Common Mistakes When Selling Your Home and How to Avoid Them

Selling a home for the first time can be time-consuming and emotionally draining. Think about how stressful it is to keep your home open for frequent visitors and answer a series of questions from potential buyers. This can make you settle for low offers to shorten the selling process or avoid more criticism from home hunters. 

Without essential real estate experience, making mistakes when selling your home is more accessible. However, you can straighten the process by understanding some home-selling practices to help you win higher offers. Hence, you should avoid a few common mistakes as a first-time home seller. 

Common Home-Selling Mistakes to Avoid

Real estate is a hot market with a higher profit margin. However, the success of selling a home lies in how you present yourself and handle customers. Therefore, before accepting offers or opening your house for sale, here are some mistakes to remember. 

1. Not Hiring a Reputable Real Estate Agent

Working alone is an easy escape to avoid paying a real estate professional for assistance. However, you need more valuable house-selling information and contacts of high-budget buyers. Working with a real estate agent gives you real-time access to the latest home prices, valuation, and marketing tactics. All these can simplify the process and land you higher offers. 

The challenge, however, is how to get a reputable real estate agent. That is because it is now expected to find real estate agents everywhere, even those who offer discounted commissions to get more business. Therefore, ensure you research and vet licensed agents based on the following: 

• Reviews from previous deals. 

• How fast they can sell a home. 

• How many homes have they sold in your city or town? 

1. Setting Unrealistic Price

Depending on the reason for selling your home, you may set your asking price too high or too low. Setting a home price too high can scare away solid potential buyers who may be interested in your home. Moreover, homes priced too high can have more days on the market, even if they have everything an ideal home should have. 

Setting your home price low can also have a negative impression on buyers. Not only will buyers question the quality of your home, but they will also question why you are selling or its attached features like neighborhood security. Therefore, as a rule, constantly research recent home prices before selling your home. That is where a real estate agent comes in handy with their recent home-selling statistics. 

2. Failure To Clean and Declutter

Homebuyers appreciate the value of a clean and free home as it allows them to walk through and inspect its features. A cluttered home will prevent them from walking around and imagining it as their home. So, before inviting homebuyers to your home, ensure it is decluttered and spotless. 

Cleaning and decluttering your home should be smooth. You can do it yourself or hire professional home cleaners to do the work. However, some of the decluttering basics include: 

• Removing all items you will not need when moving to a new home. 

• Removing or arranging large furniture in one room makes all rooms easily inspectable.  

• Cleaning or rearranging all the closets to make them less crowded.

• Packing away all décor that displays personal details. 

• Don't forget to clean the exterior, including the lawn and fences. 

3. Not Budgeting for The Costs of Selling a Home

Most new sellers need to remember that it costs money to sell a home. For instance, as a seller, you must prepare your home before selling, which includes repairing, cleaning, and paying listing agents. Even after closing the deal, you still need to pay other closing costs, roughly 1% of the home value. 

All these costs can be a surprise if you do not budget for them. Therefore, before listing your home, ensure you know how much the process will cost. This will help you set a realistic price, hire the right agent, and make a profit on your home. 

4. Letting Your Emotions Take Control

Getting emotionally attached to your home is possible, especially after living and creating memories in it for many years. However, letting your emotions take control of your selling process can complicate everything and push away buyers. Therefore, once you decide to sell your home, consider it a business, not a personal separation. 

Some of the emotional mistakes that sellers make include: 

• Failing to upgrade or renovate the home because they want to keep their memories. 

• Not removing items that showcase their emotional attachment, like drawings, when showing buyers around. 

• Not allowing room for negotiation and declining low offers as fast as they come in because they view them as personal insults. 

5. Trying To Hide Major Problems

Some major problems can be costly to repair before selling the home. However, that does not mean you should hide them from buyers when selling. Even if they are invisible to the naked eye, you should be honest enough to disclose them. All the major problems will be open during home inspection, and buyers will need to check your recent repairs and how you handled them in your seller's disclosure. 

Hiding major home problems can have negative impacts on the overall home-selling process. These include: 

• You may need to reduce the asking price, even if you are already on contract, and offer the buyer some credit to fix the problem themselves. 

• You may have to fix the problem yourself before proceeding with the contract. 

• The buyer may withdraw the offer or end the contract, forcing you to start the process again. 

• In extreme cases, you may face a lawsuit for not disclosing the issue on time before closing the deal. 

The Bottom Line

Selling your home should be a manageable process. All you need is to prepare yourself financially and mentally and ensure your home is in good condition before selling it. Note that even if you don't make the above mistakes, your home may have more days on the market if you don't have the right selling tips at your fingertips. Therefore, for better results, always work with a reputable real estate agent who will walk you through the process and help you make an informed decision.