Deciding to sell your home can be the start of a new chapter in your life; the start of something fresh and exciting. For some, this decision is just the start of a new set of headaches and a new kind of stress. Selling your house isn’t a “one and done” type of deal. It takes effort, time, and knowledge since making a mistake while selling your house is easier than it may seem.
Naturally, most of us don’t have a lot of experience (if any at all) or knowledge when it comes to selling real estate; let alone selling a house that has tremendous emotional value. When you are getting ready to sell your home, you also need to prepare yourself mentally for the interactions with potential buyers that you will have.
If you are a private person, you will need to prepare yourself for the mental strain of having strangers probing around your home, commenting on it, and, most importantly – trying to actively knock down your asking price. All of this can feel like an odd attack on your privacy since having people praying in your home usually doesn’t feel comfortable.
When all of these factors are put together, you can understand that it’s important to be prepared so that you don’t accidentally make a mistake while selling your home.
Here, we are going to go over some of the common mistakes made when selling a house.
1. Improper Worth Assessment
The first step of avoiding mistakes while selling your home is to get a proper assessment of the property. The mistake that you would be making without proper property assessment is quite obvious. You could either undersell your home or sell your home where and still owe more than the worth of the house.
To avoid the latter option, you need to see what you can do with the remaining balance of your mortgage. For example, if you owe more for your mortgage for your house than the asking price of your house – you might want to reconsider selling your house.
Of course, you can use a portion of your profit to pay off the mortgage, just make sure that the mortgage never exceeds the price. This is very important when it comes to selling your house, because if you make this mistake, the whole experience of selling your house may start to resemble riding a haunted roller coaster that you just can’t get off of.
Contact the right people, get the right consultations, and most importantly – the right numbers.
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2. Not Putting Up a Realistic Price
This mistake ties into what was previously mentioned. Proper assessment of your home will also help you put up a realistic price for your home. For example, the assessment of your property could be higher than what you could realistically get for your house.
The keyword here is: realistically. Overpricing your home is the easiest way to turn away your target buyer. If your home has damages that need to be repaired, you can’t ask for a super high price.
Whoever the buyer is will be aware of the fact that they will need to spend money on any repairs in addition to paying for the purchase of the real estate. Naturally, this knocks down the price.
When we are talking about a realistic price for your house, what we mean is a price that takes into account any extra costs that the potential buyer will have to make. If your house is in pristine condition, then your realistic asking price could be pretty close to the price of the property assessment.
Not putting up a realistic price for your house is only going to drive you into disappointment and potentially a lot of added stress. Therefore, a big piece of advice would be to repair anything that you can repair within your financial means. This can boost your price up and you will have more people interested in buying your home.
3. Not Preparing Your House
Staging your home might seem like such a minuscule detail when it comes to selling your home. However, research has shown that buyers are much more likely to buy a staged house versus an unstaged house. Put yourself in the position of the buyer. Would you buy a house that’s looking all kinds of busted and broken?
Or would you be more inclined towards a house that has a certain aesthetic to it? The answer is clear. When you are selling your home, you need to create an atmosphere that simply grips any potential buyer. You need to “wow” them with your house, as much as you possibly can.
Ideally, your property is leaving a good impression from the moment that they arrive at the entrance to your house, go through your yard or garden (if you have one), and come to your door, as well as inside.
And It Ties into Curb Appeal
If you have a yard or a garden, you need to make sure that it’s all properly taken care of and looking good. The entryway needs to be clean and welcoming, otherwise, you will have to deal with buyers that are coming into your home with a weird look on their faces. Even the small details such as entry numbers matter.
If they look old, it might be in your best interest to replace them with something that looks fresh and modern. Make sure that your entrance door looks good. Preferably with a fresh coat of paint for some extra “wow factor”.
But It’s Not Just the Visuals
The smell of your home is also very important, so apart from keeping it clean and tidy, you may want to invest in scented candles or essential oils, for example. Another important thing when it comes to selling your house is keeping it decluttered, as well as removing all personal details.
Remove the pictures of you and your family or knick-knacks that are important to you personally. When a buyer comes to your home for a viewing, they need to be able to visualize themselves living in the home that you are selling.
4. Using Bad Listing Photos
We, humans, just simply like to look at pretty things. Let’s not deny it. This might be because we’re slightly superficial, but whatever it might be – people will be more inclined to want to see your home and potentially buy it if you use high-quality pictures. A good photographer could do wonders for the selling of your home. Proper lighting is also very important.
The bigger lesson here is not skimping on prepping the house for sale. You want to showcase your piece of real estate in the best light possible. You want the potential buyer to look at pictures of your house and think “Wow, that can be my house. This is somewhere where I want to live!”.
Some of the key points to take away from this are to keep your house looking pampered, beautiful, and ready for a sale at any time. You might not believe it, but at the moment that your house is a mess and untidy – that’s the moment when a highly interested buyer will show up. Murphy’s law or not, best keep your house clean and ready for sightings.
5. Getting Emotional About (Low) Offers
Let’s face it, getting emotional is also just a part of human nature. When you are selling your house, you are doing a big thing; and doing big things isn’t easy. Getting emotional about selling your house is something that you should expect, however, you might want to extra prepare yourself so that you don’t get emotional about receiving low(er) offers.
The biggest piece of advice here would be: don’t take it personally. People will try to knock down the price since it’s in the buyers’ interest. Be willing to negotiate the price, but if the buyer or their agent sees that you are getting in your head about the price and your ego is having a hard time with it… They’ll just say “Thank you, pass”.
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Nobody Said Selling a House Is Easy
As you can see, there is a lot more to selling your house than you might have initially thought. It’s also a lot easier to make a mistake while selling it than you might have thought. Luckily, these mistakes are easily preventable if you plan and prepare ahead. As a final piece of advice to avoid these mistakes: keep your house available.
Buyers often struggle with scheduling a viewing or visitation of the house they are interested in. Most take this as a sign that the house that they are interested in probably just isn’t for them. This way, your house also has an upper hand in comparison to other houses or properties that the buyer is interested in.
All simply because your house is available, and theirs isn’t. Remember, in the end, no matter what the realistic price of your home is – it is only worth as much as the buyer is willing to pay for it.
Do your absolute best to accommodate your potential buyers and create a pleasant atmosphere. A big thing that helps is to try to think about your home from the perspective of the buyer. When you have everything set and done, ask yourself – “Would I buy this house?”.