6 Common Home Selling Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

Northeast Florida Real Estate Tips for Buyers and Sellers by Chris Snow

As a homebuyer, there are a few things you can do when you make an offer to
get the price that you want. I will go over my top three tips today.

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When you sell your home, there are six things that can sink your sale.

Today, I wanted to give you some tips on how to avoid these six sale sinkers.

1. Don't go it alone. Use a Realtor to help you, because 90% of all home sales take place with a Realtor. Last year, the National Association of Realtors found that homes that were sold 'for sale by owner' sold for an average of $210,000, while homes sold with a Realtor sold for an average of $249,000. Homes sold with a Realtor sell faster, too.

2. When interviewing agents, don't make your decision based on the price they tell you for your home. Instead, ask what they will do to market your home and what kind of pricing strategy they will use.

3. Don't trust the automated values. It's easy to get an automated value from sites like Zillow or Trulia. In many cases, we find that these automated values are either much higher or much lower than the home's true market value. Make sure you get a complete equity evaluation on your property that uses many points of data, not just one set.

“

It's easy to go to Zillow or Trulia, but
you can't trust their automated values.

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4. Make sure you have professional photos taken of your home. Buyers on the Internet gravitate toward homes with great photos, so don't try to take listing photos of your home with an iPhone. Even if you have to wait an extra week to list your home for the photographer to take their pictures, it's well worth it.

5. Don't ignore your agent's requests to do some fixes to your home, or at minimum, a deep clean of the house. Buyers are very sensitive to a home's presentation, so if you could also stage your home, it would be the best of both worlds.

6. Don't refuse to negotiate. At times, you may receive a really low offer on your home. The best way to handle this is to give a counter offer no matter what, even if it's just $100 off your list price. I say this because you always want to keep things moving forward. When you draw a line in the sand, it takes the opportunity to potentially bring that buyer back into your camp away. When an offer doesn't meet what we're looking for, we tell them 'We really appreciate you taking the time putting the offer together, but unfortunately, it doesn't allow us to exit the property the way we need to, so we'd like to give you a counteroffer back at...'

If you have any questions about these tips, don't hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. I'd be happy to help you.