Your Baltimore Listing Expired. Was It Price, Product, or Promotion?

The day your listing expires, your phone starts ringing. Every agent who calls has the same answer: it was priced too high.

Sometimes that's true. But after 21 years of walking into homes that didn't sell, I can tell you price is only one of three reasons. Fix the wrong one and you can drop $20,000 off the price and still be sitting there in 90 days.

The Three-Legged Table

Every home that sells stands on three legs: price, product, and promotion.

• Price is what you're asking compared with what buyers can buy instead.
• Product is the house itself: condition, layout, presentation, and what an inspector or appraiser is going to find.
• Promotion is how the house got in front of buyers: the photos, the listing details, how easy it was to show, and whether anyone followed up.

If any one leg is short, the table wobbles and the house sits. Your job, before you sign another listing agreement, is to find out which leg it was.

Start With What Actually Happened

You don't have to guess. What happened while the house was on the market tells you most of what you need to know.

Ask your previous agent for the showing count and every piece of feedback. If they can't give you that, it tells you something about the promotion leg too.

Leg One: Price

Buyers don't judge your price by what you paid or what the house down the street sold for two years ago. They judge it by the other homes they can buy this week.

A few things to check:

• Search brackets. Buyers search in round numbers. If you list at $410,000, a buyer whose search stops at $400,000 never sees you. Being a little over a bracket can cost you a whole group of buyers.
• Pendings, not just actives. Active listings show what sellers hope to get. Homes under contract show what buyers actually agreed to pay right now.
• Small, slow price cuts. Cutting $5,000 every few weeks keeps you one step behind the market and makes buyers wonder what's wrong with the house.

I wrote more about what overpricing actually costs in Overpriced Homes Don't Just Sell Slower, They Sell for Less.

Leg Two: Product

When I walk through a home, I look at it three ways: as a buyer, as a home inspector, and as an appraiser. Your listing has to get past all three before it closes.

The buyer's eye

Buyers decide in the first minute. Smells, clutter, dark rooms, pet wear, and a front door that needs paint all cost you more than they'd cost to fix. If the photos looked better than the house, showings turn into "thanks, but no."

The inspector's eye

A lot of Baltimore's housing stock is 80 to 120 years old, and inspectors know where to look: water in the basement, old electrical panels or wiring, flat rowhouse roofs near the end of their life, and aging pipes. A buyer who finds these after you've agreed on a price will either want a credit or walk away. Finding them first lets you fix them, price for them, or disclose them up front.

The appraiser's eye

Appraisers generally don't count below-grade space as living area. So the finished basement with two "bedrooms" may not count the way you think, and work done without permits can raise questions. If the appraisal compares your home with the wrong set of comps, the deal can fall apart even after the buyer agreed to your price.

Leg Three: Promotion

This is the leg nobody wants to talk about, because it's usually the previous agent's job. It's also the one I see fail most often.

• The photos. Look at your listing on a phone, because that's how buyers see it. Is the first photo the best one? Are the rooms bright and straight? Are there enough photos to show the whole house?
• The listing details. Wrong square footage, a missing bathroom, or a missing feature like parking or central air can drop you out of searches entirely. Read every field.
• Showing access. If agents needed a day's notice, had to coordinate with a tenant, or couldn't get in on weekends, many of them just showed something else.
• Follow-up. Every showing should lead to a feedback request, and the feedback should change something. If nobody was reading it, nothing changed.

Before You Relist: Five Questions

Buyers who watched your home sit will see it come back. If it comes back looking the same, they'll treat it the same way. A relaunch has to look and feel like a different listing, or don't bother relaunching.

The Bottom Line

An expired listing isn't a verdict on your home. It's information. Read it honestly, fix the leg that was actually short, and the second time can go very differently.

If you want a second set of eyes, I'll walk through your home and your old listing with you and tell you straight which leg I think was short, including if I think it was price. No obligation and no pressure to sign anything.

More for sellers: 5 Things Baltimore Sellers Get Wrong · Overpriced Homes Sell for Less