So you’re thinking about selling your home on your own? That’s fantastic! Selling a home is a difficult task and comes with a certain degree of risk, but if done right, can be a very positive experience. You’re fully in control of your own success, you have one less person to coordinate with, and let's be honest - you can save a lot of money! However, if you’ve never sold a home on your own before, it’s likely you’ll make a few mistakes!
Below are 8 tips to help you avoid common home selling mistakes to give you the absolute best chance to sell quickly and for top dollar.
Tip #1 - Great Staging Sells
In order to sell your home for the highest and best price, your home has to be staged well. Regardless of all the other great statistical information about your house, such as the square footage, neighborhood, or school district, a buyer will ultimately make their decision whether they like your home or not based on the appearance.
There’s a lot of things you can do to stage your home, but if you do nothing else, make sure your home is clean and decluttered. If a buyer walks into your home and the very first thing they notice is how dirty and unorganized it appears then they’ll have a hard time noticing anything good.
Tip #2 - Hire a Photographer
People will decide on whether they want to come to a showing of your home based on how it looks online. And the most important factor to whether a person finds your home attractive is based on the photos. This isn’t rocket science! Go to any real estate website and look at the listings. You’ll be way more attracted to the houses that have stunning pictures than the ones that don’t.
And I know what you’re thinking, “I can just use my phone - it takes really good pictures”. No it doesn’t! Trust me, using your phone or a simple point and shoot camera would be a mistake. The cost of a photographer will more than be recouped when you’re able to sell your home for a higher price.
Tip #3 - Post Everywhere.
Now this is going to be mind blowing - the more buyers who see your home the better the chance you have at selling it - crazy I know.
If you want the best chance to sell quickly and for the highest price, you need to post your house on all the biggest real estate websites. If you post your house on just one site, you’re missing the majority of the market.
I recommend listing your home on Zillow and Trulia. Listing on all these sites won’t cover the entire market, but you’ll grab up a really good share.
If you want to do a hybrid between FSBO and a Full Service Realtor, you can always do a Flat Fee Listing Service Agreement (starting at $299) that will do much of the above mentioned posting for you. Contact me to learn more.
Tip #4 - Facebook
Again, if you haven’t caught on by now, one of the main focal points of this article is marketing - making your home look great by staging and photography and then getting your home in front as many people as possible.
Now this might seem like a lot of work, but I promise you it’s worth it. If you’re going to sell your home, you need to post it on Facebook and pay for advertising.
The reason this is so important is because Facebook advertising is insanely powerful. Facebook knows so much about it’s users. They even have third party companies that can tell whether or not a person is considering moving - yes you heard right - it’s insane. But what would be even more insane is not taking advantage of this service.
Now I’m not going to give you all the details on how to do this, you’ll just have to google it, but here is the simple two step process.
Create a Professional Facebook page (you can’t pay for advertising without it). Facebook doesn’t have any strict rules preventing you from making one for the sole purpose to sell your home.
Create an ad and pay to have it advertised to the type of buyer you think would be interested in your home.
To give context to the power of this process, for $50 my post on my Professional Realtor Page will be place in front 10,000 to 13,000 local people. And many of my buyers came through directly through Facebook advertising.
Be sure to take advantage of this one.
Tip #5 - Qualify the Buyer
If this is your first time selling a home you may not know this, but a lot of people who will be interested in your home won’t be able to buy it. And the last thing you want to do is to get into a contract with a buyer who on the day of closing can’t actually buy. It wastes time, energy, money, and causes a ton of frustration.
So before entertaining an offer, make sure the buyers have a pre-approval letter from a bank stating they can get a loan for the price of the home. If they don’t, ask them to get one! And never take their word for it. Everyone thinks they can get a loan until they apply and realize their credit score isn’t good enough or their debt to equity ratio is outside the acceptable parameter.
Tip #6 - Pay the Other Agent
Now this is going to be a little unpopular, but I think it’s important if you’re serious about selling your home. More than 80% of buyers (according to realtor.org) used a realtor to purchase their home. In most cases, in order to reach buyers who are using a realtor, you’ll need to offer them a commission. If you don’t, it’s very likely that the realtor will take their clients elsewhere, and you’ll be missing out on a large number of buyers, which significantly reduces your chances to sell for the highest possible price.
Again, I know this isn’t popular, because the main reason you sell on your own is to save money. But if you decide to pay the realtor representing the buyer, you’ll bring in more buyers - hopefully resulting in a higher sales price, and you still save half the commission by not paying a realtor for representing you.
Now if you decided to offer a commission to the realtor who brings you a buyer, which I highly suggest, be sure to include that in your description. Without mentioning it in the description most realtors will be hesitant to call and find out if you’re willing to work with a realtor; thus, resulting in less buyers seeing your home.
Tip #7 - Don’t Overprice
Perhaps the most difficult aspect of selling your own home is being truly objective about what your home is worth. I’ve worked with a lot of buyers and sellers. And every seller thinks their home is worth more than it really is and every buyer thinks every house is priced higher than it’s really worth.
And here’s the thing - overpricing will ultimately hurt you in the end.
Pricing to far above market value discourages buyers to come and look at your home. The most action you’ll get on your home is in the first 3 weeks. And during this period of time is when you can demand the highest price. If you overprice, you may miss out on the best time to sell and a price reduction will not generate the same interest as pricing it right the first time.
The best pricing strategy is to price your home competitively and to stay close to the asking price when you negotiate. This will bring in the most buyers and create the best opportunities to get offers - hopefully multiple offers; thereby, giving you the best chance to sell quickly and for the most money.
Tip #8 - If You Need Help - Just Ask
I’m here to help you buy for less, sell for more, and save money by reducing realtor commissions and fees. Check out my Services to learn more or to schedule a Free Consultation.