DO NOT Make These COSTLY Mistakes When Selling Your Home

Tuesday Feb 08th, 2022

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We are currently in a Seller's market which means that it may look easy to sell your home for top dollar with little effort.  You just put a sign up on the front lawn, put your home on MLS and it will be sold, right?  Not so fast!!  While it may look that way with many homes selling in multiple offers, do you know how much money you could be leaving on the table by not taking the proper steps and making any one of these mistakes?  Here are the top 7 mistakes that could cost you thousands of dollars!!  

 

1. Not pricing the home properly- One of the most important steps to home selling success is properly pricing a home. The more buyers through your home, the higher the sale price will be! Incorrectly pricing a home is a major reason why a home either does not sell or sells for too little. Let me explain. There are lots of different real estate pricing mistakes that home sellers make.  One of the most common real estate pricing mistakes is that sellers price their home higher to leave room for negotiations with a buyer.  This can lead to buyers not even looking at a home because they feel it is priced too high which is obviously not what a seller wants to accomplish. You want to get the most amount of buyers possible through your home to sell for top dollar.  If you deter buyers with your price, you will not attract the proper buyers through your home.  But did you know that you can also price your home too low in this market?  Pricing a home correctly for sale is tricky.  Pricing your house too low may have buyers wondering what is wrong with the home or it may not attract the proper buyers through your home who can actually afford what your home should ultimately sell for.  Getting professional advice on the value of your house is key. This is where a good agent is worth their weight in gold. They can ensure that you price your home correctly amongst the competition to ensure that your home will sell for top dollar.  

 

2. Not staging your home-  First impressions are everything!  You will want to make sure that you leave a lasting one with buyers.  The National Association of Realtors said that on average, staged homes sell for 6% more than homes that are not staged.  I have witnessed this first hand, so do not skip this step. You do not have to rent any furniture, you can work with what you have.  A few easy things that you can do on your own that will make a big difference are: getting rid of clutter, painting in neutral colours, removing personal photos and moving furniture around to make rooms look bigger to name a few. 

 

3. Not hiring a real estate agent- You may be tempted to try to sell your home on your own to save some money.  Unfortunately the statistics show that for sale by owners sell for a lot less money than homes listed with Realtors®...sometimes up to 26% less which means that you unfortunately end up netting less in the end than had you used a real estate agent and paid commission.  Help with preparing your home properly, pricing and marketing the home properly are just some of the reasons why.  Why take care of all of your own showings, negotiating, paperwork, marketing expenses and qualifying buyers only to sell for less money?  Not to mention that it is a lot of stress and liability to deal with.  

 

4.  Not hiring the right real estate agent to sell your home- If you avoided the last mistake of not hiring a Realtor® and have decided to hire one, make sure that you don’t hire the wrong one!!  Hiring the wrong real estate agent can also cost you thousands. You want to make sure that you hire a FULL-TIME real estate agent who is experienced, has knowledge of the current market and really cares about their clients.  The right agent will help you price your home properly, prepare the home properly, market the home properly, be available to answer any of your questions and the buyers questions and be sure to do the proper follow-up to sell your home for top dollar.  Like any job, you have good real estate agents and not so good real estate agents so just be sure to do your research.

 

5. Bad photos-  It is so important to have professional photos taken of your home.  First impressions are everything and since most home buyers start their search online, your photos are the first impression.  You want to make sure that your photos draw the buyers in to want to see your home in person and bad photos will push the buyers away.

 

6. Rushing to put your home on the market- It is so important that you put your best foot forward if you want to sell your home for the most amount of money.  Take the time to fix any little problems that have come up over the years and complete any work/staging that your real estate agent has recommended. 

 

7. Not making your home available for showings-  The more buyers through your home, the higher the sale price will be.  In this market, sometimes you can get bombarded with showings and that may mean moving out for a few days to allow all of the showings through if you can....especially if you have children or animals that you are having to clean up behind constantly.  Sometimes it can be easier to move out for a few days.  

 

If you are thinking about selling and would like to know how I can help, give me a call or send me a message.  

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