How do you fix a stale house listing? Follow these steps for a sale

If your house has been on the market for more than 60 days, you are not alone. According to Redfin, more than half of all houses with active MLS listings in February, the most recent month available, had been on the market for 60 days or longer.

For whatever reason, your listing, and all those others, got “stale,” in real estate parlance. And it can be costly to let a listing linger longer.

Costly how? For one thing, sellers are starting to come out of the woodwork, so you’ll be facing stiffer competition. For another, a stale listing isn’t likely to command its full asking price — if it receives any offers at all.

Luckily, there are plenty of steps you can take to freshen your listing so it stands out. One tactic favored by some agents is to delist the house and relist it a few days later, so it pops up as brand-new on the listing services. Another is to simply lower your price and hope for the best.

Both steps, though, are considered an easy way out, and may leave money on the table. Before you delist or discount, consider reviving your listing.

Here are some ways to do just that:

Photography: The first thing that draws eyes to any listing is the photographs, so make sure they are not old and drab. Hiring a professional photographer — with experience in real estate — to update the pics is a good idea. Photos produce showings, so the more, the better. Pay particular attention to the primary photo — the one house hunters will see first. Make sure it is not outdated. For instance, is it June, and your main photo shows snow on the ground? Update it, and continue to do so on a rotating basis. Consider twilight images with all the lights on. How about an aerial shot, or even a 3D walk-through? There, the camera goes from room to room as a narrator describes features in vivid detail. That way, buyers get an idea of what it feels like in your place before they even call their agents.

Rewrite: Reread the narrative that describes your house. Is it bland, blah, the usual “three-bedroom, two-bath” list of features and little else? Does it fail to excite? If so, rip it up and start over. This time, write it so it makes your potential buyers feel something — preferably curiosity. Make it sing. Highlight what might matter most in a market where sellers far outnumber buyers. Smart-home technology? Play it up. Dreamy chef’s kitchen with all the bells and whistles? Focus on it. Your expansive foyer isn’t just a “two-story entryway,” for example. It’s “a soaring space that opens the house to a marvel of possibilities.” That daunting unfinished basement becomes “an entire floor where the new owner can let their imagination run wild — create a sports-watching area, party central or offices for both Mom and Dad.” I’m no copywriter, but you get the idea. Sit down with your agent and come up with something that speaks to your buyer.

Neighborhood: People buy houses, but they also buy into the community around them. So zoom in on the features that make yours special. Add photos of nearby attractions like dining and theaters, the neighborhood dog park, shopping and any other amenities that buyers might find attractive. You want your listing to visually say something like, “You, too, can have all this ... and more.”

Price: The last thing anyone wants to do is lower their asking price. But if it’s been a long time since you first listed your house, the market might have changed. Take a look at what comparable houses are going for. If a lower price is in order, then bite your lip and do it. You’ll be far from alone: Per Realtor.com, about 1 in 5 sellers are cutting their prices these days. Then again, that means the rest are holding firm. And they’re getting what they want — otherwise, prices would be falling overall, which they aren’t. The important thing is to be realistic about your specific situation.

Relaunch: After all this work, you might be eager to take the house off the market and relist it with that new mind-blowing description, come-hither photography and lower, more enticing price. But before you do, give the place a once-over to make sure buyers aren’t turned off once they arrive at your door.

Curb appeal is essential if you want the house to be memorable, so add some seasonal plants, paint the front door, add some new lighting and clean up the yard. Anything you can do to make a great first impression will pay off later.

Inside, invest in a professional home stager to bring out your place’s most attractive features. Make those minor repairs you should have taken care of in the first place, and hire professionals to do a deep cleaning. Maybe even change out the doorknobs and other hardware to make the house shine.

Another to-do to consider: repainting any bold-colored accent walls. You might love that orange wall in your dining room, but most people won’t. And if possible, replace your main light fixtures with more modern ones, or at least make sure all the bulbs are of the same wattage.

Lew Sichelman has been covering real estate for more than 50 years. He is a regular contributor to numerous shelter magazines and housing and housing-finance industry publications. Readers can contact him at lsichelman@aol.com