Home sellers! Are You Guilty Of The 7 Sins Of Home Selling?
Greed: This is a big problem. In a vendor’s market it was easy to get in touch with his greedy side. Feeling like Midas, anything he asked of a buyer turned to gold in his hands. Drunk with that kind of power, buyers often felt powerless to deliver if they wanted their home. In a balanced market, or even a buyer’s market, many sellers have not given up the habit of greed. Ironically, greed is costing sellers money. Ask any real estate agent and they will tell you stories of businesses that failed due to a $ 300.00 item that could not be agreed upon. They no longer have the upper hand, many sellers are reluctant to compromise if it means less money in their pockets, but now buyers are free to move to the next house on their list. A seller may refuse to fix a $ 500.00 item in the house, or provide a financial guarantee on the house, but when the buyer moves to a compliant seller, the greedy seller is left waiting for another buyer, while making the payments of the mortgage on the house they cannot sell. Bad move.
Unrealistic expectations: Anyone who has sold a home on a seller’s market will have a hard time understanding a buyer’s market. If you want to sell your home, you must forget everything you remember about selling your home in the past. Your home most likely won’t sell in a week or receive multiple offers. Unrealistic expectations are the basis of guilt and resentment, preventing you from selling your home. The first few weeks of having your home on the market are filled with hope, anxiety, and irrational exuberance. It is completely normal to believe that your home is somehow more special than others on the market, and yours will be the exception to the difficult market. Once it is clear that the bidding war has not materialized and that your home is still standing next to the others, a home seller with unrealistic expectations is crushed. Be positive about your home, but don’t be blind to what it will take to sell it. A home seller with a realistic view of what it takes to sell a home in a balanced or buyer’s market can easily adapt to changing market conditions, use constructive feedback to improve their home, and in return sell their home. faster.
Pride: If you really want to sell your home, make a promise right now that you will never say the following sentence: “I’m going to send a message to that buyer.” If you like texting, maybe you can breed racing pigeons. If you want to sell your house, remove that phrase from your vocabulary. The message sellers send when they respond to buyers in this way is “I don’t want to sell you my house. You have insulted me.” In the end, all you have left is your pride and that house that just won’t sell. As an active Ebayer, I have never witnessed a transaction where the seller of an item was outraged by the lowest bidder. Everything is business. Divorce your emotions from the home selling process and you have a leg up on angry sellers in your area, because the buyers you target with your “messages” are going to buy a home, but not theirs! The message to send to a buyer must be in the form of a counter offer. Nothing else. Nothing less.
Impatience: You want this house sold. Now! The impatient seller cannot understand why his house has not sold in the first week. By the third week on the market, the impatient home salesman is furious and wondering how to get out of the listing agreement. Are you an impatient home salesperson? If you’ve chosen your real estate agent carefully, and when you signed the listing agreement, you thought you were up to the job, then sit back and let the market roll. The impatient seller calls his agent more than once a day for updates, even if there has been no activity in the house. The question, “why isn’t it selling?” begged regularly over the phone. Are you, the impatient seller, doing whatever it takes to sell your home? Have you done the things your agent suggested to get your home in salable condition? Did you really listen to the comparable pricing data your agent gave you? Or did you have a fixed price in mind and refused to move when you put the house up for sale? The impatient seller can create a tremendous amount of stress for everyone involved in the home sale, and it is totally avoidable. Ultimately, the timing of your home sale will be a combination of price, condition, and luck. No amount of impatience is going to change that.
Ignoring the market: Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is a disaster for a home seller. Yes, we know that your neighbor sold his house for the same price you want for your house, but that was four months ago. The residential real estate market is now more fluid than ever. Find out about current market conditions, not last year’s market, not even last month’s market. A home seller who ignores the market will interview some real estate agents, read the data provided by the agent, then ignore the data and list the agent that gives the least argument about the price of their house in a little way. realistic. Real estate agents do not price houses, but sellers do. Agents will provide valuable input and information to help the seller choose a price. Some agents will refuse to accept an ad if they believe the seller is unrealistic about pricing, but many others will accept the ad with the caveat that the seller will be open to lowering the price later. With so many other properties on the market, an expensive home will sit there like a deli tray at a vegetarian gathering. The seller will then chase the market by lowering the price after seeing prices drop around him. Eventually the home may be sold, but the price will be determined by the market, as always. If you are guilty of ignoring the market, you can save yourself a lot of time and headaches by scheduling a meeting with your real estate agent to review your current home sales data and set a realistic price now.
Stubbornness: When selling your home, it is best to imagine yourself as a flexible tree gently swaying in the wind, rather than a donkey with its heels firmly rooted in the ground that resists all attempts to move. Stubbornness can appear in many situations. When they contact you to schedule a visit, do you leave home? Although it is a fact that your house is more likely to sell if it is not there for the exhibition, do you refuse to be bothered by having to leave? You can tell yourself that buyers can fit into your schedule. They will not. The possibility of a sale often disappears because the buyer is uncomfortable with the homeowner and cannot freely evaluate the home. Expect to be bothered when you sell your home. It is part of the process.
Not cooperating: Are you a partner with your real estate agent when it comes to selling your home? Resisting all of your real estate agent’s suggestions for changes to your home that will help it sell faster? I have had this conversation with home sellers many times. Is it fair for people to judge your home based on the things that won’t be in it when you move in? No, probably not. Do buyers judge your home based on those things? Absolutely. I’ve seen buyers lose their enthusiasm for a home based on a decorating theme that didn’t suit them. No matter how many times your real estate agent reminds you that you can decorate in your own style, it is too late. The house is now known as the “duck house”, or the “doll house”, or the “pink house”. Each house receives a nickname when buyers are buying. Don’t let your refusal to cooperate keep your home from being the “perfect home.”
Selling your home requires the cooperation of countless people, many of whom you will never meet. The key word here is “cooperation”. We, as home sellers, expect those who are working to complete our sales transaction to be cooperative. And you, the seller of the house? Are you willing to meet the buyer halfway through the negotiations? Are you willing to work someone else’s hours to get something signed for you? Remember, you may be selling a property, but in the end, real estate is all about humans. Be good.
