Any mistakes you make when selling a house are going to be costly. They’ll waste your time and energy, but most important, your resources and money. You’ll end up with many grievances and losses you can’t recoup when the simpler option would be to learn and understand the mistakes you need to avoid when selling your home and ensure you avoid them.
Avoid Inexperienced Real Estate Agents
Buyers may be able to get away with using an inexperienced real estate agent, but for sellers, hiring a real estate agent without at least 3 to 5 years of experience will leave you frustrated and devastated.
When using an inexperienced real estate agent, there are two areas where you will recognize their lack of experience almost immediately: pricing your property and negotiation.
When it comes to pricing a property to sell, you need insight into the local market, trends, and a deep understanding of market signals. New real estate agents don’t have this experience because they haven’t been able to observe and assess the market. It’s also all these factors that can make them cause you to overprice or underprice your home.
That’s because they only look at comps on face value and don’t understand the nuanced components within the data they’re assessing, leading them to be unable to make your home sell at the best possible price in the current market.
In terms of negotiation, an inexperienced realtor’s skills leave much to be desired. They may not know how to deal with an aggressive buyer who may be bargain hunting or they may give terrible advice about accepting offers. This “bad advice” usually has its roots in a lack of understanding and real-world experience, which makes them more susceptible to the influences of the buyer’s agent.
Avoid Expensive Renovations or Remodeling
You know you need to prepare your home for a successful sale. But what you may not know is that you need to consider painting, lawn care, regrouting, and fixing leaks, among other minor repairs, maintenance, and cosmetic upgrades. But, while you’re preparing your home, never consider elaborate renovations or remodeling to make your home more appealing. Even if buyers are moving into a turnkey home, they may still want to make minor adjustments to personalize the property.
When assessing your home, buyers will take these alterations into consideration and factor them into the price. At this stage, they may consider offering less for the property to retain some cash for their renovations. Therefore, if you renovate the property before listing, you’ll essentially lose out on all the money you put into the renovation. Buyers are unlikely to pay more for the property, causing you to be out of pocket. Instead, avoid aesthetic changes and focus your attention on practical upgrades.
Avoid Unnecessary Real Estate Commission
Although a listing agent has become a common part of the transaction, they aren’t necessary to the selling process beyond getting your property on the MLS. This means that paying them the 3 percent to 3.5 percent isn’t necessary, as you can get your home on the MLS — which showcases your home to buyers’ agents — using a Flat Fee MLS.
With a flat fee MLS, you only pay an upfront cost of between $99 and $999 to list your home and then only pay the buyer’s agent commission at closing.
Using a service like Houzeo, you can select a buyer’s agent commission of between 0.25 percent and 4 percent, giving you greater control over how much you spend on commissions.
Beyond these features, flat fee MLSs will help you list, market, and sell your home, making it as easy to sell without a realtor as it is to sell with one.
Avoid Low-Rated Real Estate Brokers
Even if you’re using a flat fee MLS when selling a house, you should never use a low-rated one. Not all brokers are created equal, which includes flat fee companies. Therefore, you need to do your due diligence to find top real estate companies. Finding a top real estate agency is challenging since you can’t compare features, and reviews aren’t always objective.
Instead, to find top real estate companies, consider their track record: how many sales they’ve achieved, how many homes sold for at or above the asking price, and whether they have stellar client support.
However, remember to be wary of selecting so-called top-rated real estate companies, who will likely charge an exorbitant commission and be unwilling to decrease it.
Here’s where a reputable flat fee MLS and discount full-service agency are ideal.
Of course, these are only a handful of mistakes you should avoid when selling a house. But, beyond avoiding these mistakes, begin seeking out the alternative. For example, beyond avoiding inexperienced realtors, try finding experienced realtors working for top real estate companies.