Selling a home is easy; you just pick a price, snap some photos for your Zillow listing, and stick a “For Sale” sign in the yard, right? Too many sellers think that’s all it takes! In fact, there’s a lot more that goes into selling a home, and a lot of potential mistakes to be made, too. So before you even think of listing, here are some things to AVOID if you want to sell your home soon.
Avoid These 7 Things If You Want to Sell Your Home Soon
From pricing your home too high to personally taking buyers on tours, there area lot of ways you can sabotage your home sale. Here are some mistakes you definitely want to avoid.
Mistake #1: Overestimating your home value
One of the worst mistakes you can make as a seller is overpricing your home. Contrary to popular belief, the price tag on your home isn’t based on what you think your home is worth, how much you paid for it, or even how much you’ve put into it in updates and upgrades. The value of your home is based solely on what a buyer is willing to pay for it in today’s market.
Overpricing your home, especially if there are similar lower-priced homes in the area, makes it unappealing to buyers. Likely, it won’t get a lot of interest, and probably not any offers. And once your home has been on the market for some time, even if you drop the price, buyers may start to question what’s wrong with it.
Mistake #2: Overdecorating
You want to show your home off, and that might mean sprucing up your decor a little bit. However, it does not mean covering up your home’s natural assets with bright colors, bows, garlands, paintings, posters, or family photos. In fact, if possible, you want to remove any personalizations, like photos, kids’ artwork, or anything too bold or assertive.
When in doubt, it’s best to keep decor simple. Less is more.
Mistake #3: Lingering during showings
When buyers come to take a look at your house, you might be tempted to show them around and tell them all the things that are great about the home. But it’s best to step back and give them free rein. In fact, you shouldn’t even be around for showings at all, if possible.
Letting buyers tour your home without you will make them feel more free to look around and get know the house. Lingering homeowners can lead to an uncomfortable and shortened touring experience.
Mistake #4: Neglecting repairs or hiding issues
If you know of an issue with your home that needs to be fixed, fix it. Don’t risk losing a buyer to a preventable issue. Take some time before you list address any known or potential maintenance issues with your home.
Not sure what you should be fixing? Hiring a home inspector is a good way to get a preview of issues a potential buyer will most certainly uncover in their inspection. That way, you can get out ahead of the problems, shop around for the best prices, and have plenty of time to make repairs before you lose a sale or are forced to offer credits or a price reduction.
Mistake #5: Using poor-quality photos
Even before social distancing became the social norm, the internet played a major role in the home shopping experience. But now more than ever, buyers are finding homes online, which means your home really has to stand out from the competition. And one way to do that is with high-quality listing photos.
A good photographer will know how to paint your home in the best light—literally! Good photography, good lighting, and a good eye will ensure that your home looks even better than its best.
Mistake #6: Forgetting about curb appeal
It’s easy to get caught up in fixing, cleaning, and staging the interior of your home and forget about the exterior entirely. This is a big mistake because, as the first thing a buyer sees, your home’s exterior is its first impression. A buyer with a bad first impression may have already made up their mind before they so much as set foot inside!
Mistake #7: Declining to work with an agent
This is possibly the #1 biggest mistake a seller can make. But won’t listing For Sale By Owner (FSBO) save you from having to pay commission? Yes (for the seller’s agent, anyway). But you’ll quickly make up for that cost in other ways—including the price of your home. That’s right; FSBO homes typically sell for LESS than agent-listed homes.
But aside from losing money on your home, there are a few other ways you’ll miss out by not working with an agent. Marketing and advertising, staging and showing, organizing professional and even drone or aerial photography, scheduling showings, handling calls, pricing negotiating, coordinating with vendors… these are all things an agent does on a daily basis. Do you have the time and know-how to tackle them all?
Want to Sell Your Crofton Home Soon?
If you’ve been thinking of listing your home in Crofton, I’m here to help! Contact me, Kyle McCarthy, to find out more about how I can help you price your home correctly, get it looking fantastic, and list it with ease.