like a used or new car that you are considering purchasing, the condition and showability of what is for sale is so so important. Putting in more effort than the typical Maine home buyer is used to in the day to day is required. Mowing the lawn and trimming trees and bushes is elevated to a higher need level in the daily and weekly chores. Clean windows, replacing missing or burned out light bulbs and removing clutter, any smells is critical to the sparkle appeal of the Maine home for sale. Marketing, pricing are the two big factors when you boil it all down to why anything does or will not sell in life or the real estate World.
Being able to show with little notice helps the Maine home sale. So does the possession date without delay so a buyer under the gun to purchase a house is not made to wait. Empty homes are competing with ones that house a family who has a tougher time relocating. Here are more reasons blogged about earlier to add to the list of factors stalling a real estate sale.
Getting bank financing for a Maine home is going to be harder for houses needing a roof.
For homes with foundation cracks, broken windows or leaking pipes, faulty heaters or other operating systems in what is for sale.
Banks in Maine sell mortgages on the secondary mortgage market. And who buyers that bank paper wants to know the quality is there on whatever is put up for the mortgage loan collateral.
Handyman special homes may be cheap to buyer but present problems in the financing process. The idea the buyer can take his or her time in the repairs is out the door unless the Maine home is bought for cash or with one big down payment and local lending that does not involved the secondary mortgage market critical lending eye scrutiny.
The layout of the home in Maine for sale can be a problem.
The lack of an adequare sized lot, or one that slopes severely or offers a difficult use of the lawn around it or driveway into it. People in Maine are used to lots of space around their homes. Whether intown or out in the country, or on the waterfront. If the dinky lot or shared driveway or whatever poor condition home around the one for sale situation exists, the real estate sale for the Maine house will be delayed. Market objections extend beyond the home is too big or too small or needs too much repair too.
Busy highways, being near an airport or interstate 95 where you here dozing drivers hit the rumble strip when snoozing or texting. Jake brakes through a downhill main artery to a Maine town or city are not something on the top of the gotta half list for house buyers. Unless the high exposure location with lots of traffic is a plus for a business or commercial and residential use blend of the property, keep it quiet, on a less traveled roadway is what many Maine home buyers are seeking. 
Retention of part or all of the property will make the Maine home buyer shy away from the listing too.
Banks making loing term mortgages don’t lend on houses where the seller or a renter is in posession of the Maine home for sale.
The lawyer representing the home buyer also warns the house purchaser that they may inherit a renter who won’t leave without an expensive eviction process. No one likes a job of evicting a home occupant because the loss of use of the property means the buyer has to find another place to live in the process. One property to pay for and not have possession of means two monthly charges until the situation rights itself. That can bleed out the personal finances of most in the audience.
Too many homes just like yours does not help the real estate sale process. Making your home stand out as above and beyond the rest in the pack looking for buyers means stellar marketing. Far reaching, more information, better more plentiful images, descriptions, videos, plat maps, floor plans, the works.
And what is so great about this home in Maine for sale’s location, feature list? It should not be kept a secret until the buyer for the Maine home darkens the doorway. That vital information should be put online for all to see around the clock so the Maine home buyer can easily see how your property is different from all the rest on the current listing inventory of what is for sale. We get asked the all important question a lot. “How long the real estate home sale is going to take?”
Pictures of the property for sale with snow banks in the middle of July don’t ooh and aah those in the real estate audience. It is never once and done with the marketing insertions online and in print for property needing to find a new buyer.
The longer a place is on the market can causes fatigue and less house interest.
Folks in the mood to buy wonder why this house won’t get sold and removed from the market. They draw the conclusion something is wrong with it, no one wants it. Shelf life is a real issue and adjusting the price of the Maine home is needed in a declining market or one where too many just like it are for sale. Like keeping a patient alive, taking steps to know the market and react to it means changing the original strategy of how to best sell this particular Maine home.
Too many family members in an estate sale can cause a tug of war on what to do when an offer to purchase the home in Maine comes down the pike. Take too long deciding what to counter offer means your buyer loses interest. Moves on to a place where the seller(s) are in gear to sell and will work out the wrinkles to cut a deal. Too difficult personalities and everyone making unreasonable demands from the seller’s side of the real estate bargaining table are a sure way to kill a home sale.
I remember one difficult real estate sale of a 100 acre property with fields, woods, the old farmstead and out buildings long gone. There were four heirs of the estate. Three were in agreement to sell. One was not. The lone wolf did everything possible to nix the real estate sale. It finally escalated to a court level to end up with a costly, long drawn out judgement. To list, sell for as high a price possible over a reasonable period of time and split the proceeds four ways.
This legal process called “petition to partition” happened because you can split money the judge reasoned.
Keeping a quarter of the property for the one odd man out heir was not possible dispite a major effort on our part. To try to preserve part of the home place for the one family member left behind to stake a claim on their 25 acres of Maine land.
Hard feelings from loss of a loved one on top of moving on to split up the property left behnd.
We understand that real estate sales are emotional and signal change for our buyers and sellers.
When the real estate agent or broker who took the listing is located way way too far away to service the property, the chances of a property sale dim greatly. If the real estate agent or broker is working a full time job doing something else, don’t expect a quick easy sale either. No one to do the chores necessary to locate a buyer, to keep them marching along with the seller to a real estate closing.
If the real estate professional has personal issues like poor health, a major operation or has pressing family matters to attend to, that makes him or her MIA. No one at the controls means the real estate sale dies on the vine. Listed, expires and another agency is sought to do the job of the first “secret agent” who disappears after planting the yard sign and poof, is gone.
The longer a real estate listing is under contract to sell, is a sale pending, things can go sideways. Life creeps into the process to derail the sale. With everything from the seller getting cold feet because they can not find another nest. And they retreat back into the property with a curt call to come get your real estate sign.
Buyer’s remorse happens too which messes up a Maine home sale.
Especially if something more to their liking comes on to the real estate market of current listings. Or the buyer loses their job, overspends and messes up their debt ratios so the approved home loan is suddenly stamped “denied”. Or divorce, relocation can all play a roll in whether the real estate listing under contract to sell ever means everyone sits around the long conference room table to cut the checks, pass the keys at the transfer of property ownership closing.
Like most businesses, the bulk of the real estate list, twist and sell is done by twenty percent of those licensed to do so. Pick the wrong agent, broker, REALTOR and nothing happens. Nice person, just not cut out for doing the all important job at hand. Handling the biggest purchase most buyers and sellers ever enter into is serious stuff. It is not child’s play and takes years of experience to see the ups and downs of the financing, legal and local market supply and demand best practices. Experience is the best teacher in life and without it, flying blind happens.
The agent or broker better have experienced a few real estate sale markets and can advise the seller of what is needed to cause a ready, wiling and able buyer to purchase the Maine home for sale. The local economy has a hand in the housing market and a qualified real estate professional can see the quicket pathway to a real estate closing.
I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |
MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Maine 04730 USA
