Home selling process can be surprisingly time-consuming and sometimes too challenging. Especially, if you are a first time home seller, you might go mad, and the selling will seem impossible. Imagine a stranger comes into your house and, after mentioning so many disadvantages of your home, walks away offering you less money than you thought your property cost. Your awesome house, your favorite living room, and back yard are not that pretty to prospective buyers. Here’s our round-up on top home selling mistakes, so that you can see how you shouldn’t act during and after putting your house on the market.

Marketing

Have you ever heard of a great product that hasn’t been marketed properly? Having marketing as my second profession, personally, I will strongly recommend you not to skip marketing. This is really the first and most important thing you shouldn’t do when selling your home. Especially, with today’s sky-high percentage of social media platforms, it will be crucial not to take its advantages. Millions of people are checking their Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and other personal social media accounts daily. So, why lose your potential buyer? Ask your real estate agent or do it yourself. Put your home on all possible platforms. Find your target audience and talk to them directly, tell them how awesome your house is! You may also use printed ads, but with so many free websites, you are likely not to be ok with spending much money on printed advertising.

Price

Everyone loves his home so much that when it comes to selling it, putting the home value becomes the most emotional step to take. Overpricing your house is not a good start. Don’t put an unrealistic price. Just do the best you can to find the best price for your home!

Read 5 Tips Towards Finding The Perfect Price For Your Home.

Bear in mind, that chances you will get the price you’d asked could be different based on market conditions, compatibles and a specific buyer. You’ll need to be ready to always negotiate. So chose a reasonable price and note, that if you haven’t received any offers within a 30-day period, then your listing price is too high or you need to revisit your house conditions. The statistics show that the first wrong listing price will eventually fall even lower than you wanted to sell your home for.

Realtor

The next point is hiring a good real estate agent. Don’t go alone. Even if you’re going to pay the agent commission of 5-6% of the sale price of your property, you should go for it, especially, if you haven’t sold a home before. An experienced and good agent will find for your home that best price we were talking about above. He or she could also help you with your marketing. As you might know, almost every experienced and well-known realtor has thousands or sometimes tens of thousands of followers on each social platform and your listing will be seen all over as soon as your realtor gets it. And, finally, agents are familiar with all the paperwork you’ll need to deal with during the real estate transaction. A professional agent will always be there when you have any common problem during the process, and take that off your shoulders.

Listing Photos

A couple of years ago it might have been the best option to pick up one good photo of your home and hang it in your front yard to have your home sold. Now it’s too difficult to sell your home with one single photo. Even more – the photos should be in abundance and awesome! So many buyers look for homes online. You can’t miss them. Take photos when there is much natural light to have them clear and crisp. Look at your listing photos several times, show them to your friends and family. Ask others’ opinions. So many poor photos have been uploaded and made good homes stay on the market for a long time. Don’t let it happen to you, too. You might have watched enough HGTV shows and should remember that staging and curb appeal help to sell a home. So prepare your home and make it look its best. Take photos and put your home on the market.

Broken things

What many sellers do is trying to hide large problems hoping to have their homes sold fast. What happens to most of them is having more trouble within the selling process and losing potential buyers. Even if the buyers don’t notice any problem, they are likely to have the home inspected before signing the final contract. And it’s obvious, that the professional inspector will find any issue. Not to make the process more complicated and longer, you’d better have all broken things fixed and major problems solved. If you’re on a budget or you don’t have time for repair, you should definitely tell the prospective buyer about the problem and propose to buy your home for less money to pay the difference. Having your home inspected before listing it, is a good idea. This will help you avoid costly surprises when the buyer’s inspector uncovers any serious problem.

Cleaning

Have you ever entered a house which is not too large, not expensively decorated, there is no luxurious furniture, but the home shines and you have a great feeling of comfort? The matter of cleanliness – you see! Putting your home on the market without cleaning it beforehand, is what you shouldn’t do here. Clean and sunny rooms make the home feel larger, more beautiful and cozy. Decluttering is where you should start. If you don’t have time for a deep clean, hire a professional for that hard job. Cleaning up the interior and exterior with paint, replanting and renovating will make a huge difference. Pay special attention to the home’s entrance. If you have pets, make sure to check out How To Sell A Home When You Have Pets article before listing your home.

Personal items

After a proper clean, let’s think about personal items and staging. If staging your home is out of a budget, just start with depersonalizing. Many people wait till the home is sold to take away their family pictures and personal items. Don’t go their way. Before listing your home have a few boxes and fill them with all your personal items to help prospective buyers imagine them living in your home. This will also make your rooms seem larger. As you might know, buyers love spacious rooms and a lot of storage. Start preparing for the move and try to have as much empty storage as possible. This will for sure help you sell your home faster.

Negotiate

My home is the best in this area and I’m asking the best price for it – no negotiation! Do you think like this? Really? Refusing negotiation is the last “don’t” in this article. Any smart buyer will negotiate. And, if you want to complete the transaction, you should play the game. Think about this before listing your home. Make sure to propose the best price leaving some wiggle room for later negotiation. Buyers will be happy feeling they are getting a better value. Above mentioned good agent will help you negotiate using little known tricks for buyers and win you the best deal.

By: Hermine Aslanyan

Additional Resources For Home Sellers: 

Removing Wallpaper When Selling a Home by Bill Gassett

When selling your home, the highest offer is not always the best offer by Conor MacEvilly

Don’t Make These Mistakes When Selling Your Home by Deb Rhodes

…Did I Miss Something? What Would You Add?

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