House hasn't sold after 10 months of being listed. What should I do?

Ten months on a specialty home usually points to a buyer pool problem more than price or marketing, and that changes the fix. Specialty homes have a smaller natural buyer pool, so even good marketing can run out of local reach over that much time. Worth asking whether marketing has actually reached beyond your immediate area to the specific buyer who wants this kind of home. Ask your agent how many actual showings you've had, not just marketing activity. Low showings usually means exposure isn't reaching the right audience. Decent showings with no offers usually means price, even if it doesn't feel unreasonable, since specialty homes often need a bigger adjustment to reach that smaller buyer pool. Also worth asking if your agent has real experience marketing this specific type of home, that's a different skill than general residential marketing. Not local to Fremont, but happy to connect you with a local agent through my referral network at no cost, ideally one with specialty home experience. Nick Nikolov Brokered by HomeSmart Houston

If a home has been on the market for 10 months without selling, it’s time to reassess the strategy even if the marketing has been strong and the price seems reasonable. For a specialty property, the buyer pool may simply be smaller. Review recent comparable sales, showing activity, buyer feedback, and competing listings to determine whether the price is truly aligned with the current market. From there, consider a strategic price adjustment, refreshed marketing, improved presentation, or repositioning the property to appeal to the most likely buyers. Sometimes the issue isn’t the property itself it’s reaching the right buyer at the right price.

Sondra, after 10 months on the market, it’s probably time to make a change. Even if the marketing has been strong and the price seems reasonable, the market may be signaling that the home needs different positioning. A specialty home can absolutely take longer to find the right buyer, but ten months suggests something in the positioning, pricing, or buyer pool needs to change. Because it’s a specialty home, ask your agent to review recent sold comparables, buyer feedback, and whether the property is reaching the right audience. You might also consider refreshed marketing, new photos, or a price adjustment. Ask your agent for a fresh comparative market analysis focused on homes that have actually sold, not just competing listings. Also review every showing from the past several months: Are buyers consistently mentioning price, layout, location, maintenance, or another objection? Patterns in that feedback are important. If you need to sell soon, pricing more aggressively may be the best move. If you can wait, a more targeted approach may help you find the right buyer.

Sondra, I am going to gather that the price is not in line with the market if this is the timeframe. Furthermore, being on the market that long has now made your listing stale resulting in further complications. A fresh rebrand is going to be necessary which would include new photos, a new market evaluation that will lead to a price adjustment and relaunch. Keith Jean-Pierre Managing Principal The Dapper Agents Real Estate Operations in ALL 50 States

Sondra, ten months is long enough that I would stop adjusting and start diagnosing. Alla gave you the right first cut, showings versus no showings, so start there. But once you have that number, here is what to actually do with it, because the fix is completely different depending on the answer. First, one question that catches a surprising number of stuck listings. What is your asking price, exactly, and what round number is just above it? Buyers do not browse by your price. They browse by filter, and those filters snap to round numbers. If you are listed at $1,025,000 you are invisible to every buyer whose search tops out at a million, and there are far more of them than there are buyers between a million and 1,025. Coming down to $999,000 is a rounding error in dollars and a large change in how many people ever see the listing. Ask your agent to look at where your price sits relative to the nearest bracket. On a specialty home this matters more, not less, because your buyer pool is already thin and you cannot afford to filter it further. If you are getting showings but no offers, price and condition are the levers, and the market has already told you which. Ten months of showings without an offer is not a marketing problem. That is buyers walking in, doing the math, and walking out. The uncomfortable version of this: "the price is not unreasonable" is your assessment, and the market has been voting against it for ten months. I say that with respect, because it is genuinely hard to hear about a home you know well. If you are not getting showings, it is exposure, and that is a very different job. For specialty homes specifically, standard syndication is close to useless. The buyer for an unusual property is not scrolling the general portal feed in your zip code. They are looking for that specific thing, often from out of the area, and they need to be found rather than to find you. That means: Full video walkthrough, not a slideshow. For an unusual floor plan or an unusual use, photographs actively mislead, and buyers self-select out because they cannot understand the space. Video fixes that better than anything else. Copy that names the specialty. If your listing description leads with bedrooms and bathrooms, it is competing as a normal house and losing. Lead with the thing that makes it unusual, in plain words, including the words a buyer would actually type into a search. Targeted outreach, not broad advertising. Whoever wants this house belongs to some identifiable group. Ask your agent to name that group out loud and then go find them directly, through the trade, through relevant associations, through agents who have sold comparable properties. If your agent cannot describe your buyer in one sentence, that is the actual problem. Two structural moves worth discussing with your agent. Ask about withdrawing and relisting. In many MLS systems, a property that comes off and goes back on starts a new days on market count. Ten months on the counter is itself now a drag on your listing, because buyers read it as "something is wrong with this house" and open with a lowball. Rules on this vary by MLS, so ask your agent specifically what your MLS allows and what the waiting period is. If you are also going to make a real change, price, photos, video, or all three, doing it alongside a fresh start is much more effective than another quiet reduction. Consider an independent appraisal. A few hundred dollars gets you an opinion of value from someone with no commission at stake. If it comes back near your asking price, you have an evidence based answer to buyers who are lowballing you, and you can hand it to them. If it comes back well below, you have your answer too, and it is one you can trust in a way you may not be able to trust an agent's opinion right now. Specialty homes are exactly where appraisals get interesting, so ask for one from an appraiser experienced with unusual properties. One last thing to be direct about. After ten months, the question of whether to change agents is on the table, and it is a fair question to ask yourself even if the answer is no. The test is not whether you like your agent. It is whether they have brought you new information in the last three months, or only new patience. If every conversation ends with "let's give it more time," you have your answer. If they are bringing you showing data, feedback themes, and specific proposals, stay put and make the changes. I am a real estate professional, not an appraiser, and on a specialty property I would want the appraisal in hand before making the price decision rather than after. I am Zoltan Peresztegi and I work in Los Angeles and the South Bay. If you tell me what makes the home a specialty and roughly where it is, I am glad to think out loud about who the buyer actually is, or to introduce you to a local agent who has sold something comparable. On unusual properties, an agent who has done one before is worth a great deal more than one who has not. Start with the showing count and the price bracket. Those two numbers will tell you which problem you have. Zoltan

When a home has been sitting on the market for 10 months, even with strong marketing, it’s usually a sign that something isn’t connecting with buyers. Marketing can create attention, but ultimately the market determines value. For a specialty home, it can take longer because the buyer pool is smaller, so the strategy has to be very targeted. I would take another look at the pricing compared to the most recent comparable sales, not just what similar homes are listed for. A home can be priced “reasonably” but still be overpriced for the specific group of buyers who are looking for that type of property. I would also review the feedback from showings, online engagement, and buyer comments. Are buyers loving the home but hesitating because of price? Are there concerns about condition, layout, location, or something unique about the property? Those details can help determine the next move. At this point, I would consider a fresh approach: possibly repositioning the price, updating the presentation, creating new marketing, and making sure the home is reaching the right audience. Sometimes a small adjustment can bring the home back in front of buyers who may have overlooked it when it first launched. The goal isn’t just to sell -it’s to create enough urgency and perceived value that the right buyer feels confident moving forward.

Sondra, ten months usually means one of two things, and with a specialty home it's often the second one. Either the price is off, or the buyer who actually wants this particular house hasn't found the listing yet. Since you feel good about the price and the marketing, I'd start with the showing data. Ask your agent how many showings you've had and what came back as feedback. Plenty of showings and no offers points toward price or condition. Very few showings points toward exposure, and that's a different fix entirely. Specialty homes often need a narrower kind of reach than a standard listing gets, meaning the right buyer rather than more buyers. I'd also ask for a fresh look at what's closed nearby since spring, because ten months is long enough for the market to shift under you. I sell in California, so a Fremont area agent should be the one running those numbers. Alla Novytska, Realtor®, JohnHart Real Estate, DRE #02254775