If you’re looking to sell your house, be sure not to make any of these top 6 most common mistakes.
Mistakes in the selling process can throw your plans off course, causing delays and costing money.
But by identifying what mistakes to avoid, you can save yourself the headache and the expense.
In this post, we’ll share the top 6 most common mistakes to avoid when selling your home for a smoother and faster sale.
6 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Selling a Home
Steer clear of these top 6 most common mistakes as you work toward a successful sale.
1. Not Working With an Agent
Selling a home is an intricate, complicated process that is best suited for a professional, so it’s not a surprise that the vast majority of sellers choose to work with an agent.
A highly skilled, experienced agent can help with many of the selling details:
- Listing agents help sellers accurately price their homes
- Work with professional photographers and stagers
- Coordinate showings and open houses
- And negotiate with buyers’ agents to get the best deal for their clients
The value of working with a licensed sales professional was reinforced by Devon Higgins, a real estate agent from Grand Rapids, Michigan:
“An experienced agent pays for themselves by knowing how to maximize the sale, pricing the home correctly, and marketing it effectively, thus covering the commission costs, and beyond.”
Devon Higgins, CMO & Managing Partner at AgentUp, Real Estate Agent at Hello Homes
However, not all real estate agents have the same level of experience and skills.
2. Incorrectly Pricing Your Home
To quickly find the right buyers, your home must be correctly priced.
Agents use a Comparative Market Analysis (CMA) — a thorough, data-backed examination of how your home compares to other listings in your neighborhood — to accurately price your home.
Without the expertise of an agent’s CMA, it’s easy to list your home at the wrong price.
Overpricing a home has many risks, including:
- Attracting the wrong buyers because your home is competing with superior listings
- Fewer showings and less interest
- Causing your home to sit on the market for extended periods and become less appealing to buyers and their agents
And there are risks of underpricing your home, too, and these include:
- Leaving money on the table
- Causing buyers and agents to think the property is underpriced because something is wrong with it
Mispricing your home can easily leave the seller unsatisfied with the price the home ultimately fetches.
3. Not Staging Your Home
Any home for sale on the market must look its absolute best. First impressions matter greatly and showing a home not ready for the market can dramatically affect the price of offers.
Staging a home is the process of getting it ready for showings and includes:
- Thoroughly cleaning the entire home
- Storing away family photos and private items
- Decluttering every room, cabinet, and closet
- Rearranging furniture for maximum room flow
- Adding small details such as flowers, scented soaps, throw pillows, and so on
Staging is a huge part of the selling process and is often what first captures buyers’ attention.
4. Not Prioritizing Photography
It’s hard to overstate this — one of the hard truths for selling a home is that first impressions matter.
Today, over 97% of home buyers start their search online, looking through hundreds of real estate images to help them find the right home.
As such, it’s worth the effort and modest expense to hire a high-quality photographer. The right photography can make or break a sale.
Think about the following:
- Homes with high-quality images stand out against homes with less impressive pictures
- Stunning listing photos will require a professional photographer and photo editing
- If you fail to captivate and motivate potential buyers online, they will skip looking at your home altogether
An attractive and pleasing home will receive more attention, and any advantage you can give your home over competing listings is a great benefit.
5. Listing at the Wrong Time
Timing in real estate sales is extremely important. Listing your home when buyers aren’t looking for a property can lead to your home sitting on the market for months.
Consider these seasonal issues:
- Many homebuyers want to complete their move by the start of the school year
- This means spring and summer are the market’s busiest times
- Homes listed around the fall and winter holidays will eventually sell but might take longer
- Keep in mind, the weather also plays a role in buyer activity, too
In general, late spring is considered the best time to list a home, with the highest bids and number of buyers closing in June.
However, do market research before listing your home, since different regions have their own timing trends.
6. Refusing to Negotiate
Sellers sometimes set a price and terms and stick with them, refusing to respond to the market conditions and potential buyers’ attempts to negotiate.
Again, such a strategy is a significant mistake. Why?
- Uncooperative or unrealistic sellers will deter buyers who might have ultimately made an acceptable offer
- A delayed sale sends signals to other agents and their buyers to skip this listing
- Sellers with a reputation for being difficult to work with will make other agents unlikely to recommend the listing to their clients
If you’re difficult and unwilling to negotiate, it can push buyers away and leave potential deals on the table.
Therefore, before the home even hits the market, it’s important to work closely with your agent to clarify your expectations and which terms and contingencies you’re willing to negotiate.
AgentUp – Your Real Estate Marketing Partner!
If you need help with professional real estate marketing to help sell your home faster at a higher price, AgentUp is here for you!
We offer a range of high-quality, cutting-edge marketing tools to make your sales easier, such as:
- Virtual staging — show potential buyers a home’s full potential and make every room and space in your listing look simply stunning
- Single property websites — showcase a single property without competing listings or other distractions
- Real estate virtual assistants — who can help with your marketing and sales efforts on a part-time or full-time basis
- Custom house portraits — the perfect closing gift that your clients will love
- Video editing — video tours and property highlights professionally edited and featuring your branding and information
- And more — including property flyers and real estate photographer websites, too
So, let us help you explore the tools needed to help sell your home fast and for top dollar.
Contact AgentUp today and let us help you sell homes and grow your business at record speed!
You can also check out our competitively priced service plans. We hope you benefited from this blog post on the 4 powerful reasons to use virtual home tours to sell homes.
