Selling your home is one of the biggest decisions you will make in your life. The home is the cornerstone of most families’ financial assets, and making sure that you get the biggest return on investment possible from your home sale is deeply important. Many people trying to sell a home make missteps that actually hurt their home sale rather than help. Here are three of the most common mistakes that homeowners make before selling.
Ignoring Maintenance Issues
It can be tempting to make do with some maintenance issues in your home when you are about to sell your home. After all, it won’t be your problem soon enough, right? Wrong. A home with maintenance issues will be easy to spot for a lot of home buyers and realtors, and they will not overlook them when it comes to their bids. You can actually get tons of more money in an offer when you keep up to date on your maintenance and keep your issues fixed. It will be more cost effective to keep your maintenance issues repaired than it will save you to leave them and take a cut to your home sale price.
Renovating Too Much
A lot of advisors will tell you to go for your home renovations even if you are close to selling because of the added value home renovations add to your home. But don’t get carried away. While some home renovations, like a bathroom update or kitchen renovation, always add value to your home, other renovation projects, like painting the walls your favorite color, or doing an addition for a personal space you like, then maybe stop yourself. You should focus on remodel projects that add value as opposed to ones that you like. Everyone has different tastes, and you don’t want to do something that may turn off some buyers. Stick to projects that always add value to a home, and skip out on the projects you may really want but that might not be for everybody. You will have an easier time selling your home for a higher price.
Having Unrealistic Expectations
Your home is very special to you, the memories that you have made there are immensely valuable and it can be tough to part with your home. But don’t let your personal affinities for your home lead to unrealistic expectations about price. While your memories in your home may make it more difficult for you to say goodbye, that doesn’t add any monetary value to the home. Be realistic about the price you can expect, and listen to your realtor or appraiser when looking to set an asking price. If you set an unrealistic price early on and hold out, you may need to lower the price even farther than you would have if you started at a more realistic high end offer for your home.
It can feel like a never ending list of things to take care of before selling a home. And in that whirlwind, it can be easy to accidentally do something that will hold you and your home back rather than adding value and moving you forward. Try to avoid these three mistakes and you can rest easy knowing you are doing your best to sell your house as effectively as possible.
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