Selling a home is a complicated process and involves finding a balance between getting the most money possible for your home while finding a buyer quickly and avoiding costly mistakes throughout the whole process. The following list contains some common mistakes that home sellers make.
Every seller wants as much money as possible when selling their home. If your home is priced too high people looking in that price range will reject it because there will be other larger homes in the same price range. The people who should be seeing your home won't even know it is listed because it is priced above the range that they are looking in. This means that pricing too high often results in the seller getting less than market value for their home. Pricing a home correctly will get the most appropriate audience looking at it, which can lead to competition for your home, which then could lead to multiple offers and a higher selling price than listing it too high and having to drop the price after a long period on the market. The flipside of this is that if you price too low it could cost you considerable profits. It is important to either get a realtor that you trust to help you with pricing, or to do extensive research on your own to come up with the correct price for your home.
People aren't just buying four walls when they are shopping for a house. They are looking for a home - a place to have Christmas dinner, make memories with their families, watch their kids grow up, etc. Showing an empty home is much less likely to get an emotional response from a buyer than a home that is staged to make it truly feel like home. On average, homes that have been staged spend 40% less time on the market. To learn more about how to stage your home, check out our staging article.
While it is understandable that as a seller you would want to showcase all the great points of your house to potential buyers, following them around and pointing out every little thing at an open house or showing is not the way to do it. Rather than helping you sell your home, this could have just the opposite effect and make it so buyers have a hard time seeing it as their own home, and feel like they are intruding on your space. This isn't the emotional response you want a potential buyer to have. Rather than following them through the house, give them time to wander through without you there so that they can see if the home is a good fit. If at all possible you shouldn't even be home during a showing. If you do have to be in the home, be sure to make yourself scarce and allow people to look around on their own. You can be available to answer questions, but don't force yourself on the potential buyers.
Making small repairs to your home can dramatically increase the value. In most cases it will cost your more money in a decreased asking price to sell as-is than it would to make the small repairs. Additionally, even small repairs can pay for themselves 3-5 times over at the time of the sale.
Selling your home yourself is possible, but you shouldn't attempt it unless you are confident and well educated in all the contracts and laws that accompany selling a home. It is highly advisable that you work with a realtor to sell your home if you have the slightest doubt about your ability to handle all the paperwork that goes along with it. A poorly or improperly written contract could cause the sale to fall through or could cost you tons of money for repairs, title defects, inspections and more. The commission paid to an agent is often more worthwhile than the hassle and heartache you can cause yourself by selling your home on your own without really knowing what you are doing.
While it is often not convenient, it is important that you try your hardest to make your home available for showings whenever a buyer wants to see it. The more accessible your home is, the better the odds that you will sell it quickly. Appointment only showings can leave some buyers out in the cold and could mean that you have missed out on a sale. You never know which buyer is going to be "the one", and the more people who can view your house the more likely you are to sell it