Listing Your Home For Sale? Avoid These 8 Mistakes

Avoid these 8 mistakes when listing your home for sale, you have a lot on the line. A single mistake could cost you the sale of your home, particularly when you do something that drives away potential home buyers before they ever see your home in person.

Some of the biggest mistakes sellers make are actually small in the grand scheme of things. So what pitfalls should you avoid when you’re putting your home on the Ohio real estate market.

Virtual Tours

Including a virtual tour. Virtual home tours don’t let people experience the full spectrum of your home’s details. There are too many “little things” that can cause potential buyers to scratch your home off the list without giving it a second thought, and a virtual tour can highlight all of them.

Bad Real Estate Photography

Being careless about your listing photos. Good listing photos don’t include personal items, clutter or boxes. It’s okay to have a photo with your furniture in it (a dining room table set for a dinner party is a great way to show that your home is perfect for entertaining, for example), but a curio cabinet overflowing with collectible trinkets is probably a bad idea. Further, your listing photos need to be sharp, clear and in-focus – and they need to be high-resolution.

Becoming Emotionally Involved

Allowing yourself to be emotionally involved in the transaction. It’s probably a good idea to start viewing yourself as a third-party businessperson when you put your home on the market, and that means looking at the entire transaction in black-and-white terms. If you’re emotionally involved in the sale of your home, you won’t be able to make the most rational decisions. For example, the color you chose last year for the bedroom might not be right for the new buyers; if you’re emotional about it, you may resist the idea of repainting because that was the color that worked for you.

Not Trusting Your Local Real Estate Market

Setting a price based on what your home is worth to you, rather than what the market will bear. Again, emotional detachment is important here. We all want to make a profit on our homes, but when you’re selling your house, you need to be mindful that what you think it’s worth and what it’s actually worth may be two very different prices.

Intentionally Hiding Known Problems

Trying to hide big problems. Smart buyers will have a home inspector check out the property, so if you’ve hidden a big issue, it will come out then (and it will probably cost you the sale). You can either fix the issues before you put your home on the market or give buyers a credit for fixing it themselves.

Staging Your Home To Sell

Neglecting to stage your home. You don’t have to hire a professional home stager, but you do have to minimize clutter, fix small issues and in some cases, apply a fresh coat of paint. You want people to envision their belongings in your home, but they can’t do that if your home has an extremely “lived-in” look.

Everyone Loves A Clean Home

Not going out of your way to accommodate potential home buyers. It’s not easy, but you need to clean your home and make it show-worthy every time someone wants to see it… even if it’s inconvenient for you.

Who’s Your Realtor

Working with the wrong Realtor. Take time to carefully choose a Realtor with a proven track record of listing homes and selling homes in your area. Enlist the help of a real estate professional who has extensive knowledge of the local real estate market and sales expertise.