I recently came across an article that talked about the top 10 mistakes sellers make when they put their homes on the market for sale.  I read through the items and I would agree with the information given in the article.  If you have tried to sell your home and have been unsuccessful, you need to keep in mind that it may have been the price, or it may have been the Realtor who listed the home, but many times it can be other things.  So for everyone who currently has their home on the market, or for everyone thinking about putting their home on the market in the future, here are the top 10 mistakes a seller makes when selling their home!

•  Waiting until spring to sell:  homes will sell at all times of the year!  Even in the traditionally “slow” selling season (winter/holidays) homes are still selling!  Sellers should keep in mind that the buyers who are out there in the winter and the fall tend to be a more serious buyer!  Plus, as a seller, keep in mind that you may have less competition out there for a potential buyer, since many other sellers are now waiting until the springtime to put their home on the market!
• Not understanding the terms of a buyer’s offer:  when you finally get an offer, it is very important that your Realtor and you go over all the paragraphs to make sure you understand just what it is that you are committing yourself to!  Many times, sellers will read through offers and then not ask questions, only to find out that they may have misunderstood what it is that they have committed themselves to when they signed the contract.
• Going FSBO (For Sale By Owner) without understanding the process:  if you do decide to sell your home without using a Realtor, you need to understand what it will take to sell your home in a real estate market that has a lot of inventory, which includes a high number of foreclosures & short sales!  This means that you need to know how much you want to spend on advertising, how you want to advertise your property, how will you arrange for showings, and so many other things.  Selling your home in today’s market is so much more than putting the sign in the ground, holding one or two open houses, running one or two ads and praying for a contract!
• Ignoring low ball offers from buyers:  when you do decide to sell your home, you need to mentally divorce yourself from your current home!  This means that when a buyer comes through and makes comments about the color of paint on the walls or color of the carpet you need to not take it too personally.  The same thing needs to happen when you get an offer that you may think is “insulting”.  Many buyers today are trying to see just how motivated sellers are in today’s market and may make offers simply to test how low a seller is willing to go.  If you get a low ball offer, you should not take it personally and come back with a reasonable counter offer.  Many times, these offers can be worked out and go to closing!
• Wasting time on unqualified buyers:  in today’s market, there are lots and lots of buyers out there.  With the tightening mortgage credit standards you need to be sure that the buyer of your home can actually qualify to buy your home.  After all, once you accept a contract on the house, you will be, effectively, taking it off the market to other buyers!  This means that you need to make sure that the buyer has a good, strong lender letter indicating that credit has been reviewed & the buyer is credit worthy to buy the property.  This is one of the reasons why many banks with foreclosure listings on the market have very specific wording that they want from the lenders who are supplying the pre-qualification letters!  And sellers should be making sure that they are getting these types of letters also from the lender before agreeing to pull their homes off the market!
• Skimping on marketing:  it only takes 1 buyer to buy your home, but where that buyer comes from is the big unknown.  This means that you have to utilize all means available to try to attract potential buyers to your home!  This means you need to use the internet, direct mail, email marketing, open houses, color flyers, networking with other Realtors, making the home easy to show even with very short notice – the list goes on and on, but in a real estate market with lots of inventory competing for the buyers out there, marketing is essential!
• Sabotaging the showing:  remember there are lots and lots of inventory.  Buyers expect foreclosures to not be in the best show condition, but they do expect that the homes that are not foreclosures will show well.  The more “model home” perfect you can make your home – and then keep your home – the better it will be for you as a seller!  Always remember that buying a home is an emotional decision – the buyer needs to be able to envision their furniture and personal items in your home in order to imagine that it can be theirs!  So don’t leave dirty dishes in the sink, don’t leave the beds unmade in the morning, pick up the tools, sweep the sidewalks, vacuum the carpets – after all, your main objective is to get your home sold as quickly as you can and for the most money that you can get!
• Not prepping the home for sale:  in order to get your home into the best show condition possible, you may need to do some things before it ever even goes on the market.  Walk through your home with a camera and take pictures of each room from each corner, then look at what you see – can you declutter anywhere?  How about the closets?  Do any of the rooms need new paint or new carpet?  Do any of the rooms need repairs before the home goes on the market?  Should light fixtures be changed?  A picture is worth a thousand words and by looking at the pictures you will know exactly what your potential buyer is seeing!
• Overimproving your home for the neighborhood:  if your home is in a starter neighborhood and your potential buyer is a first time homebuyer, then you may not want to put granite counters, subzero appliances and many other top of the line upgrades into the home and expect to get all of your money from the sale of the home!  If you are going to overimprove your home, then it should be for your enjoyment and realize that you may not get the money for those improvements from the sale of your home! 
• Overpricing your home:  even with everything talked about above, price is still the main driving force in this market.  Buyers today have lots of homes to choose from, including foreclosures & short sales!  If you bought your home only a couple of years ago, then it is possible that the value of your home may have dropped.  Always keep in mind that as far as a buyer is concerned, they don’t care what you paid for your home, and they don’t care what you need to get out of the home to make your next move!  They only care about not paying more than the market will bear, and in many cases, they will even want to pay under the market value!  So if you overprice your home, it is possible that you will be doing nothing but selling other homes that are properly priced in your area!

I hope that this helps all the sellers out there!  The real estate market today is a very tough one, as you are aware, and selling a home today takes a lot more work and a lot more patience!  I would love to hear your thoughts on the above – and, of course, if you have any additional “mistakes” that you think sellers make in this market, I would love to hear about them too! 

Have a great weekend everyone!