Common Home Selling Mistakes Top 5 Common Home Seller Mistakes
Seller Mistake #1 -- Over-Pricing Their Home
All Kansas City home sellers want to get the highest possible sales price for their home. But trying too high of a list price almost always proves counter productive. Over-pricing a home means the buyers who are really looking for your home won't see it. Buyers who do see your home will be expecting more home and you will in effect help push buyers to other homes. Homes also have the greatest appeal when they are new on the market. Buyer and buyer's agents have set up auto-notifications of new listings and if you get over-looked when your home is new on the market, you are likely to not get a second look later. It's been proven time and time again that the longer a home is on the market, the less a seller will net for their home. It's better to price a home appropriately from the start, when interest in listings are at a peak.
Seller Mistake #2 -- Basing Market Value On Prior Re-Finance Appraisal Or Tax Appraisal
Re-finance appraisals have historically been higher than a home's true valley. Because you already live in the home - and aren't making a purchase decision - re-finance appraisals during the housing boom were more of a rubber stamp appraisal than anything. The value on the appraisal can be encouraging but it's often nowhere close to what a seller should expect to achieve when selling their home. County tax appraised values also provide little value in most cases. They don't come inside your home so there's no way the county can accurately asses your home's value. The best way to judge the market value of your home is having your Kansas City real estate agent provide you the three best area comps and recent home sale comps are always preferred. Taking a look at the current listings in your area can also prove beneficial, since you'll need to impress home buyers by being priced well against the current competition.
Seller Mistake #3 -- Not Taking Every Showing Seriously
Most sellers understand their home must be in excellent showing condition. But many cut corners when they leave for the day and that simply doesn't cut it in today's real estate market. Bathrooms need cleaned, clothes need picked up, rooms need vacuumed, dishes need done, blinds need opened and pets need dealt with. Many showings are called in with an hours notice. If you're not ready for a showing every day your home is on the market, it's guaranteed to lead to a longer time on the market and a lower sales price in the end. If a door stop is broke you need to fix it immediately. If a faucet is dripping you need to fix it immediately. If the front door key doesn't operate smoothly when the agent shows up at your home, you need to fix it immediately. You want Kansas City home buyers thinking about the GREAT aspects of your home, not dwelling on issues that could have been easily remedied before the home was shown. Seller Mistake #4 -- Focusing On Buyers That Aren't Really Buyers
There's two methods that some sellers still value yet are actually very ineffective in selling homes. They are open houses and print ads. Open houses sell less than 1% of homes. Print ads sell less than 2% of homes. A good real estate agent is 100 times more valuable when spending the 3 hours they would have spent at an open house on marketing your home where buyers are truly looking and keeping the home in front of the buyer's agent community. A NAR study showed that the average buyer looking at an open house is 8 months away from buying a home. Almost none of those lookers are pre-approved for a home loan. Most either are months away from their leases being up or haven't put their current home on the market yet. 90% of homes buyers will first view online the home they ultimately purchase. They're not using print ads and there's a reason major newspapers are going out of business. Times have changed and years ago top agents came to the conclusion that print ads and open houses are so ineffective they quit doing them. The return on investment to spend money on expensive print ads is a poor real estate decision. Spending hours holding an open house only makes sense if the agent is looking for buyers who will purchasing 8 months down the road -- it has less than a 1% chance of selling your home today. Seller Mistake #5 -- Not Taking Into Account An Agents Intangibles
When I sit down at a listing appointment often times the first questions home sellers ask are what price I think they should list their home and how much commission do I charge. The problem here is that neither question covers the two most important things I will do for my clients: Marketing and Representation. Without excellent marketing skills sellers won't get the attention they deserve with area home buyers -- and that means a lower sales price in the end. I believe the first question that should be asked by sellers is what is the agent's marketing plan for their home. The next questions should be about the dedication the agent has to their profession and how will the agent work to protect the seller's best interests. A good example would be to ask the listing agent to give an example of a recent transaction where the agent had to overcome some sort of turmoil to see the deal through to closing. This will tell a lot about an agent. An agents ability to represent a seller during negotiations and general commitment to providing service that protects the seller's best interests is absolutely vital yet impossible to quantify. So ask questions because a good agent can save a seller many times over what they pay in a commission while another agent could do just the opposite.
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