I have been working with a bunch of sellers lately and I have to say there are some mistakes being made that are costing these sellers both time and money in the sell of there home. Below I will list 7 mistakes sellers make when trying to sell thier home in this market.
1. Thinking your home is the exception. It is a natural thing to do and everyone is emotionally atached to their own home but allowing this to obscure the harsh realities of this market is a major mistake.
2. Not scouting the competition. You have to look at recent compairables and not just what your cousin down the street told you his house sold for. Your agent should be giving you active, under contract and recent sold compairables to help you price your home. In this market over pricing your home is wasting both your time and your money.
3. Not checking your clients referances. There are still a lot of very bad agents in this market. Do some homework and ask for referances from your Realtor. You might be suprised to find out your agent works at Walmart full time and is only a Realtor part time.
4. Cleaning up the property. I dont know how many times I have seen it but it happens on a daily basis. I walk into a home and its dirty, cluttered and not preped to sale. I have also watched buyers purchase a lesser but clean home over a larger but dirty home in the same neighborhood. I cannot stress enough how important it is to prep your home to sell.
5. Being Present during open houses and showings. This is a major problem as buyers do not feel like they can say what they want or they rush through the house because they feel like they are being watched. If your home is being shown, go ahead and take a drive or go get ice cream with the kids.
6. Taking negociations personally. It is important for sellers to remember this is a business transaction and that many buyers are out bargin shoping in this market. Don’t take it personally when you get an offer that requests for you to pay closing costs or make other consessions you wouldn’t have made a couple years ago.
7. Sneering at offers. If you do get a lower offer don’t ignore it. Take the time to respond with a a counter offer that is acceptable to you and see where that takes you. Sometimes buyers start very low but are willing to move up in price rather rapidly. Give them the oppertunitiy to pay more for your home rather then just ignoring them.
Well there you have it. 7 Ways to help you sell your home in a down market. If you are considering buying or selling please call or email me for more professional advice on buying and selling in this market.
Excellent post Sam,
I recently sold a property in the mid 300K range merely because I convinced my Sellers to respond to what they perceived to be an insulting offer.
It is what it is, and as much as those of us who study the market try to educate our fellow agents at other firms about the average list vs sale ratios in our area, the low ball is truly alive and well and will be even when the market comes back.
Link | May 12th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Even in relatively good markets, buyers are coming in very low with offers. They believe what they hear from the media and assume your city is like the average and that home prices are dropping 15%. Sellers need to understand this and not treat any offer as a bad offer. Consider and counter everything.
Link | May 12th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Number 7 alwasy gets me. Sellers sometimes still think the market is what it was 7 years ago. We always try and sit down with sellers when they want to throw and offer in the trash. We basically try and explain if you throw this one away its hard to know how long it will be before the next one comes in.
Link | May 18th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
My brother was telling me about the market in Cedar City the other day. He had wanted to buy a commercial building a few years ago but couldn’t swing the $350k. He was saying how glad he is now that he didn’t buy then. If he thinks about moving his store again, I’ll have him call you. He owns the bead shop below the Hawaiian food place.
Link | May 30th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Thank you for an excellent post! I think your first post totally on point. Home owners always think their house is different (special)! Part of it is wishful thinking (oh, the good old days…) and part of it emotional attachment. The best way to combat this is with cold hard facts, but it has to be done delicately. Perfectly good prospective clients have the potential to balk and will try and seek out another broker who will just tell them what they want to hear…it takes a little finesse. My cousin works in Cedar City and she says that buyers out there are starting to come to reality though…
What are your thoughts on this?
For context, I write a blog on San Diego Property Management.
Cheers!
Link | June 1st, 2009 at 8:12 pm