Selling a home can be a stressful part of your transitioning process whether you’re buying a new home in the area or having to move across the country. Whatever the case, avoid selling mistakes by sticking to some basic principles, working with a qualified real estate agent, and generally doing your best to present your home in it’s most vibrant light.
In order to avoid mistakes and sell your home both quickly and at a reasonable price, check out our tips to avoid making these mistakes when selling your home.
Pricing Your Home Incorrectly
If you’re looking at selling a home yourself, then you’ll be the one setting the price of your home. In order to do that, you’ll need to take into account your home’s value by evaluating home values and recent sale prices in your immediate area as well as additional factors that play into a home’s value such as proximity to parks, schools, and medical care.
The greatest mistake many sellers make is pricing themselves out of the market. While a buyer can always negotiate down from a slightly higher listing price, pricing a home too high will discourage buyers altogether. Sellers can also price their home too low and neglect the fact that there may be upwards of 10% in costs associated with the overall sale.
Your Home Isn’t Show Ready
Depending on your living situation as you sell your home it may or may not be possible to be out of the home while you’re selling it. Even if you can be, another mistake sellers make is not having their home in “show ready” condition.
To get your home ready to sell, it should be clean, organized, and all personal and family items like pictures, valuable possessions, etc. should be removed from the house. You can still live in your home while showing it, but it requires a conscious effort to keep your dwelling kept, clean, and show-ready.
For some homeowners, this may mean renting storage space for a month or two while you list the home as a place to store any items that aren’t essential to your day-to-day life or otherwise personalize the space too much.
Your Maintenance is Behind
Some sellers list a home on the market with an “as-is” selling attitude. In other words, they ignore routine mechanical maintenance on their home or fail to make costly repairs before listing the house.
While there are situations where selling a home “as-is” can be a wise play (rental properties for example) selling a home to someone who is buying it for themselves can be costly. Home inspections tend to reveal most mechanical shortcomings and depending on how your buyer perceives them, you may be on the hook for costly repairs you could have nipped early on.
For that reason, make any mechanical repairs necessary in your home before you even list it. A fully functioning home will be far more appealing to prospective buyers than one that needs significant attention.
Not Having Financing Lined Up
If you’re selling a home, then you’re likely in the process of buying another one. If you’re like most of us, you must sell your home in order to get the equity into the home you’re buying which means securing financing contracts that will allow for that to happen.
Get your financing lined up before you start the selling process. Your existing home will most certainly sell, but you don’t want to be without a place to live. With that said, call Tidewater Mortgage Services, Inc and get pre-qualified today!
