Local Selling Tips

5 Mistakes You Might Be Making While Trying to Sell Your House

It can be truly stressful trying to sell your home. You may be personally attached to your home, and you might envision a specific buyer. You might also think your home is worth more than the assessed value, or that your roof is just fine while a potential buyer says otherwise. It’s difficult to try to sell a house, whether you use a realtor or not. There are so many factors, and especially if you are in a hurry, waiting for an offer to come in can be very difficult.

While it’s important to take the right steps in order to make your house sell, there are also mistakes that you should avoid. Being too involved in the sale of your home, expecting too much money, ignoring curb appeal, refusing or failing to fix issues, and choosing the wrong realtor are all significant mistakes that you want to avoid when trying to sell your home.

1. Being too involved

Most of us dream that we will quickly get multiple offers on our house and that it will sell for the amount that we hope to get. However, don’t allow yourself to become too involved in the selling process. This is particularly tricky if you are trying to sell your home yourself without a realtor, but it can also be a problem with a realtor. It’s important to try to keep your own feelings and memories out of the sale as much as possible. Perhaps you have lived in your home for twenty years, and you envision a young family raising their kids the way you did. In the end, what really matters are the offer details, at least if you are in a hurry to sell. Let your realtor deal with the other issues, or if you are selling yourself, make sure you don’t appear overbearing to potential buyers.

2. Expecting too much

It’s important that you price your home appropriately. Try a tool like this one by Zillow, which can help you determine what your home is worth. It’s also a good idea to talk to a realtor even if you don’t end up listing with one to ask about comparable properties in the area. You need to be prepared for a fair offer, and that won’t necessarily be the ideal offer you would hope for. Expecting too much can scare away buyers if you overprice your home, and it can cause you to overlook appropriate offers if you expect more than your home is worth.

3. Not considering curb appeal

No matter how beautiful your home is on the inside, having your home be presentable on the outside is crucial if you want to sell your house. Curb appeal is very important to most buyers, so be sure to look at your front yard, siding, and everything else that is visible from the street. While some buyers will be brought through your house because of a realtor or because they saw the home online, many buyers will stop by your house because they drove by and liked how it looked from the inside. Buyers can easily ask a realtor to bring them to a specific house, and this is might happen if a buyer wants a home in a particular neighborhood. Neglecting to take care of the curb appeal of your home could cause buyers to overlook it.

4. Not fixing minor or cosmetic issues

Some sellers decide to sell their home “as is,” which can be the right choice in many situations. If you are in a hurry to get out or your home needs a lot of renovations, you may actually attract buyers by pricing your home low because you know it needs work. However, if you are hoping for top dollar on your home, you need to fix the obvious issues. Cosmetic issues can be especially distracting to buyers. Buyers may see old wallpaper and see dollar signs, or find other minor problems and decide your home isn’t worth purchasing because they don’t want to deal with the issues. Even if you do the research and find out that fixing the problems would cost buyers very little, you still might be better off fixing them yourself.

5. Picking the wrong realtor

Speaking of realtors, if you plan to use one, make sure you choose carefully. According to Realtor.com, your choice should be based on recommendations about the agent’s communication skills as well as their attention to detail. It’s also important to consider the realtor’s training and designations. You also should pay attention to your impression about the realtors that you are considering; if you are uncomfortable with a certain realtor, or a particular person seems too busy or hurried to listen to your concerns, you probably don’t want that person to be your realtor. If you choose a realtor who is too busy to market your house, and work with potential buyers, you may have to wait longer to sell your house.

These are just a few mistakes that you might make while trying to sell your house. It’s easy to get attached to your home and to want the best possible outcome while selling it, but don’t get too involved. Remember to price it properly, pay attention to your home’s curb appeal and issues that need to be fixed, and find the right realtor.