“Days on Market” can be an anxiety-inducing stat for any listing. We’re asked to jump into a relisting process all the time when the first attempt wasn’t successful. These lonely properties left on the market for too long are called “Stale Donuts.” They no longer have that sticky-sweet, fresh and desired appeal and instead reek of “sad leftovers.” Not the emotion you are going for when trying to sell a home quickly and for the most money!
We’ve collected the best tips from pros in the industry to remove and relist a property so that it looks like an entirely new home and new listing! Here is our 10 Step Plan to Relisting a Stale Donut.
Step #1: Kill the Listing
Sellers are often afraid to remove the listing because they think their ideal buyer is “coming any minute.” The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. If your home has been listed for months on end, the current strategy hasn’t worked. It’s time to change it up. In order to do that, you’re going to have to start from scratch and completely re-evaluate the situation.
Step #2: Move Out
Generally, if your home has been sitting for a long time the reason is one of two major offenders: priced too high or presented poorly. It may also be a combination of: vacant, empty and not showing well bare; priced too high; occupied and just looks like hell; or terrible staging. Start with the vacating property and getting out of there. Pack up your stuff, relocate, go to an Airbnb, find a rental apartment, move into the vacation house that you have at the beach, go to the ADU that's in the backyard, get out of that house. Unfortunately, you are stopping the sale. Clearing out of the space gives you the opportunity to really prep the house for the next buyer.
Step #3: Consult a Home Stager
Home stagers know how to sell homes and they are coming to judge yours. This is actually their greatest value. A home stager is going to be the first one to say, "Look, you have to repaint the bathroom, you have to get rid of that brown sponge-paint." You'll be like, "Why?" And the stager will say, "Well, it’s a huge turn off to the next buyer and makes this space look darker." The blunt honesty of telling you what will and will not appeal to the future buyer is no reflection of the home you LOVED, only the home you are trying to sell to another family.
You should not pay a home stager for a consultation. It’s their job to tell you how to get that house ready for market. They're going to give you a lot of fantastic advice but you will not need to confirm a “yes or no” during that meeting. All you're going to do is take notes of that advice.
Once the home stager is gone, then you're going to take that list and assign three values to each item: time, money, and energy. Once you have those three values assigned you can make a decision if you're going to do each one of those things or not. Take a breather after the stager leaves, assign reasonable numbers to each task and make a logical decision not an emotional one.
Step #4: Execute the Scope of Work
Now you have that precious to-do list. That might mean you hire contractors, or DIY it, do some landscaping, painting, etc. Depending on the condition of the house, there may be a lot of moving parts. Coordinate with your people, create a timeline for these tasks and get organized. Figure out which you can do yourself and which you need to hire out.
Step #5: Stage It
Finally, all the basics of the home are set and well-prepared for the next family. Now it’s time to SHOW OFF the features and functionality of the home so your ideal buyer will know from first glance what their life will look and feel like. This is when you're going to hire a home stager (hopefully Spade and Archer). They have the expertise in selling homes, skill in design and all the furniture ready to create a drop-dead gorgeous listing. Your professional home stager will cost you around one to two percent of your final sales price, but they're going to bring you upwards of 10% more money at closing time.
Your home stager is going to create a design using furniture, color and art in your house that is not reflective of your personal style choices. In fact, of all the people in the world who might buy your house, you are not one of them. Your home stager is going to design for the 90th percentile of people that are looking at your house so they can garner the most offers in the least amount of time. This is not about your taste, this is about visual merchandising for a product that you have to sell, and that's it.
Bad staging can do more harm than good. Seriously reconsider hiring that budget stager. They might be more of a hindrance than a help. When it comes to comparing a cheap stager to a true professional, it's like having K-Mart compete against Nordstrom. Which one will you trust the largest investment of your lifetime to?
Step #6 Re-Document the Home
Your house is now perfect and ready for visitors – so let’s show it off with a show-stopping listing. This will include fresh photos, videos, 3D walkthrough, floor plans and a written description.
Use these new items to create a single property website. If you have a stale donut, having a single property website is going to allow you to control the narrative around this project. While it will cost a little bit more, it is worth it. A professional real estate photographer will work wonders for that fresh listing.
Step #7 Create a New Listing
Create a new MLS number so you can re-assign that to this fresh listing and no longer associate it with the old listing. You may be welcoming back home shoppers that had previously seen the home. Ideally, we want them thinking this is a whole new property.
Step #8 Change the Price
Again, it’s usually one of two reasons why houses don't sell. The home is either overpriced or it’s not prepared correctly. If you are not prepared to drop your price a single dime, then raise the price by $10,000 dollars, or by $5,000 dollars, or by something, by anything. The way that people search for properties today is that they go to a listing website and they put in their price range. $400,000 to $500,000. And if your number comes up in that same exact range, you're only hitting those people that are looking for $400,000 to $500,000. Give them a slightly different searching number so they’ll get a slightly different demographic of people looking for this space.
Step #9 Create that Momentum
It’s a celebration! Pre-pandemic this would be the best time for a little house party! These days agents are creating excitement with technology and social media. Any way that you can get people to view the home online will work! You have a stale donut on your hands and it's toxic. The second you can change the narrative around that project, the faster you will sell that house.
Step #10: Sell the House
Which brings us to step number ten: sell the freaking house. After online hub-bub, organize your leads, have private showings and watch those bids come in. Good luck!
Need a professional home stager to assess your stale donut? Here are the 4 easy steps to working with Spade and Archer to create a fresh listing:
Get your Instant Pricing.
Schedule a Site Visit with us and we'll assess the property
Schedule your Installation, we will send you a contract and invoice in short order
Sell the house and schedule your Destage
It may seem like a lot to re-list, but with our "Exceptional Home Staging, Made Easy" process at Spade and Archer, it couldn't be more seamless. Have questions or find yourself wondering if you have a Stale Donut? Start with a quote with our Instant Pricing and one of our design managers will come out and visit your property. Let's sell it together!