Avoid These 5 Mistakes When Selling Your Home

When selling your home, it’s critical that you first begin by making your home selling strategy.

While many sellers tend to zero in on securing the highest value for their property or selling quickly, a multitude of factors must be considered before you even plan to begin selling your home.

If you want to build a successful strategy before selling your home, make sure to avoid these five common mistakes to help make the selling process easier.

#1. Not Hiring a Real Estate Agent

When it comes to doing your home justice, ensuring you’ll receive top dollar, and making sure the required paperwork is accurately fulfilled, you’ll need some help. Instead of taking your best guess or trying to rely on things like Google or potentially outdated information, take stress out of the equation and partner with a professional real estate agent.

A pro agent knows the ins and outs of the industry to ensure your home is represented accurately, fairly, and will advocate for your needs in a way that ensures both you and the buyer will walk away satisfied. This helps the home selling process go much smoother than attempting to make the sale yourself.

#2. Not Factoring in All of the Costs of Selling Your Home

Beyond the closing, a lot more goes into selling your home from a cost perspective. Taxes, fees, and services all add up and must be budgeted before even listing your home for sale.

The best way to tackle your budget — and avoid any surprises in the price of selling your home — is to partner with your trusted real estate agent to compile a list of things you’ll be responsible for covering the cost of. In addition to the required fees of taxes, this list could consist of:

• Repairs
• Home inspections
• Staging services
• Agent fees
• Your own moving expenses
  

Being clear on the true cost of selling your home before even listing it is essential to avoiding any setbacks in your selling process.

#3. Skimping on Staging

You only get one chance to make a first impression, and staging your home is no exception.

Though not required, staging your home is a powerful strategy to make it more appealing to prospective home buyers. According to the 2023 Profile of Home Staging, over 80% of buyers' agents found that a staged home was helpful for buyers visualizing the property as their future home.

Considering taking this extra step, or even simply hiring a local cleaning service to perform a deep clean of the home, can make a difference in buyers’ perceptions of the property and help it sell quicker.

#4. Being Unrealistic

While you want to earn a profit on your home’s sale, it’s important to prepare early on by equipping yourself with data about your local market.

You’ll want to immerse yourself in knowledge of other homes’ selling prices, current market conditions like mortgage rates, and how your home’s features and amenities compare to others in your neighborhood. Being familiar with these details allows you to get a good grasp on a realistic listing price for your home.

In addition to pricing, you’ll want to be realistic of the timeline of selling your home. The process can be arduous and setbacks can be inevitable. Factors like buyers’ readiness, financial situations, and fluctuations in mortgage rates can impact the time it takes to sell your home.

To circumvent unrealistic expectations, having a skilled real estate agent by your side can help mitigate the worries that come with selling. They’ll have the expertise to do the pricing research for you, as well as shaping the timeline based on your pool of buyers and status of your local market, which can provide you with realistic expectations and avoid additional surprises (or disappointments)

#5. Avoiding Repairs

Putting off necessary repairs that can impact the livability of your home is another common mistake we see frequently. It’s not enough to adjust the price to reflect a home that’s not in top condition — you want to ensure the integrity of your property is reflected accurately.

Typically, you’ll want to make repairs that impact the function and safety of the home. Failing to make necessary repairs can hinder your selling power in the form of pricing, appeal, and ability to negotiate.

Your home selling strategy will set you up for a successful and smooth selling process.

Now that you know five common mistakes to avoid when selling your home, you can contact the right real estate agent to provide you with hands-on help from RealEstateAgents.com!