For many people, owning a house is the biggest single purchase they’ll ever make, and for nearly everyone who sells their house – even those with only one property – it will be the biggest thing that they’ve ever sold. The process of selling a property is incredibly exciting because it’s a mark of taking your life in a new and better direction, but it can also be stressful because there’s just so much to do. The stress associated with selling your home can lead people into making mistakes, which makes the process even more difficult than it needs to be. There are some common mistakes that people make when selling a house that you’ll want to avoid in order for the entire process to go as smoothly as possible.
1. Taking Too Long To Sell
The real estate market, like any other market in a capitalist society, is driven by supply and demand. This means that when the demand for housing outweighs the supply of available homes on the market, prices will go up. When there’s more supply than demand, prices will drop. If you allow your house to sit on the market for several months or more, it will slowly begin to depreciate in value. You may not lose money overall if you sell at a loss, but you’ll still want to minimize losses as much as possible by getting your home off of the market quickly. That said, you don’t have to take the first offer that comes your way either. Weigh your options and determine what would work best for you and your needs. You might want to look into the option of selling your house quickly to a real estate solutions company. For a lot of people, getting a high cash offer is much better than waiting months to get a slightly higher offer which takes a while to finalize. You’ll have the cash immediately rather than having to wait for it.
2. Not Vetting Your Contractor
Of course, renovating your home will almost always put you in a position to set a higher asking price. This is practically a must in case there are some major repairs that need to be made – such as a leaking roof, or bad wiring. As any homeowner knows – good contractors are hard to come by. When people want to sell their home as fast as possible, they don’t always take the time to vet the contractor they hire properly, thinking that it doesn’t really matter as long as he gets the job done in time. Unfortunately, that almost always ends up in some kind of disaster or another. Perhaps the contractor is flaky and doesn’t show up to start working when he’s supposed to. Maybe he did a really bad job and now there’s not only wasted time waiting for him to finish, but the homeowner needs to find a new contractor to do it properly as well. By taking enough time to ensure that the person or company you’re hiring is truly a professional at what they do, you’ll end up actually saving time, energy, and you’ll have a wonderful finished product at the end.
3. Setting An Unreasonable Price
A lot of people think that they should set a high asking price so that they still get more than the realistic market price is, once the haggling process is done. When setting an asking price, it’s important that you have a good grasp of the real estate market in your area. Asking for slightly more than you could get for your property is fine, but asking too much will leave you with two options:
- You’ll take a long time to sell it while buyers keep coming in and offering lower and lower prices.
- You’ll have a bunch of people making low-ball offers that are so far from what you were expecting that the asking price will become completely meaningless.
If you take your time, do your research, and understand what the average price of homes in your neighborhood are really selling for lately – not just when they were originally built – you’ll be able to set a price that buyers will find as attractive as possible without too much hassle.
4. Deciding Not To Stage The Home
One of the quickest ways to lose money when selling a home is by not staging it at all. Some people think that they can save money and time by not doing this. They may even believe that there would be no point in hiring someone else to do it for them since they’re already trying to sell their house as fast as possible and don’t have a lot of time to spare. However, the truth is that most real estate agents agree that a home that has been carefully staged will almost always get a far better offer. This is because it shows potential buyers what they can do with the place once they buy it, and it’s appealing to the eye as well. Whether you have a knack for interior design or decide on hiring someone to stage your home for you, it can make a huge difference in how much money you get out of it.
5. Using Bad Photos For The Listing
Without a doubt, you’ll be using photos in the listing. It’s important that you take these yourself – if you have a good camera and know how to take those kinds of photos well or have someone take them for you so that they’re high-quality and professional-looking. This is imperative if you want any chance of getting your home sold in a timely manner. Bad photos will not only make buyers wonder if there’s something wrong with the property that you’ve failed to mention, but it also makes people think that it’s on a whole other level of terrible and unappealing if the photos are actually bad. Properly marketing your home is essential to selling it quickly – there are many things you can do to make sure it sells as fast as possible, and posting great photos of your home is a good start
Selling your home can be a truly thrilling and rewarding part of your life, so long as you know what to do in order to get it sold in the best way possible. By avoiding the common mistakes mentioned in this article, you’ll be able to get rid of your home in a time and manner that is well-suited to your needs.