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Selling a home is an intricate process. Since homes are valued so high, you want to make sure you get the best possible outcome. As such, it’s important to be mindful of things that sellers do wrong so you can do things right. Here are the 5 most common seller mistakes and how you can avoid them.
Not Pricing Your Home Right
Pricing your home right may seem like the easiest thing to do, but is still one of the 5 most common seller mistakes. Sometimes sellers overprice their home, hoping to squeeze the maximum amount of money from their buyer. Or they do so to leave room to negotiate. However, pricing too high can lead to less interest, less foot traffic, and less opportunity. If buyers know your home is priced too high, and you are not in a market favoring sellers, buyers will swipe left and find something priced more accurately.
On the other hand, sometimes sellers feel worried about the market or have a specific timeframe for selling. As a result, they underprice their home, hoping it will stand out as a deal, and sell quicker. Will this accomplish that mission? Likely, but this comes with a cost, which is less money earned from the sale.
So how can you avoid this? Shameless plug: hire a real estate agent. Realtors are trained to price homes accurately and have access to data which allows them to do so. They have a pulse on the market and can suggest a price point that reflects the current market and your home’s actual value.
Not Preparing Your Home to Sell
At the point you decide to sell your home, you must also shift your mindset. Your home is no longer about you, your preferences, your style, or so on. It is now focused on your potential buyer. Although your home might be absolutely lovely, it might not be optimized for those wanting to see how they can fit their lifestyle into your space. One of the 5 most common seller mistakes is not preparing your home to sell. So how can you do this?
Declutter
It is so important to declutter. The less you have in your home, the more of a blank canvas you create for your buyers. You want them visualizing their things in your home. When your things are everywhere, it is pretty difficult to do.
Neutralize
You also want to neutralize certain rooms and spaces. This might require hiring a stager. A professional stager understands how to maximize your home to appeal to buyers. According to Realtor.com, staged homes sell 88% faster and for 20% more than those that aren’t staged. If staging your entire home is not in your budget, try focusing either on a specific room or on the areas a buyer will see first when they enter the home. After all, first impressions are important.
Exterior
Don’t forget about the exterior, which will be the first thing buyers see when they pull up for a showing or open house. A freshly cut lawn, trimmed hedges, and a few plants or flowers will do wonders to spruce up the outside of your home.
Odor Control
A final recommendation: odor control. For this, I encourage you to enlist help. When we live in a home, we often become accustomed to the smells of our home and don’t notice anything “off.” Grab a friend’s fresh nose and get their feedback. Whatever they think when they walk through your home is what your buyers will think. Addressing any pet smells, opening windows for some fresh air before showings, or running an air purifier are all great ways to ward off smells. Think twice before lighting candles or using heavily scented products in your home. Sometimes buyers become concerned that overly strong scents are a seller’s way to mask something stinky.
Not Making Repairs Before Listing
Hear me out on this one. I understand it seems quite facetious to ask sellers to spend money making repairs on a home they are leaving. However, aside from the pool of people using their purchase to try out the skills they’ve learned on HGTV, most buyers don’t want to move into a home needing a ton of repairs. Plus, it leaves buyers a bit wary when an inspection comes back with a multitude of fixes that seemingly should have already been done. You want the buyers to know that the home they wish to purchase from you has been cared for. Otherwise, you will immediately lessen the number of people who will be interested in moving forward with the purchase of your home.
From my experience, you want to make sure the major things are in good standing. This includes ensuring the roof is void of damage, and the HVAC and all appliances are working properly. Stains, cracks, and leaks should also be addressed.
Sometimes it can be hard to know what needs to be repaired without a pre-sale home inspection. If you want to get ahead of the game and make sure your property is in top-notch shape before listing, you may want to have one done. However, keep in mind that anything that is found on the inspection must be disclosed to buyers.
Not Using High-Quality Listing Photos
Raise your hand if you’ve browsed home listings online and found photographs taken from an OG iPhone 2G 2-megapixel camera without a flash. You know, the ones so blurry they make you consider making an eye doctor appointment? Or how about the ones that are so dark that you can hardly picture what the home actually looks like? Yes, I am going to extremes to make my point, but the fact remains that one of the 5 most common seller mistakes is not using high-quality listing photos.
Did you know that “For 47% of recent buyers, the first step that they took in the home buying process was to look online at properties for sale…” (NAR). This means that before they even contact a realtor, they are browsing online listing photos. Using high-quality images can take that first impression from whoa to wow, and make the buyer take the next steps in the homebuying process.
Not only will professional photographs of your home make an impact, but they can also help your home sell faster AND for more money. Listings with high-quality photos, on average, receive 47% higher asking prices per square foot and sell 32% more quickly.
If you are working with a real estate agent, they may have a professional photographer they use, or a recommendation for one. Just make sure that there are a lot of photographs taken, they use a lot of natural light, and if possible, feature aerial images. All of these are factors that optimize your listing photo game.
Not Using a Real Estate Agent or Picking the Wrong One
Many sellers start their journey wondering if they should avoid paying realtor fees and instead sell their home themselves. Depending on the seller’s situation, this could be a beneficial decision. But for most sellers, it’s not. Real estate professionals have access, knowledge, and experience to maximize a home sale, which will often result in a sale greater than what would have been saved by not using an agent. To learn more about the benefits of using a real estate agent, check out my blog post.
If you do decide to use a real estate agent, another mistake sellers make is choosing the wrong one. Real estate agents are unique, and you want to make sure you work with someone that aligns with what you are most looking for. You don’t want to choose a friend or relative just because you know them if they don’t have a marketing style you prefer or experience with a specific need you have. It’s okay to interview several realtors to see who you’d most like to partner with.
Sellers, take note of these 5 common mistakes so that you can start the home sale process with an advantage. If you’d like to discuss other mistakes you should avoid, or want to see if I am the right realtor fit for you, contact me here. Selling a home is a big decision, and I would be happy to guide you every step of the way.
