It’s easy to get emotional about selling your home, especially your first one. You spent a great deal of time and effort to find the right one, saved up for your down payment and furniture, and created many memories. People generally have trouble keeping their emotions in check when it comes time to say goodbye.(1)
If you are emotionally attached to your home, you may have difficulty selling it. And you may use some smart strategies that can ruin the whole deal. Here are smart strategies to avoid when selling your home.
Overpricing Your Home
Emotional attachment to your home will make you set an unrealistic price. You will consider all the money and time you have invested in making it the best place to be and want all that to count on the asking price.
Although you would want to make a profit when you sell my house fast Reynoldsburg Ohio, you don’t have to overprice it. If you do, you will be putting off many potential buyers who would want to buy it. Instead of setting a price based on your emotions and how much you have invested in it, you should do a market analysis and use online home valuation tools to estimate its value.
Hiring Just Any Real Estate Agent
Selling a home is a stressful and time-consuming process. If you handle the process on your own, you are likely to make costly mistakes. To take the guesswork out of the process, hiring an experienced real estate agent is advisable.
You may think any real estate agent is competent enough to handle your home selling process. But that is not true because agents are not equal. If you hire just any agent you come across, you will make a huge mistake. Why? You might end up with an inexperienced agent who will likely mess up the selling process as they lack experience or knowledge about the local and regional real estate market. With such an agent, your home might stay much longer in the market.
Unless you are selling your home for cash to a We Buy Houses Whitehall company, you should hire an experienced and trusted real estate agent. The agent will handle the entire process and close the deal as soon as possible. But be ready to sacrifice 5-6% of the sale price to pay the agent’s commission.
Listing at the Wrong Time
You would want to sell your home quickly. And that may push you to list it at the wrong time of the year. If you put your home up for sale in winter, that will be a wrong move. Why? There are few buyers during winter months, and you will not find a buyer as quickly as you would wish.
Instead, you should wait for the right time, spring or summer, to list your home. Many potential buyers are looking for homes to buy in spring and summer. Most of these buyers are ready to pay the best prices for their dream homes. So, when you list your home at this time, it will be easy to find a buyer, and there is a higher probability of selling it at the highest price possible.
Hiding Major and Minor Problems
When you want to sell my house fast Reynoldsburg Ohio, you will likely hide major and minor problems so your house can find a buyer quickly. Hiding major issues can also help keep your home’s value high. This might seem a smart strategy, but it is very wrong.
You will be deceiving potential buyers that your home is in perfect condition. However, a home inspection will be done, and all those hidden major and minor issues will be identified. At that point, potential buyers will know that you are dishonest, and some might walk away, while others will reduce their offers significantly, leaving you frustrated.
Please note that there is no need to hide major and minor problems in your home. If you can’t fix the issues, you should reveal the information in the declaration form or sell the house for cash to a We Buy Houses Whitehall company or any other cash home buyer of choice. Cash buyers buy homes in any condition. They will buy your house in as-is condition, helping you avoid costly repairs and improvements.
Not Preparing for the Sale
You may think that your home is smart, and buyers will scramble for it. However, you must know that your house is one of many on sale. There are dozens of properties like it in the market; some look more attractive than yours. So, if you don’t prepare your house for sale, you will be surprised to know that few buyers would want to buy it.
To ensure that your property attracts as many potential buyers as possible, you should prepare it for sale. This involves deep cleaning, decluttering, repainting, and fixing the most glaring problems. All these will ensure that your home looks at its best and will impress potential buyers, increasing your chances of selling it quickly.
Expecting the Asking Price
When selling your home, especially your first one, you expect to sell it at the asking price. But you must know that many factors influence house prices, including inventory and inflation. So, you don’t have to be rigid when negotiating with potential buyers. If you stick to the asking price, you will stay with your house for months or years.
Most buyers expect you to lower the prices during negotiation. You should be ready to adjust the price so as to sell your home quickly.
Opening Your House for the Highest Bidders Only
If you decide to open your home only to the highest bidders, you will be making a huge mistake. Some of those highest bidders might not be serious or are waiting for loan approval to buy the house. And in the end, they might not buy the home.
Instead, you should open your house to all buyers with reasonable offers. You might get a serious buyer who presented a low offer, but after viewing the house, they increase their offer significantly.