Which 7 Mistakes Will Wreck Your Home Sale?

Don’t fall victim to these common seller mistakes; take action to avoid them!

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If you want to sell quickly and for top dollar, there are seven critical mistakes you must avoid:

1. Picking the wrong agent. Pick someone who’s experienced and has sold a lot of properties. If you need heart surgery, you’ll probably want to pick a heart surgeon who’s performed a lot of surgeries, right? Unfortunately, the majority of agents don’t sell a lot of properties; the average agent only sells about two to three homes a year, whereas my team averages nearly 500 annual sales. Your agent needs to have their finger on the pulse of the market and wield a solid marketing plan for your home.

2. Overpricing your property. Consumers are well-educated these days and can find out everything they need to know online—including the price at which a given property should be listed. Today’s homebuyers won’t even bother seeing your home in person if they believe it to be overpriced, and remember: The longer your property sits on the market, the more stale it becomes. You’ll have to do a series of price drops, but then most buyers will just keep waiting to see whether that price will dip again.

3. Only considering the highest priced offer. An offer has many pages, and price is just one item on it, so you’ll need the help of your agent to interpret the overall strength of each offer you receive. Obsessing over price alone will cause you to neglect other key elements, like the buyer’s financing (e.g., earnest money, down payment, lender credibility).

Is money your only priority? Perhaps you’re like the many other sellers we’ve worked with who needed time to find their next property and move. If so, the strongest offer may actually be one where the buyer agrees to an ample rent-back period and throws in two additional weeks rent-free. That’s exactly the offer that one of our sellers recently accepted, and it worked out well.

“You don’t have to do a full remodel, but you should make those tiny aesthetic repairs.”

4. Not preparing your home for the market. I understand the temptation to leave things as they lie—we are in a hot seller’s market, right? Yes, there will be a lot of buyers walking you through your home, but they’ll also be seeing a ton of different homes. Yours needs to stand out; paint that wall, repair that tiny annoyance, and declutter that room. No one is saying that you need to remodel your whole kitchen, but tackling the little things will go a long way toward capturing buyers’ attention.

5. Not allow for showings. Let’s say you go on the market on a Thursday but decline showings that following Saturday. That’s a colossal mistake! Those weekend showings are critical because that’s when most buyers are off work and viewing properties with their agent. If they view 10 homes and yours wasn’t one of them, they won’t know what they’re missing; they’ll simply choose from the 10 that they did see. This leads me right to the next point…

6. Getting too emotional. Even in a hot seller’s market like ours, home sellers face plenty of uncertainty, which produces stress. Stressed and tired sellers are more likely to decline showings, which is never in their best interest. Try to remember that, at the end of the day, your home sale is just a business transaction—the calmer and more focused you are, the better your outcome will be. If you’ve had four buyers tour your home in one day, don’t turn away the fifth and sixth; remember that sixth buyer could very well be the perfect offer you’ve been looking for.

7. Not decluttering. You’re moving anyway, so why not begin boxing up your belongings now? A clutter-free home helps buyers to better envision themselves living in that space. Your agent has seen countless homes, and they will be a fresh pair of eyes for yours; listen to their feedback.

If you have further questions on how to sell your home quickly and for top dollar, or want more personalized solutions for your selling situation, don’t hesitate to reach out to me via phone or email. I’m more than happy to help!