We talk to people every day that just can't seem to sell their house. There are many factors that have caused this slowdown. Let's break some of these down to find out when things will change:

1) Poor economy

Your guess is as good as mine about when things will turn around. We can be safe in saying that we are either in a recession or about to enter one though. Recessions typically last around 18 months.

2) Huge surplus of inventory/Declining home prices

These two factors are intertwined. There is no telling when this will be fixed. We all have witnessed one of the greatest housing bubbles of our lifetime. This was caused by the ease at which banks lent out money to homeowners who had no business in receiving it.

3) Financial Meltdown

Not only did the financial meltdown of real estate cause the crash of the bubble but its inability to get new qualified buyers money is prolonging it. Over the last several years it was too easy to get money to buy a home and not it is too hard.

So where does this leave us?

The law of price and terms tells us that as sellers of homes we either have to give up either on price or terms. This means that if we want our price we need to be flexible on the terms that we sell with to our buyer. If we want our terms we need to be flexible on the price of our home.

As investors we understand the law of price and terms with real estate and are willing to help get your house sold ASAP even in this terrible economy. Give us a call at (804) 565-9719 and we will be happy to come and see what we can do for you.

Obviously there are many sellers out there across the country and even here in Richmond Virginia that are having a difficult time selling their house in this market. There are many factors on why this is the case. It partly has to do with the supply of houses that currently exists; it partly has to do with the challenge of buyers not being able to get qualify for any type of financing to buy a house. Whatever the reason houses are sitting on the market longer and longer and selling for a lower price.

One strategy that can be very successful is having your own auction to sell your property. Now this may sound like a new concept to many of you out there. But in times like these you need creative measures to get houses sold, right?

There are several real estate gurus out there that have written books and courses on how to do run one of these sales. Basically it is referred to as a round robin auction. To set up one of these round robin auctions you first plan an event. The real key is to do a ton of marketing to drive people into your house over a weekend. You then ask them to submit bids on your house. Throughout the weekend while people are at the house you get them to write their highest bid on a sheet of paper. On Sunday night after the open house you call back all of the buyers interested in the house and ask them one by one if they want to increase their bid over the current highest bid.

Now a proper round auction should net you a bid price somewhere between 80%-90% of the estimated true worth of the property. Now this may not work for you because you want more money. Trust me, I understand this. However if you consider that fact that there is usually a real estate agent involved at 6%, there is holding costs, closing costs, inspections, and many other hidden costs that can add up to another 4%-8%.

When you factor all this in combined with the fact that your headache of selling is over it may be very appealing. Selling your home with a round robin auction creates a win-win situation for both you as the seller and your buyer. Remember that there are other alternatives to selling your house other than the traditional methods. In markets like these you need to think out of the box and do what it takes to get your house sold...and fast!

We are all looking for ways to sell our houses faster in this slow market. Two years ago you could just list your house in MLS and get multiple offers with escalation clauses for more than asking price. They would actually be buyers fighting over your house. Those days are long gone and we need to adapt to this market because it may be here for awhile.

Let's talk about some quick tips to get your house sold in lighting speed so you can brag to all your friends and neighbors about how smart you are and why there houses to so long to sell.

1) Have a friend or neighbor give you an honest critique. This can be a huge thing that we all don't usually think about because it is our house. Have them tell you what they would change or improve if they were looking at buying your house.

2) Make the house feel like home. This can be be done with staging of the house by a professional home stager. It can be done by just baking cookies during an open house. Just do something that your buyer feel like they are at home.

3) Constantly keep informed of the market. This can be done with using websites such as zillow.com or realtor.com. They have a ton of active and sold listings of houses that you can sort by price, area, beds, baths, etc.

There are so many things that you can do to help sell your house. The key to it all is be different. You can't expect to do what everyone else is doing when their house isn't getting sold. If dealing with all the stress and headaches of selling is not for you then you can give us a call at our office at 804-217-9123 and will gladly see if we can help.