Mistakes To Avoid When Selling Your Charlottesville Home

Mistakes To Avoid When Selling Your Charlottesville Home

When you are selling your Charlottesville home, it is important to listen to your real estate agent so that your home has the biggest chance of selling for the most money in the shortest amount of time.   Below is an infografic that outlines the biggest mistakes that a seller can make that prevent their home from selling.

 

 

As you can see the biggest mistake is pricing your Charlottesville home too high.  A seller often thinks that when their home is not getting showings it is because their agent is not marketing it properly.  When in fact, it is usually price.  We see this all the time; a properly priced home that is in good condition will get showings and will sell quickly.  It does not matter what your home is worth or what you need to get for it; what does matter is what a ready, willing and able buyer is willing to pay for it.  I know, this can be a hard fact to accept.  Many buyers are still a little scared after the past few years.  It is important to them to feel like they are getting a good deal.

Also, it is key to make your home easy to show.  If a buyer can't see your home, they won't buy it.  You need to be flexible so that the buyer can see your home on their schedule when it is convenient to them.  Recently I was making showing appointments for a buyer.  It was amazing how difficult it was  to schedule a showing at about half of the homes.  Several required calling the listing agent to schedule the appointment, and of those, several of the listing agents were very hard to get in touch with and had to be called multiple times before they called back.    Some of the others required calling the seller to set up the appointment and those sellers were restrictive as to day or time.  I realize that you may have pets or children that need to be taken care of, so you need to have showing by appointment, but make sure that you put your cell number in the showing instructions or check the voice mail on your home phone frequently during the day. Make it as easy as possible for the buyers agent to schedule an appointment. My buyer decided to skip some of those homes.  Think about what requirements as to showing proceedures are really necessary to you.  That buyer who skipped seeing your home may be the one who would have made an offer.

Finally to speak to the remaining of the three top mistakes; I still walk through a lot of cluttered homes.  Most buyers are looking for an open spacious home.  A cluttered home appears smaller than it really is.  Some homes have such huge furniture in the rooms that one can hardly walk through the home, much less a real estate agent with several buyers.  Even if the agent is telling the clients to imagine the home without so much big furniture, many people are unable to do that.  In addition, clutter on all of the surfaces also makes the rooms look smaller.  It looks like the home lacks storage space which is important to many buyers.  And a cluttered home looks messy and poorly maintained.  All of which is a turn off for buyers.  If you do not have a garage or attic, in which to store these items and some of the furniture, consider renting a pod.

Before listing your home for sale, contact a real estate professional, and discuss what steps you will need to make to ensure that your home is the one that sells.  Your agent will walk through your home room by room and you can discuss how to make your home show its absolute best.  In addition, your real estate agent will be happy to provide you with a CMA, so that when you are selling your Charlottesville home you will know that it is priced competitively.  Happy selling!