Why Your Idaho Home Gets Showings but No Offers

The buyers had already said what was wrong with it. Nobody acted on it. Here's the work we did before relisting, and what it changed.

By Chris Schmalz

Chris has lived in the Idaho Falls area for over 40 years and has been helping sellers and buyers realize the American dream and build wealth through real estate for over 20 years.

Here’s a number that should stop you cold if you’re thinking about selling: 26 showings, six months on the market, and not a single offer. That was a real home with real sellers who did everything they were told to do.

By the time I met them, they were worn out and starting to believe the problem was them, or the market, or just bad luck. It wasn’t. And the same house sold almost immediately once we fixed what was actually wrong.

1. The first walk-through told me most of the story. When I stepped inside, I felt it right away. The home was closed in and claustrophobic. This wasn’t a small house; it was around 3,000 square feet, but it didn’t feel that way at all. Plants were filling the living room, heavy furniture in every space, and the whole place felt dark.

When I asked the sellers what feedback they’d been getting from all those showings, they told me buyers had said the same thing: it felt dark, and it didn’t feel like the size it was. The problem was never a mystery.

The buyers had already named it, and nobody had done anything about it. The sellers had been through another agent and interviewed a few more before they got to me, so I understood why their trust was thin.

2. My whole philosophy comes down to one idea: frontload the work. You put the preparation in before the home ever hits the market, not after it’s already sitting. The effort you invest on the front end determines the result you get on the back end. Most homes that sit aren’t sitting because of the market. They’re sitting because they went live before they were ready.

3. A pre-inspection removes the surprise that kills deals later. Before a single new buyer walked through, we identified anything that might need attention and handled it, often inexpensively, and sometimes with things we could take care of ourselves or hand to a handyman.

When the offer came, the home had already been inspected and was ready, with nothing waiting to blow up the deal three weeks in. It removes real friction from a sale, and buyers can feel that a home has been cared for.

4. Then came the step that made the biggest difference: staging. We brought in a stager and had the sellers remove many of those plants and much of the heavy furniture. I’ll be honest, that’s real work, and it isn’t always an easy conversation, because nobody loves packing up their own home before it sells.

But when I walked back in afterward, I couldn’t believe it was the same house. It had gone from dark and closed in to open and bright, the same square footage with a completely different feeling.

Then we shot it properly: professional photography, drone footage, a 3D walkthrough tour, video, and a blueprint of the home. When the edited pictures came back, they were night and day from how the home had been presented before. That’s the part I’d put up against anyone in this market. Not the house. How the house was presented.

5. Once it was actually ready, the market responded immediately. We listed the home on a Wednesday. There were two showings on Thursday and Friday, and an offer on Friday evening. The same house that couldn’t get an offer in 26 showings had one in about two days, because this time it was ready. The review they left afterward meant a lot to me.

In their words: “What impressed us about Chris was his plan to frontload preparations before even putting the house on the market.” That’s the whole thing, right there.

If your home is sitting, it usually isn’t the market. It’s how the home was prepared and presented before it ever went live. These sellers were offering the same house the entire time. The only thing that changed was the preparation we put in up front, and that was the difference between 26 showings with nothing to show for it and an offer in two days. So if your home is sitting, expired, or getting showings without offers,

I’d be glad to walk through it with you and show you honestly what I’d change before we list. Call or text me at 208-242-4313, email me at chris@realestate-idahofalls.com, or visit blog.realestate-idahofalls.com. Let’s get it sold the first time.

I’m Chris Schmalz with the Chris Schmalz Real Estate Group: Where moves are made simple, and life is made Better.