ALMOST 100 DAYS BEFORE | 30 DAYS WITH US | 22 SHOWINGS IN WEEK ONE | 11K+ VIDEO VIEWS
After an expired listing and almost 100 days on the market, this Winchester home in Charlotte, NC relisted with The Finigan Group and went under contract in 30 days. The plan was a Coming Soon campaign, two repainted walls, professional photography and drone footage, a video tour, and a price the sellers chose from the top of the range.
Aparna and Asok loved their home in Winchester. They had lived in it long enough to build an additional room onto the back, and it still felt like theirs in all the ways that matter when you are getting ready to leave a house.
But their daughter and grandchildren were in Chicago, and that was where they wanted to be. The plan was simple to say and hard to carry out. Sell the house, move north, and be close for the ordinary days as well as the big ones.
Then the plan stalled. They felt stuck, and every month the house stayed theirs was a month of their grandchildren’s lives they were missing.
Why didn’t the home sell the first time?
They listed in May 2026. The home sat for almost 100 days, which is long enough to wear on any seller, and then it came off the market without a sale. The showings and offers they had hoped for never arrived. Aparna and Asok were discouraged, and they began to feel that they simply could not sell in this market.
A home that does not sell is rarely one thing. Price, presentation, timing, and exposure all play a part, and from the outside it is hard to say which one carried the most weight. We did not need to settle that question. We needed to build a plan where none of the four was left to chance.
When Josh met with them, what he saw was a well-kept home that had been loved and added to. It did not need rescuing. It needed a plan.
“Every month here was another month
away from their grandkids.”
What we did
We told them a full repaint was not necessary. They were facing the idea of repainting the entire interior, a project that adds weeks and expense to a move that was already running long. We gave them a shorter, specific list instead. Two bright orange walls on the main level, a round of decluttering, and a few key pieces of furniture out of the rooms. A strong color in a main room is the first thing a buyer remembers and the hardest thing for a photograph to forgive.
We built the pricing range with them. We reviewed the current market and an absorption analysis, which shows how quickly comparable homes are selling, and laid out the range the home could realistically hold. The decision on where to land in it was theirs to make.
We started the Coming Soon campaign while they prepped. Buyers and agents heard about the home before it could be toured, so that when showings opened, there were already people waiting.
We shot the home the way buyers shop. Our photographer and videographer covered the interior, the exterior, and the home from the air, and we produced an HGTV-style video tour. The goal was to make as many people as excited about the home as we were. A home that photographs well gets clicked. A home that feels like somewhere you could live gets scheduled.
What Aparna and Asok did.
The prep was theirs, not ours. They painted the two walls, cleared the clutter, and moved the furniture we pointed to, which is a large part of why the home photographed the way it did.
The price was theirs too. They chose the higher end of the range, because they wanted to be sure they got full value for a home they had cared for. The home came to market at $450,000, which put it in front of buyers at the number its owners believed in, and we built the launch to support it.
And the first decision was theirs. After a discouraging summer, they chose to try again.
How the market responded
The home went live and the response came fast. Twenty-two buyers toured it in the first week, which told us within days that the plan was working.
The video tour passed 11,000 views on YouTube alone, with thousands more across our social channels. That reach put the home in front of far more buyers than a listing sheet can.
Showings kept coming, 56 in all, which is what it looks like when a home is genuinely wanted. Among them was the right buyer.
When that buyer’s offer arrived, Josh worked through price and terms with Aparna and Asok until both sides had what they needed. They went under contract 30 days after launch, in about a third of the time the first listing had spent on the market.
No campaign can manufacture a buyer. It can only make sure the right one finds the house, and this one did. The sale closed in October, and Aparna and Asok are now in Chicago with their family. The memories they had been missing from a distance are the ones they are making in person.
this wasn’t luck, it was a plan.
We do this often enough that it no longer surprises us, and we do not say that to brag. We say it because almost nothing that happened here was an accident.
The home drew 22 showings in its first week because buyers had been hearing about it before it went live. It looked the way it did online because two walls were repainted and the rooms were cleared, and because someone with a camera and a drone came to shoot it properly. It sold in 30 days because a price its owners believed in met a launch built to support it. Those are decisions, and we make them the same way every time. Our listings go under contract in a median of 22 days, per Canopy MLS.
Here is the more useful question, though. That was the right plan for Aparna and Asok. Is it the right plan for you?
Probably not, at least not exactly. Theirs hinged on a home that had already been through one discouraging listing and a family waiting in another state. Yours might hinge on a school calendar, a job start date, a rate lock, or a parent who needs you closer. We have run all of those, and none of them look like this one.
If your home has come off the market once, it does not mean it cannot sell. It means the first plan did not find the buyer. So the first conversation is not about listing. It is about what your move actually has to do, and in what order, before anything goes on the market.
Let us help you make moving easier.
Start with the number.
What your home would bring today, what that leaves you after the mortgage, and what it puts you in range of next. If you're only buying, we can start there instead. No obligation either way.
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Treat it as information, not a verdict. A home that expires is usually missing one of four things: the right price, strong presentation, enough exposure, or the right timing. Aparna and Asok’s home went under contract in 30 days after almost 100 days on the market the first time. What changed was the preparation, the pricing conversation, the launch, and the presentation.
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Not always. Paint matters most in the main living areas and anywhere a bold color will dominate photographs. In this case, two bright orange walls on the main level were repainted, the home was decluttered, and a few key pieces of furniture were removed. Whether a full repaint makes sense is a decision to make with your agent after a walkthrough, not before one.
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Yes, once your listing agreement has ended. Read the end of your current agreement first, because some include a short protection period covering buyers who were introduced to the home while it was listed. Your new agent can walk through that with you before you sign anything.
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It depends on price, condition, preparation, and launch more than on any one neighborhood. This Winchester home went under contract in 30 days. Across all Finigan Group listings the median is 22 days, and more than half go under contract within 30 days, per Canopy MLS.
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Yes. Planning matters more than presence. Photography, video, showings, and negotiation can all be run on your behalf, and because North Carolina closings are handled by an attorney, signing is often arranged ahead of time or remotely. Aparna and Asok sold with a Chicago move in front of them, and the plan was built around that.
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201 transactions between November 2023 and August 2026, totaling $115.6 million in closed volume, per Canopy MLS. Josh Finigan has closed 484 transactions totaling $208.1 million over his career. Those two figures overlap and should not be added together.
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98.24% of list price across 201 transactions, against a Canopy MLS market average of 96.29% over the same period. On a $500,000 home that difference is roughly $10,000. Nearly 42% of listings sold at or above the asking price.
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The median is 22 days on market. More than half, 56.7%, go under contract within 30 days, and a third within 10 days. The average of 38.6 days runs higher because a small number of properties take much longer, which is why the median is the more useful number when you are trying to plan a move.
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37 cities and towns across the greater Charlotte region, including Charlotte, Fort Mill, Concord, Mooresville, Huntersville, Waxhaw, Mint Hill, Indian Trail, and Clover, on both sides of the North Carolina and South Carolina line. The average sale price is $575,120 and the median is $500,000, though the range runs from starter homes to properties above $2 million.
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It happens. A buyer can walk away during due diligence for any reason at all, and no agent can prevent that. What we can do is put the home back on the market quickly, be straightforward with the next buyer about what came up, and keep the closing timeline intact. Plan for the possibility and it becomes a delay instead of a crisis.
