It’s no secret, sellers are typically stressed about selling their home. Sellers find themselves in this situation repeatedly because they are unaware of what will truly effect a sale. Selling your home can be overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. Know what issues to avoid by understanding the 7 mistakes sellers often make below.
1 Using Poor Quality Pictures
If you’re snapping a quick picture of the exterior of your home and have two other blurry pictures of half the living room and a bedroom, you’ll want to take new pictures. Your homes images are the first thing potential buyers look at online. They want to see if it lines up with the set price and if they like it before scheduling a showing. Your photos should be an accurate portrayal of the main areas and rooms of your home. You don’t need absolute perfection, but they need to be good enough to make a buyer want to come out and see the home.
2 Pricing it too High
If you’re selling your home, you’re most likely buying too. Would you buy an overpriced home? I doubt you would make that mistake as a buyer. Even if you get a contract for an inflated price, the buyer will want to renegotiate or terminate when the appraisal comes in. When your agent runs a comparative market analysis, it will give you a pretty decent idea on where to start. But, if you are not getting any showings or offers, the property is overpriced. Buyers are out there looking at other homes along with yours, and if the other ones are a better value, they will view and make offers on the other ones first. Don’t make the mistake of ignoring this. Wishful thinking will not sell your home.
3 Using a For-Sale-By-Owner Sign
With a For-Sale-By-Owner sign, you’re mainly going to attract new real estate agents who are told by their broker to call all the For-Sale-By-Owner signs to get some listings. If you do attract a buyer, they will most likely want you to lower your price because of your commission savings. A sign and a couple of ads on for sale by owner sight is not the exposure you’ll need. You’ll want to be on the MLS. This is the marketing tool that matters in real estate and can bring you serious buyers.
4 Using Pointless Marketing Tactics
The MLS is the real estate market. It will allow your home to be on public MLS sites including Zillow and Realtor.com. This is the exposure you need to concern yourself with. Flyers, open houses, mailings to the neighborhood, the newspaper adds, For-Sale-By-Owner websites, and spam will not sell a home. Do not concern yourself with tools most agents use to self-promote.
5 Making it Difficult to Show
Although it needs to be easy for your property to be visible online, it should also be simple for interested buyers to view your property in person. Making showings difficult minimizes the chances you have of receiving an offer. The fewer showings you reject or delay the better. Setting showings up as “courtesy call” will be best when selling your home. Additionally, when you show your home, you want it to look its best. The more lived in it looks like, the less attractive your home will appear. Clean it up and depersonalize for your showing to have the best effect.
6 Looking too much into Showing Agent Feedback
Please take feedback with a grain of salt. You already know the shortcomings of your home. If your home has a shortcoming that’s easy to fix, then fix it. If it can’t be fixed, then you need to wait for a buyer who doesn’t care, or reduce your price to compensate for the shortcoming. Some things are just a matter of preference or taste, and the feedback doesn’t help. The most meaningful feedback is how many showings and offers you are getting.
7 Listing with a Traditional 6% Agent
If you are caught paying a 6% commission, you have to price your property high enough to make up for what you pay in commissions. With Creekview Realty, you pay a flat fee of $495 to list on the MLS for 6 months. Because of our business model our clients save thousands in commissions. When you list with businesses like Creekview Realty, not only can the listing price be lower, but when a buyer contacts us about your home, we refer that buyer directly to you. This allows you to avoid the buyer’s agent commission too, which allows you to make another 3% price concession that you wouldn’t be able to with a 6% real estate agent.
