What You Shouldn’t Do When Selling Your Home

Sellers can have their own unique ways of undermining the sale process, often without even realizing it. Sometimes sellers make their own mistakes when preparing or showing their homes. Watch out for these common errors in judgment to preserve the value of your listing.

First: Failing to prepare for showings. Maybe you’re tired of cleaning up before showings and hiding your toothbrush every morning. Maybe you’ve had a bad day at work and you were just getting ready to relax. Maybe your favorite show’s about to start, or you were just settling in for a nap. If you want to get your home sold, it’s important for you to make sure your home is buyer-ready whenever you say yes to a showing. Don’t expect buyers or agents to overlook a messy kitchen or bathroom and give you the benefit of the doubt. Most of the time, they won’t.

Second: Sticking around during showings. Staying in the house, either because you don’t feel like going out, or because you don’t trust people in your home, is a major turnoff to potential buyers. It makes them uncomfortable and ensures that they’ll spend as little time as possible in the home, which is bad news for your potential sale. Take a walk around the neighborhood, drive to your favorite restaurant, or ask a friendly neighbor if you can just come over and chill with them while the buyers are in your home.

Third: Playing used car salesman for buyers. One of the things buyers hate most is having a homeowner show them the home’s best features. It puts them in the position of having to ooh and ah like a dinner guest, instead of evaluating the home and discussing it with each other. You may think that only you understand how great your house is. If that’s true, you need to spend some more time staging and preparing it for buyers, and ensure that your agent is effectively communicating the best features in the marketing material.

Fourth: Toying with buyers to test the market. Some people like the idea of listing their homes as a way of seeing how buyers will respond, but with no real intention of selling the home, at least not right away. That’s unfair to your agent, as well as to buyers who are seriously looking for their next home, or who’ve spent time and money to travel and home search before relocating to your area. Your real estate agent can give you an accurate valuation without spending time on a home sale that is destined to go nowhere.

When you’ve listed your home with a realtor you know is a professional, trust them to act as your agent and represent your best interests. They will advise you on the best way to present and sell your home.