Improve the Odds of Selling Your Home
May 5th, 2008 categories: Sellers
Whether your home is in Mt. Lebanon, Peters Township or the South Side, what can you do to improve your chances of selling? Here’s a short list of the most common seller mistakes, things you should NOT do:
#1 - Hiring an agent based on the list price he or she suggests. A better practice: interview agents, hire someone, and then together work to establish the value of the home and work out a pricing strategy from there. It’s fine to discuss pricing with the agents you interview, but do not choose your agent based on pricing, but rather on references, marketing, negotiation ability, experience, and other criteria.
#2 - Pressuring your agent to tell you what you want to hear rather than what you need to hear. One key job a real estate agent has is to provide you with objective input on your home, both at the time the listing is signed and as the feedback comes in and the market conditions possibly change. Ultimately, only you can assign the list price on your home. Allow your agent to provide you with objective input so that you can make a good decision.
#3 - Believing the market data doesn’t apply to your home. If all the other homes in the area have gone down in sales price, it’s also true that your home has gone down in value in the buyers’ eyes. Holding on to what the home “used to be worth” is not going to assist you in getting your home into the minority pool of homes that are selling now.
#4 - Not utilizing your agent’s skills. This applies to pricing, of course, but also to staging, garnering feedback, analyzing the market, etc. For example, if your agent tells you there’s a problem with the way buyers view your home, take it seriously. You will improve your odds by taking the feedback as useful input and not as an insult.
