Expired Listings: Why Do 40 Percent of Stockton Real Estate Listings Expire?

In this article we are going to discuss the reasons why houses in Stockton don’t sell and why Real Estate Listings Expire.

Believe it or not, selling a house has more to do with the honesty of the professionals that you hire than you.

If most real estate agents were just honest with their clients about the house selling basics, houses values and current state of the housing market this wouldn’t happen. I find it hard to believe that its true, but it is. Can you imagine selecting a doctor that way?

Let me explain it another way and see if this makes any sense:

Over 40% of all Real Estate Listings in Stockton (that is houses for sale) do NOT SELL within their initial listing contract period. They are known as expired listings.

We all hear about the houses that sell within a week, for asking price or above… but is that the rule or the exception?

These expired listings become buried and isolated in a vast MLS graveyard never to be spoken of again. In the Stockton real estate market out of every 1000 homes that sold, 400 did not sell.

Worse yet the homeowner, following the advice of that real estate agent is faced with shouldering the ongoing holding cost and the cost of any repairs and updates made in preparation for the sale.

What is an expired Listing?

Simply stated an expired Listing is a home of a seller that did not sell within the contractual time frame as outlined by the Real Estate Listing Agreement.

The average length of a real estate listing agreement is 6 months or 180 days.

In researching this article I was a little surprised at how difficult it was to pinpoint the number of listings that expire every month within the Greater Stockton and Sacramento Markets.

A bigger surprise is that no one is talking about the number thereby relegating it to a footnote rather than talked about as a real problem for the real estate industry as a whole. When you think number of homes that don’t sell annually, you would think that the National Association of Realtors would acknowledge the huge failure that the 40% Expired listings represents.

Think about it for a moment, if 40% of houses that are listed, expire from the multiple listing service before they are sold, it means that a lot of real estate agents (essentially sales people) are not very good at what they do and yet we never hear about it.

Why Do 40 Percent of Stockton Real Estate Listings Expire?

• Pricing of the House (too high)
• Inexperienced Agent
• Weak Agent (not honest with their clients)
• Condition of the house
• Targeting the wrong buyer
• Marketing
• Staging
• Difficult or Inconvenient to Show

Prior to listing and advertising a house, every good real estate agent that I know sits down with a potential client and performs a comparative market analysis to determine a pricing strategy and a marketing plan to sell a house. Together the agent and the homeowner talk about their motivations, time frames needs and of course the most realistic outcome for their efforts.

One thing is for certain, they do not talk about what happens if the house does not sell or of the possibility that their house will become part of the vast expired listings that sit on multiple listings services across the State of California.

Homeowners that need to sell their houses fast have never heard of this alarming statistic and another statistic is that 95% of all sellers list with the very first agent that they talk to. It is perhaps the single biggest mistake homeowners wanting to sell a house fast make. Maybe the thought is…  the faster to market faster to sell?

Whatever the motivation, if sellers want to maximize their sales price they need to take their time and interview at least three real estate agents, three local Stockton cash home buyers and also consider to pay for appraiser so they can determine the true value of their house as it is today.

My name is Peter Westbrook and I am a real estate investor in Stockton, Manteca, Modesto and Sacramento.

Unfortunately, I am very familiar with expired listings and the holding cost that homeowners accumulate and endure while their houses linger without so much as an offer on the Sacramento real estate market.

The dirty little secret that 40% of all homes listed by real estate agents go unsold is kept safe by the industry, but you do not need to become a victim.

I can’t tell you the number of times that a homeowner have said to me that they wished that they knew I was an option before they signed a long listing agreement that cost them thousands of dollars.

All too often that is the case, as real estate agents don’t fully explain the process of selling a house and what can go wrong or the risks associated with the house not selling or even what the chances are that the house will end up an expired listing.

Expired Listings Are Resolved with the Sale of the House

At “Westbrook REI” and “We Buy Houses Stockton”, we are the best at what we do because we work at it every day. We understand that a commitment to customer and a commitment to our business only happens with hard work. We have years of experience and a plan that we follow. We are a real company with real people that are committed to helping you achieve your goals.

Again, we’re not real estate agents. We are actually local cash house buyers and have our own cash… so we can make you an offer quickly.

Once we make you a cash offer, you can take that offer, shop it around if you want, talk it over with friends and family, and think about what you want. We won’t pressure you one bit.

If you want the best LOCAL We Buy Houses Company in Stockton, Sacramento, Manteca and Modesto then give our company a call today, we offer simple solutions to complex selling issues. Our house buying process is very easy with no hassle and we can close on YOUR time.

If you need to sell your house fast in the Central Valley, you can bypass the Multiple Listing Service roulette wheel by targeting the right buyer for your house to begin with. 

Call me at (209) 481-7780 or fill out the short form to see what we will pay for your house.