If you’ve been living in your home for more than a few years, it’s likely that you can become very emotionally attached to your home. It’s full of memories and sometimes, it’s hard to leave the site where those memories originated. In this light, it becomes difficult to view your home as a commodity.
However, you’ll keep the memories forever regardless of the home. When it comes to selling, you need to make your home attractive for the next owner not yourself. For a smoother sales transaction that garners the most possible profit from your sale, avoid these common, yet costly, seller mistakes:
1. Skipping a home inspection.
Depending on the age of your home, scheduling a pre-listing home inspection could save you a lot of time and aggravation. It gives you a chance to know about your home’s issues prior to negotiating with a buyer to fix problems.
2. Skimping on your sales prep.
While you may be tempted to ‘test the waters’ and put your home on the market without painting it or making minor repairs, your home is likely to languish on the market and get a reputation for having a major problem. A thorough, professional-level cleaning should be your bare minimum preparation. Your eventual sales price is likely to be lower if you don’t sell within the first few weeks after you list your home.
3. Neglecting to ramp up your curb appeal.
Do you want to go inside?
First impressions mean everything. If you polish and primp inside your home but neglect to pull weeds or paint your front door, you run the risk of potential buyers leaving without ever entering your home.
4. Withholding information from buyers.
If you hope that the buyers or their inspector won’t find out about the leak under your bathroom sink or the fact that your basement gets flooded every winter, you run the risk of a nasty negotiating period, or worse, a lawsuit after the settlement.
5. Overpricing your home.
If you’ve hired the right REALTOR®, someone who can give you a strong market analysis and help you determine a reasonable price for your home, then you can avoid overpricing your home. If you don’t listen to your REALTOR® and base your listing price on an inflated view of your home’s value, you’re likely to end up selling after multiple price drops for less than you would have if you priced it right the first time.
6. Being unprepared for your next step.
Whether you should buy your next home or sell your current home first is only one part of the preparation you need to make to move. You need a back-up plan in case your transaction on either end takes longer or shorter than you think, and you need to understand your mortgage payoff and the closing costs you must pay.
7. Letting your pets and kids spoil a sale.
Part of your emotional detachment from your home is recognizing that while you love Fluffy and your darling twins, buyers want to visualize themselves and their own family in your home. Bribe your kids if you have to, but make sure the house is neat and as neutral-looking and smelling as possible. Take the kids and your pets out (or lock up your pets) when prospective buyers are visiting – you never know if someone who is terrified of dogs or cats will be turned off from making an offer because of your adorable pet.
This information was compiled by realtor.com.