As Seen in the Naples Daily News and Bonita Daily News
Digging in the trenches I’ve seen a lot of things go right, but I’ve seen even more go wrong. Read on and you’ll hopefully realize a few potential pitfalls before they happen and stop them dead in their tracks.
- Pricing the house based on what the seller wants to net. This strategy always ends in failure. You can control the “asking” price, but you cannot control the “sales” price. The market controls what the property sells for. At the end of the day your home is only worth what someone will pay you for it!
- Listing the home before it’s ready. Often times a seller will be impatient or, just the opposite, has slacked off and now they have a deadline to move and no pre-sale work has been done. Curb appeal and presentation is everything in selling your house. Don’t end up painting the walls or replacing the flooring during the marketing period, this will turn off buyers who won’t come back – they’ll be buying your neighbor’s house.
- Getting Emotional! The moment you decide to sell, your home is now just a “product.” You need to price it like all the other products for sale on the market and prepare it like your competition. Buyers will come in and “kick the tires” of your house. All the upgrades and wonderful little things you’ve done to the property over the years are important to you, but not necessarily a buyer; don’t hang onto them. Attachment and emotions will quickly ruin a sale.
- Don’t be the King of the Neighborhood – keep in line with the neighbors. You can easily over improve the house too much and it will actually make the house stick out in a negative way from all the neighboring homes and work against you. Keep it simple!
- Never hire a Realtor based on non-business factors. You want a trained sales professional who has a lot of experience. A lot of people make this mistake; they ask their nephew Johnny who just got his real estate license to handle the transaction of their largest asset. This usually does not end well, unless they have a good supervisor to guide them through the process.
Believe it or not, these mistakes happen every day. Follow this advice and with a little planning and preparation, you will have nothing to worry about! Hopefully your competition isn’t reading this article and you will beat them to the sale every time. Be quick to adapt to this changing market and good things will come your way! Good luck and Happy Selling!
