Are you about to list your home for sale? If so, congratulations! It's an important milestone and there are a few things you need to do in order to make sure the process goes as smoothly as possible. In this blog post, we'll discuss some of the most common mistakes home sellers and realtors make when listing a home for sale. By avoiding these mistakes, you'll be able to sell your home quickly and for top dollar. So let's get started!
Mistake #1 - Not paying attention to lighting issues
It is not only a matter of light levels in a room, but light sources, light colors, light augmentation, and light placement. How light changes during various times of the day can have an impact on how a buyer views a room during a home tour.
Real-Life Example: We were contacted by a frustrated Springboro Ohio homeowner. He had a beautiful home valued in the $500,000 price range. His home had been listed on the market for over 9 months with no offers with two experienced real estate agents with excellent name recognition in the South Dayton area. At the time the real estate market was strong when the home was listed. Each agent was from a different Dayton area real estate brokerage. One agent had the home listed for sale for 6 months and the other for three months. We were recommended to the homeowner and we shared with him why we believed the home had not sold. It was a lighting issue in the kitchen. We corrected the lighting and tweaked a few other things. Two weeks later it was under contract for the full asking price.
Mistake #2 - Not depersonalizing the décor
Homeowners decorate their house using a style enjoyed by the owner or at least with décor items that are appreciated or meaningful to them. When selling your home, you need to decorate keeping the new owner in mind by making your home attractive to the largest pool of buyers possible. This might sound overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. A professional can make it happen easily and affordably.
Mistake #3 - Leaving outdated colors on the floor and walls
Every year residential paint companies update their paint colors with fresh, new hues. You may have painted the interior of your house a few years ago with a color you picked from a swatch board at the paint store. You liked it, so that’s the one you put on the walls of your living room or kitchen.
Does the color play nicely with the color of your furniture?
Does it work well with the lighting in the room?
Does it appeal to your target buyer?
Mistake #4 - Not considering a buyer’s first impressions (often outside)
As Realtors who show hundreds of homes to buyers every year, we hear comments from buyers as they tour a home. Oftentimes, the buyer comments on things as we approach the front door. What are they doing? They are sharing their first impressions with us….good or bad. Over the years of selling homes, this information-gathering experience is invaluable to our future home sellers.
The mistake here is not having the ability to look at your own home as if you have never seen it before, i.e, with fresh eyes, because you have been living there every day for the last number of years. Another mistake sellers make is hiring a real estate agent who only tells you what you want to hear about your house. If all you hear is great things about your house, pause before hiring this agent.
Mistake # 5 - leaving unused spaces undefined
Every house has a limited amount of space or square footage and that is all there is. As a home seller, you need to maximize every space for its maximum financial return. Unused space is wasted space and lost money.
Another real-life example: We were recommended by a local mortgage lender to another disappointed and frustrated home seller in Beavercreek, OH. This seller had a custom-built home in the $600,000 price range that had been listed by a couple of different agents over a two-year period of time. The sellers called us after receiving the recommendation. We met and toured their well-built home which was only a few years old. There were several factors that contributed to their house not selling with several listing agents. We asked for the seller’s permission to be blunt and give them an honest evaluation as to why their house hadn’t sold. They were a little shocked and surprised; I don’t think any of their past Realtors had been honest with them.
One issue with their house (and there were several) was they had a couple of spaces that were undefined. They had one spare room on the first floor that had an old couch in it. That was it. What was it used for? Upon listing the home, we defined that space for maximum value and turned it into a home office. We did this to several rooms and addressed the other issues. We listed their house, applied our marketing strategies, and had the house under contract within 30 days, and closed shortly thereafter.
Mistake # 6 - Not pre-inspecting the home
In the current “Seller’s Market,” sellers have found it easier than ever to sell their house for an acceptable price (often leaving equity in the home for the new owner, but that’s a topic for another blog). Where they get “hit in the gut” is during the inspection period. The buyer finds issues with the house that need fixing and the buyer requires the use of a licensed professional to make the repairs, possibly costing thousands of dollars.
If the home had been pre-inspected prior to listing the home, many of the items found could have been repaired by the homeowner or a handyman. This step can save homeowners thousands of dollars. Car dealerships have capitalized on this by offering “Certified Used Cars”. These vehicles have gone through a 120-step inspection and were serviced. Why not offer a pre-inspected home? We know how to do this to make your home even more attractive to home buyers!
The Experience of Realtors Don & Cyndi Shurts Help Increase Your Home's Ultimate Sale Price
If you want to maximize the sale price and meet your goals for the property, then hiring an experienced home listing specialist/Realtor is a must. Agents bring with them years of experience in marketing homes that have sold quickly because they know how to market properties at their best potential. Today’s competitive real estate marketplace means it takes more than just good photos and a few sentences about what makes your house special to stand out from all other listings on the MLS® or Zillow®. When you hire us, not only will we get you into top-tier sites like Realtor.com®, but also work hard every day to promote your listing so buyers can find it easily when searching online search engines. Put our real estate experience and marketing specialties to work for you to cash out the true value of your home.
Call or text Keller Williams Advisors Realtors Don & Cyndi Shurts for all of your real estate needs. They'll put their 18 years of experience to work for you whether buying or selling a home in the Dayton Ohio region!
937-241-2124 (Don)
937-604-5194 (Cyndi)