Selling your home is serious business. Typically, your home is your largest financial asset and the decision to sell it is one that should not be taken lightly. While a good REALTOR makes the home selling process look easy, the truth about it is there are a lot of mistakes that can be made if you are not well informed.
9 Mistakes You Don’t Know You Are Making When Selling Your Home
1. Hiring an Agent Who Doesn’t Know Your Neighborhood
When an agent doesn’t know your neighborhood, you are setting yourself up for a poor home selling experience. Your agent should have a pulse on the buyer activity in your neighborhood and understand the profile of the typical buyer so they can effectively market your home to the right person. Additionally, an agent who doesn’t know your neighborhood may not understand the comparable sold homes and the differences in finish out, location, condition, etc. and give you bad advice on pricing your home.
2. Not Pricing Your Home Correctly
77% of homes that do not sell the first time are due to overpricing for the current market. The numbers don’t lie. Looking at recent sold comparables of your home tells you what a buyer is willing to pay for a home like yours. You want to get the most amount of money for your home and may even think you need “room to negotiate”, however, a priced right home dramatically increases your chances of getting a full price offer. It is also important to compare your home to similar homes listed for sale. You don’t want to price your home to sell the competition. Just because your neighbor is listed at $10,000 more, doesn’t mean their house will sell and the bottom-line is, the buyers ultimately set the prices for the market – not sellers. If one grocery store is selling milk for $2.99/gallon and down the street a another grocery store is selling milk for $5.99/gallon, it doesn’t matter how much marketing they do – radio, tv, hot air balloons – buyers may come to look at the milk to see what is special, but when they realize it is the same milk, they will buy the milk from the other grocery store. The same is true for your home. What is special to you may not be special to buyers. Buyers who continue to pass up your home to buy another one are telling you they do not see the value compared to other homes they are looking at in the same price range.
3. Not Preparing Your Home to Sell
Your home should be in “Move-in Ready” condition. While your home looks lovely and you are comfortable living in it, a buyer’s perspective is much different. You only have one chance to make a first impression. Getting your house ready to sell is the difference between getting yourself ready for a date vs. your wedding day. Getting your house ready to sell is taking it up a notch from “company ready” - not only should your house be clean and free of clutter, but it should also have a like new appearance…. So, yes, you do need to replace your 10 year old carpet and yes, you do need to repaint those tired walls. Fresh and New sells. Also take care of any deferred maintenance items. If buyers get a sense the house hasn’t been maintained, they wonder what else is wrong with it they can’t see. In addition to taking care of cleaning and deferred maintenance items, most homes benefit from a little staging, whether it is rearranging furniture or buying or renting pieces to bring the home together.
4. Not Hiring an Agent with a Strong Marketing Plan
While ultimately price and condition help sell your home when a buyer comes to look at it, they won’t even know about it if your agent doesn’t have a strong marketing plan. 90% of all buyers start their home search online. Did you know not all Brokers submit their listings to the major home search websites? Does your agent have a strong internet presence? Are they marketing online where consumers are spending their time? 80% of buyers are represented by an agent. Is your agent well known and have a good reputation in the market AND with other real estate agents? It’s key that your agent is well liked and has good relationships within the realtor community because those agents will want to show and do business with that agent.
5. Not Accommodating Potential Buyers
It is inconvenient to get your house ready to show and keep it in showing condition at all times. It is inconvenient when you have had a long hard work week and someone wants to show your house right when you are ready to unwind and relax at home. BUT, your house will not sell if the buyers can’t see it. Most agents schedule to view multiple homes with their buyer client at a certain day and time. Sometimes the buyer is with the agent for only a short time because they live out of town. While agents will do their best to work around your schedule, it is not always possible for the agent to come at a time that better suits you. Accommodating the buyers schedule and showing your house is always in your best interest to get your home sold.
6. Keeping Secrets From Your Real Estate Agent
Communication is key. It’s your agent’s job to HELP you and your agent is in a better position to help you and negotiate on your behalf when they fully understand why you are selling, your time frame and the things that are important to you.
7. Listening to Friends, Family and Neighbors Advice
Everyone is a real estate expert when they hear you are selling your home and everyone has an opinion, story or experience to share. Listening to their advice can have you second guessing what you need to do to successfully sell your home. Just remember, most of their advice doesn’t apply to your situation and when in doubt, talk to your realtor.
8. Being too Emotionally Attached to Selling Your Home
Are you selling because your family is growing? You have a job change? You have financial troubles? Every decision to sell your home – whether happy or sad - has some emotion behind it. Your home is full of memories. The business of selling your house is just that…. Business. Letting your emotions get in the way of your decisions instead of tried and tested home selling methods is the fastest way to a costly mistake. Emotional decisions always take you in the wrong direction resulting in your home sitting on the market and eventually receiving less money.
9. Hiring an Agent without a Proven Track Record of Success
Your Agent Matters. Hiring an inexperienced agent can hurt you – financially and emotionally. What no one tells you is just because someone has a real estate license doesn’t mean they know what they are doing. So much of this business is learned through experience and handling multiple transactions and an inexperienced agent doesn’t know what they don’t know. Hiring an experienced agent with a proven track record in the market can save you money through their strong market knowledge, and problem solving and negotiation skills. How many homes has your agent successfully sold? It’s important to get it right the first time and select a trusted proven Real Estate professional.
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