If you have had your home on the market for more than its local market average time and have not seen much activity or any offers, chances are that one or more of the reasons below are to blame.

Before you put your home back on the market, take a step back and review your situation.

If you owe more than your house is worth and facing hardship there are options available click here.

    Review your previous selling plan and you'll discover that an expired listing usually reflects a problem in one or more of these five major areas:

Your house is worth what today's market says it is worth , regardless of what the house was worth one, two, five or 10 years ago.

Comparing Home Prices to Stocks

Houses are just like stock. Hopefully they go up in value. Sometimes they come down. If you paid $50 for one share of IBM stock two years ago and it's valued at $30 per share now, would you expect to sell your stock at what you paid ($50) plus a profit? Of course not. Well, your house is the same. Property value is determined by the current market, not by yesterday's value plus appreciation.

2.    Condition

MOST buyers are looking for model home conditions . The paint inside and out should be near perfect. Everything should be kept perfectly straight and orderly. In fact, a buyer should be able to move into a house without doing anything, including cleaning the carpet. Although it may be difficult, a seller really has to walk through the house as if they are a potential buyer, being very critical and asking whether they would purchase a home in this condition. If you do not feel you can do that, hire an interior designer to do it for you and ask them to suggest what needs to be done to prepare your house for the most important show time you will ever have.

Another common question that many sellers ask is what do we do about pets, especially dogs. The results of a recent survey stated that 60% of all people are extremely scared or highly allergic to animals. What does this mean to a seller? Its very simple:  you need to make other arrangements for your family pets. Of course, these pets are family members and you probably do not want to board your pets. That's okay,but you may not sell your house in a timely fashion or at its full market value, with dogs, the liability factor is huge.

 Your pet is the friendliest around but some little boy may come in and pull your dog's tail, causing your pet to react by biting this boy. Then you have problems. Therefore, its best to board your pet, let a friend keep him, or have some relatives take care of him during this important stage of selling your home. At the very least, get the dog off the property during show times.

The things that make your house stand out the most is price and condition.

3.     Location

The third reason a house won't sell  is location.  Such things as undesirable schools, a higher crime rate, filthy/messy neighbors, a busy road, or noise pollution (i.e. beside a busy railroad track or under a flight pattern) can mark a bad location.

However, if your house is located poorly, the only thing that can compensate is a lower listing price. In order to sell a house in a bad location, the owner would have to ask for less than what similar homes in more desirable areas have sold for. Favorable terms could also help sell your house, especially if you are in the position to offer owner financing or a lease with options. A good REALTOR will be savvy enough to recommend a good strategy and overcome a bad location.

4. Terms

The fourth reason a house won't sell in a any  market like we are currently experiencing is Terms. If you are willing and able to accept buyers who are approved for not only a conventional type of loan, but also loans from VA (Veterans Admin--military), FHA (Federal Housing Admin), Seller Financing (are you in a position to help finance the loan?), etc, the number of potential buyers increases quite a bit. A Realtor can assist buyers in finding a lender who offers many options. For instance, loans with lower down payments and lower monthly payments allows more buyers to qualify to purchase your home.
                 More qualified buyers lead to a faster sale.

5.     Marketing

Aggressive Marketing Plan

If your house will not sell but you feel the house is priced right, in good condition, in a good location, and your agent is easy to work with, the marketing plan is probably the problem. Gone are the days when  what an  agent just  have to do is put a sign in the yard, place the house in the MLS, run an ad, and wait for the offers to come in. Agents today must have an aggressive marketing plan. Your agent must make effective use of the latest technologies and must be attuned to the new information age. Good agents will spend $100s marketing each house in their listing portfolio.

Lockbox & Ease of Showing

That brings us to ease of showing. If you do not allow your agent to put a lock box on your door, you will miss out on a huge part of the showing market. Let us explain why and a step-by-step process of a typical showing agent.

Here's how that agents works: when an agent has a couple coming in from out of town to buy a house, the agent will prepare a list of possible properties to show the couple. The properties are based on a previous in-depth interview to determine the couple's needs. After searching the MLS computer, the agent will print a list of possible properties.

The first thing a highly organized agent will do is check out the showing instructions, separating the possible showings into two piles: properties with lockboxes and properties that have time restrictions for showing, or an agent must make 24 hour appointment to show the property  or pick up a key. Because most agents and buyers are on a very tight schedule, the agent will place all the easy-to-show properties on the "A" List with a showing schedule in 30- to 45-minute increments.

          Your House May Be on the "B" List

If your property have time restriction to show or make 24hrs appointment to show or does not have a lock box , you're going to miss the first few rounds of showings because your house is going to be placed on the "B" pile. If the buyers don't find a house that meets their needs in the first few days, the agent goes back to the second pile of properties and starts showing the ones without lock boxes or houses whose instructions demand an appointment by calling the listing agent.

Suppose this couple falls in love with a house on the first few rounds of showings. Even if you have the best house in the city in the best condition -- you've lost that sale. So for every showing you do get, just think of how many you've missed. Allow your agent to put a lock box on your house and  try not to require an appointment to show (just a "courtesy call" from the Appt Center with a minimum of 20 minutes notice before the showing). You'll get much better traffic and a quicker sale that way