Myths Of Selling
HOUSES are selling faster than hot cakes – so why do we need to bother working hard to sell our home?
Many realtors are hearing such sentiments from would-be sellers at the moment – and while it is true it is a seller’s market, trying to skip stages to save a few dollars can soon backfire with a longer time on the market and more uncertainty for the seller.
And – even worse – any savings made by not maximizing your sales chances could easily be obliterated by leaving potential money on the table by attracting lower offers than you would otherwise.
With such a hot property market in North East Ohio, many would be sellers are thinking they can save a few bucks by leaving any necessary renovations to the buyer as they are in hot competition with each other and will be keen to take the jobs on themselves.
Just not true – you may be lucky and find a handy buyer who is delighted to do those jobs. But you will have put off the rival buyers, reducing the interest and competition for your house, which the remaining buyer knows – and they will simply cost in the price of doing the jobs into the sub sequential lower offer they will make.
As with everything, even someone skilled in repairs has plenty of other tasks to do when moving into a home and may well be willing to pay a premium for ensuring they do not have to spend valuable time on repairs.
Plus, if you cannot be bothered to fix some obvious issues, what message are you sending to the buyer about other problems they may not have discovered yet?
The same thought process is behind staging your home. We are surprisingly unimaginative as a species and the more we can be guided into seeing how a home can fit our dreams and aspirations, the more we are likely to make an offer. If we see clutter and an abundance of personal effects, it is harder for us to see ourselves living in the space.
If houses are selling so easily, some sellers decide to do the job themselves. This is certainly possible – there is no legal reason to use a realtor. But the same is true of car repairs, writing a will and doing our taxes. Using an expert may cost a bit, but it gains a wealth of professional experience from someone who has done the job potentially hundreds of times and knows exactly what to do, which makes the process much smoother and can attract a better sales price as they negotiate for you. Selling a house takes a lot of time – and your time has a price attached to it. A professional knows what to do, when to do it and whom to contact saving you a lot of work and effort as well as maximizing your return.
Some sellers are using the booming market to push their asking price up and leaving room to talk to the buyer – but in a world where it is ever easier to get real information on the value of a house at the push of a few icons on our phones, buyers can soon tell when a house is seriously overvalued – and they simply stay away. This tends to mean a longer selling period and drops in asking price – which in turn sends negative signals about your property to the market.
Selling a property is not something most of us do many times in our lives – so it is important to get it right. If you are thinking of selling, reach out to Key Realty today and get an expert’s advice on the best way to achieve your dream move smoothly.