How to Relist Your Home for Sale

In this article

• Determine the home's market status
• Assess any weaknesses
• Hire a new agent
• Declutter and stage
• Rework your marketing strategy

Listing a home is hard enough when it sells quickly. But canceling your listing, or waiting until it expires because it didn't sell in a reasonable amount of time, can be pretty demoralizing — not to mention a financial burden.

Once your listing expires on the MLS (how long it takes to expire depends on the agreement you made with your listing agent), it's time to reassess. Try to learn from past mistakes, rethink your pricing strategy, and do whatever it takes to get your home sold the second time around.

1. Determine your home's current MLS status

Before you relist, you'll have to determine your home's current MLS status. It's the very first step you need to take before you can move forward with a new strategy or hire a new agent.

• Active/on-market: Your home is still showing as an active listing for potential buyers. You'll need to delist or cancel the listing to move forward with relisting.
• Expired/off market: Homes displayed as expired or off market do not need to be canceled. You can relist at any point after the expiration date. An important note: The phrase "off market" can also apply to for-sale-by-owner (FSBO) homes that may be actively for sale, but they're not listed on the MLS.

What is 'days on the market' (DOM)?

When a home is listed on the MLS, the listing displays the number of days it's been active — meaning the number of days it's been listed on the MLS before going pending/under contract.

Days on the market, which is often abbreviated DOM, is a data point real estate analysts use to determine how fast homes are selling in a particular region or area.

• As of September 30, 2018, the average DOM in the United States was 72 days.
• Homes sell fastest in West Coast markets, like San Jose, San Francisco and Seattle.
• Homes sell slowest in the Midwest and Northeast — in markets like Peoria, New York City and Syracuse.

Does the MLS allow days on the market to reset?

To reset your days on the market to zero and start fresh, you may have to wait 90 days or so before relisting. What makes this tricky is that the MLS in every market operates a little differently. For example, Chicago's MLS requires six months off the market before a DOM is reset. But in other cities, your DOM may reset as soon as your listing expires.

Some regions' MLS systems display both DOM and cumulative days on market (CDOM). In these cases, the DOM resets every time the home goes pending, the listing expires or a listing is canceled. But the CDOM will continue to tally the number of days from initial listing to closing, within a certain time frame and regardless of any changes.

However, in some regions, your DOM “counter” will pick up where it left off if your home went under contract and then the deal fell through.

Regardless of how your MLS calculates DOM or CDOM, here are a few reasons why it might be worth waiting for a reset before relisting:

• When buyers see a high number, they may use it for leverage or to gain negotiating power. A stale listing can be a sign that the seller is desperate to sell, so a buyer may make a lower offer than they would if the listing was new.
• Buyers may also see a high DOM as a red flag on a property. They might assume there are defects or major issues with the home.

Here's one important distinction. Buyers may only be concerned about the DOM of your home if it's higher than the average days on the market in your area. If every home listed has a high DOM, it's probably just a sign of a buyers market, and it doesn't reflect poorly on your listing specifically.

Conversely, if every home has a low DOM, it’s usually a sellers market, where homes are selling very quickly. If your home is sitting around in a sellers market, it's time to rethink your strategy.

What does 'delist' mean?

Delisting your home is when you actively cancel your listing before it expires. Your agreed-upon expiration date was decided by you and your listing agent when you started working together, and it can range between a few months to a few years, depending on what's appropriate for your market.

What does off market mean?

Your home can be considered off market in one of two ways. First, your home is off the market if you have an expired MLS listing. But off market also refers to a home that may indeed be for sale, but it isn’t listed on the MLS. Examples include FSBOs or pre-market homes.

The impact delisting has on your listing agreement

If your home is currently listed with an agent, you may have to wait until the listing expires. If you don't want to wait, you may incur a cancellation fee — make sure to check the termination clause of your listing agreement.

If your home's listing on the MLS has already expired, you are free to list with another agent as soon as midnight on the expiration date.

Agents who are part of a professional organization are usually held to ethical standards that prevent them from reaching out to sellers who are already working with another agent. But you can always interview agents in preparation for your listing expiring or being canceled.

How do I relist a FSBO?

If you're selling for sale by owner, you don't have to follow the rules of officially relisting, since your home wasn't on the MLS to begin with. You're free to take your home on or off anywhere you have it listed, at any time.

One thing you should keep in mind is that, depending on the website you listed on, buyers may be able to see your listing activity in the property history. Many real estate search sites track listing and delisting dates as part of the home's profile.

If you're selling FSBO and your home hasn't sold, you might consider hiring an agent who can help you identify why your home might not have sold the first time around and give their professional advice to help you correct for the relisting. You can start working with an agent at any time, since you don't have to wait for a listing agreement to expire.

2. Assess any listing and property weaknesses

Consider these reasons your home many not have sold the first time:

• Overpriced: A compelling listing price can sell a house, and overpricing is a common reason homes take longer to sell. How do you know if your house was overpriced? If you had a few dozen people visit and nobody made an offer, it was probably overpriced. According to the Zillow Group Consumer Housing Trends Report 2019, 60 percent of sellers in the last 12 months made at least one price cut, so if you need to consider changing your price, you're not alone.
• Bad time of year: With very few exceptions, January is not the best time of year to list your house.
• Slow or buyers market: In a buyers market, there are more houses for sale than buyers shopping. While market trends can be long-lasting and you can't control them, reducing your price can help motivate buyers.
• Difficult to show: If your home is tenant-occupied or there's another reason you had to restrict the showing hours, you could have deterred buyers.
• Low buyer's agent commission: Buyer's agents may be hesitant to show your listing if you aren't offering a full 3 percent commission — this is a relatively common pitfall with FSBO listings.
• Bad photos: Buyers today start their search online, so listing photos are your home's first impression. If your home got very few showings, it might have been because the photos didn't show your home well.

Listen to the feedback

Don't make the same mistakes twice. Listen to what past buyers and their agents had to say about your property and the reasons why they didn't make an offer.

It's also important to consider your current agent's perspective. Your agent should be an expert in real estate trends in your area, so if they make recommendations on the best time to sell, improvements you should make while your house is off the market, or the price you should list at, listening could help improve the outcome the next time around.

3. Reconsider representation

It's also possible that your agent could be the reason you had a hard time selling your house within your desired time frame. If you chose an agent that wasn't well-versed in your area, or you went with a part-time agent who was a friend, consider switching agents. Here are some tips for finding the right agent the second time.

How to hire the right agent

• Always interview multiple agents before you settle on one.
• Check reviews on Zillow, Google, Yelp and Facebook.
• Ask family and friends for referrals.
• Check to see if they have a social media presence, especially if they live in a city.
• Make sure the agent you chooses has a comprehensive advertising strategy, including a plan to list on the MLS and sites like Zillow.
• Make sure they offer professional high-resolution photography as part of their listing package.
• Ask if they offer videography or 3D tours.
• Ask about their showing strategy — open houses, private tours, lockbox showings or a combination.
• Ask if they offer staging — sometimes it's part of the package at a certain price point.

4. Thoroughly prepare the home to sell

One thing you'll definitely want to do with a stale listing is freshen it up. It will attract new buyers and could also make buyers who have seen the home before take a second look.

Outside the home

• Add curb appeal and clean up the landscaping.
• Paint the exterior.
• Plant flowers.
• Powerwash walkways and steps.
• Repair broken items like screens, mailboxes or lights.

Inside the home

• Deep clean the surfaces, including nooks and crannies.
• Steam clean carpets to get rid of stains or odors.
• Paint rooms a neutral color that will appeal to a wide range of buyers.
• Remove personal items like family photos and mementos.
• Float the furniture away from walls to make rooms look more spacious.
• Consider packing up your belongings and hiring a staging company.
• Replace light bulbs, especially before pictures are taken.
• Air out the house and focus on getting rid of odors.

5. Rework your marketing strategy

Whether you wait to relist until your DOM resets, and whether you're selling with an agent or FSBO, you want to freshen up your listing before it goes live again, with new photos, a compelling description and incentives.

Lower the listing price

If you received feedback that your house was overpriced, or if you think it may be overpriced based on other comparable houses selling sooner, you may want to lower your price before you attempt to sell again.

Invest in new photos

Professional photography is a must these days. According to the Zillow Report, 76 percent of recent buyers say that viewing professional photos was extremely, very or somewhat important to their home-buying decision.

If you use a real estate agent, they may include professional real estate photography as part of their services. But if it's not included or you're selling on your own, you can get real estate photos taken for only a few hundred dollars — a small price to pay for showing your home in its best light and enticing potential buyers to schedule a showing.

Provide incentives for both buyers and their agents

Most listings on the MLS offer a full 3 percent commission to the buyer's agent, so you should do the same if you want to compete with other listings. In addition, you'll also want to include any buyer incentives you're willing to offer — like closing cost credits or including furniture — in your listing description.

Highlight new improvements

If you've done any renovations or upgrades to your home since your last listing, make sure to include those in the description. Common additions include:

• Fresh paint
• New HVAC
• Roof repair
• New carpets
• Landscaping

Share your listing

Make sure as many people as possible see your listing. The more people that see your photos, read your listing description or take a tour, the more likely someone is to make an offer.

• Post on social media, especially in neighborhood groups.
• List on real estate sites like Zillow or Trulia.
• Put a sign and flyers out front.
• Use word of mouth — spread the news to family, friends and coworkers.