Ideas for selling a home that has been on the market a loooong time

In an attempt to decipher why many of the usual rules of home marketing and selling aren't working in this market, many of the top agents in the Midway office met.  As they brainstormed ways they could do things differently, a list of new and some not so new ideas came forth.

First of all, some agents who have been in the business for five years or more, may have fallen into a marketing rutt that still relies totally on the ways homes sold in a good market. Some don't utilize the newer marketing venues: newer cameras, social media, virtual tours and virtual staging.  And now, in all Keller Williams offices, the revolutionary eEdge program that combines CRM/Marketing/Lead conversions/and Transactions all under one cyber roof, available for only KW  agents, makes marketing that much easier.  Here is the list of ideas these top agents thought of.
1. Forget the price the seller wants and you originally thought it would sell for.  If no buyers are looking or there are showings but no offers coming in, lower the price. 
2. Take top quality photos - if you can't take really good ones, hire a professional who has the best equipment and the skill to know how to show the homes features in the best light.  One of our VIVs has offered, for two months, to give any agent in our office a huge discount on the shooting of any house for only $125.  You will get two sets of all the pictures, one full size and one sized for web, delivered to you within 24 hours. The pictures alone can sell a house. They can persuade a buyer to pick up the phone and make an appointment. 
3. Of course a professional photographer can't help what furniture and debris lie in the wide angles of his camera.  If staging a home isn't your skill, ask someone who is skilled in this area, to "set up" a home for maximum show-worthiness.  If the home isn't staged (reorganized, decluttered, painted, cleaned, decorated) for showing the best it can, consider hiring a stager. Often the homeowners are concerned that a stager will remove their personality from the home that they still have to live in for who knows how long in this kind of market. But a kind and sensitive stager can select homeowner's best decorative pieces and put them on display in a light that thrills the homeowner and ultimately a buyer. We also have a stager who will give a special deal to our agents and their sellers. 
4.Have a pre-home inspection.  Often it can make the sellers feel more confident that the house isn't going to hold costly secret repairs by the buyer's inspection later.  In fact, some times the seller will feel better about lowering the price when he knows there won't be a problem with the furnace or roof or plumbing.
5. Refresh comments and pictures on the MLS.  Nothing kills a buyer's desire to look at a home with pictures of snow on the lawn when it is 99 degrees in the shade in July.  When refreshing details on the MLS, don't forget to also change the pictures on Realtor.com and add their Highlights to remarks and all.   
6. Sometimes a listing just needs to be given a rest from the market for 30+ days and relisted at a new price with new pictures.
7. Make an attractive flyer with many good pictures of the house and distribute to places where buyers might be...student lounges, game room at the apartment complex, cafeteria lounge at local company, you get the idea.  Wherever buyers are found.
8.  Take sellers on a tour of the competing listings.  They may decide to lower the price or quickly paint some rooms or remove that wallpaper all on their own.
9.  Do cross marketing in the office.  Tell the other agents about your listings, maybe they have a new buyer that will be interested in buying.  Also, when taking buyers out on tour, try to show any listing that fits the criteria listed by another agent in the office. 
10. Post ads for your old and newer listings on Craigslist and Facebook. Make sure it is changed out often, with different titles and pictures.
11.  Once you have nice pictures, well worded remarks, and a properly adjusted price, do a virtual tour. Post it on Facebook, emails to your database, Craigs list, YouTube, in your signature as a link.
12.  Hold a  seventh level Open House. Personally invite the neighbors, put out many signs early in the week, use many balloons, have everything in the house perfectly staged, serve wine and cheese, invite realtors, and advertise on Realtor.com, Trendmls, Trulia, Twitter, Linkedin, and Facebook.  
13.  Educate your sellers right from the start about the market, what to expect, what not to expect regarding pricing and buyer behaviors.
14.  Use unusual bonuses and / or financing options.  For instance, the sellers with the house that is hard to sell because of the steep backyard that buyers dread mowing, a years contract for the buyers with the lawn mowing company used.  Or the house with really high taxes, offer to help the sellers with a tax assessment appeal or have the sellers pay one year taxes at settlement... Use creativity.
15.  Don't hesitate to ask a SWAT team from the office to go out to see the house and help you tell the seller what needs to be done to get the home sold.
Doing Anything may work,  Doing nothing doesn't.  We want our sellers to know that we are the only agent for them.  Don't let them contemplate expiring with you and trying another agent.  You are the best !  Hope these ideas help!