Successfully Relist Your Home, Part 1

When selling a home, people know what they want: to find the right buyer who will pay the price they're asking and for that buyer to come around fast. When weeks go by and a home listing hasn't drawn much attraction, sellers tend to become nervous. When weeks turn into months, many times they begin to consider relisting the property.

Relisting is when the home is taken off the market completely, and then put back on as a new listing. This will spur more attention because it looks like a new listing. A home sitting on the market for a long time will begin to develop a reputation, according to Realtor.com. People will begin to wonder why it hasn't been sold, which makes it less likely to find a buyer who will pay the asking price.

It makes sense to relist in cases such as this. However, it's not as simple as it sounds. Like it or not, there probably is a reason the home didn't sell the first time. The second time around needs to address that problem. Plus, taking a home off the market doesn't mean people will forget it existed if they see it a second time. Relisting a home takes a lot of hard work. It is crucial the homeowner find success the second time around.

Follow the Rules

The first thing homeowners should know is their state's laws about relisting a home. Not every state will allow people to take a home off the market and offer it as a new listing the next day. According to Realtor.com, Jacksonville, Florida's rule states that a property can be listed as new again after 45 days off the market. On the other hand, Chicago dictates that a property be unlisted for six months before going back up as new.

Get Prepared

In the time between taking the listing down and putting it back up, homeowners should be working hard to solve any problems that may have held buyers back before. Bankrate suggested finding out what some of the bigger problems were by asking agents and potential buyers their opinion. This will help to give a clear direction to move in.

Once sellers learn everything they can gather about why the house wasn't an attractive purchase, the time is right to start making adjustments. If the owner didn't declutter, clean, paint or stage the house before, now is a good time. New paint is an inexpensive way to make a room look fresh to potential buyers. Doing some minor landscaping in the front yard is another way to upgrade a home's exterior.

Taking out personal touches is also a good idea. Taking down family photos might feel weird to a homeowner, but seeing them while viewing a house makes buyers feel like they don't belong, according to Bankrate. Buyers want to look at open, clean spaces they can easily envision themselves in. Unnecessary clutter and personal items take away from this vision.

Make It New

When it's time to put the property back on the market, it is important that all the information and photos are completely new. Photos are especially crucial today, when so many buyers are searching for homes online. Sue Goodhart an agent at McEnearney Associates in Virginia, told Realtor.com that many people looking for a home will view 15 to 20 listings a night online. Because of this, the photos chosen to represent the house must be eye-catching and should make the house look its best.

Even if the pictures from the first listing were good ones, new photos will help the property get noticed. If the home is being listed in a different season than the one it was originally listed in, it's important to update the photos to reflect that.

Selling a home takes a lot of hard work and strategy. When putting a home on the market for a second time, it is crucial that the seller has remedied all problems that have held it back in the past. By going back and fixing these problems, buyers are sure to be enticed by the new listing.