Did you know that there’s a huge chance that you might not be selling your house the right away? A huge tell-tale sign that you’re doing it wrong is if your market has been up for sale for quite some time already with little to zero offers.
If that’s the case for you, then you might want to check if you’re making these home-selling mistakes, and learn how to fix them.
1. Your décor and style are too personal
No buyer wants to go inside a home and feel like they’re intruding.
When selling a home, it’s always best to keep it barebones as far as personal stuff go. The fewer personal belongings there are inside, the better.
Remember, the moment that you put your house up for sale is the moment that the house is no longer yours. You’ll want to put yourself in the shoes of the buyer, and do everything you can to make sure that they can picture what it would be like to live inside your house.
Other than personal items, you’ll also want to get rid of any furniture that you may have used in the past, unless they still look new and good.
Your goal should be to stage each room and make them as inviting as possible.
2. Your house can still smell you (and your pets)
You might already be immune to the smell of your home (or your pets), but other people are not, especially people who will be stepping inside your home for the first time.
A good way to tell if your home needs some “deodorizing” is to invite someone you can trust to step inside and tell you how it smells like. If it smells bad, or smells too much like you or your pets, then you might want to do some cleaning. Also, you can try baking something whenever an interested buyer comes in, to mask the smell.
It would also be better if you left your pets at a kennel or somewhere else until your home is sold so your house doesn’t keep on smelling like pets.
3. You’re not working with a real estate agent
No one is going to blame you for attempting to sell your home yourself. There are various resources available online that will help you market your house on your own, as well as know what you need to do to increases its chances of selling. However, even with all that knowledge at your fingertips, you most likely will not have the same network that real estate agents have.
Unless you work with a real estate agent, you won’t be able to list your property on the Multiple Listing Services, or MLS, which drastically cuts down on the chances of your house being sold at a fair price.
So, while you might be able to save money on commission fees by not working with a real estate agent, you’re also taking on the risk of its value decreasing because it takes longer to sell on your own.
There’s never really a fool-proof formula when it comes to selling homes quickly. Even the most experienced real estate agents will tell you that it will take time. But there are steps that you can take to increase the chances of sale.
If you don’t have the time nor money to spruce up your home to make it attractive to homebuyers, or you simply don’t want to deal with the long sales process, you can always sell your house to a cash buyer.
Cash buyers will buy your home right there and then, without any repairs, using cash, saving you a lot of money and time.
