Selling Your House: 5 Mistakes to Avoid

Posted by Andrew Moran

In the housing market of today, it is not easy to find someone willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy a house. With home sales at record lows, many people who need to sell their homes panic and make many mistakes along the way. The mistakes they make can have a serious impact on selling their home, and buying a future home. Five mistakes that homeowners commonly make while selling their houses include:

1. Continually adjusting the asking price for the home. As a seller, it is important not to adjust the price of your house too often. It may take quite some time before you start to receive offers. Lowering the asking price of the house too many times will encourage potential buyers to keep waiting until you drop the price further.

2. Hiring the wrong agent. As with all other agents, your real estate agent should be someone who you are comfortable with, and who you know will work hard to sell your house. Hiring an agent who really has no interest in your house, is certain to result in buyers who are not interested in your house.

3. Waiting too long to sell. If you need to sell your house now, then you shouldn’t wait. As poor as the housing market is, now is as good a time as any if time is an issue. Holding onto your house until the market improves could be beneficial, but lots of other sellers may have the same idea.

4. Poor upkeep. Your house needs to look good both inside and outside. Trying to sell a dirty, poorly kept house is sure to send some potential buyers out the door. A clean house reflects well upon the owner.

5. Refusing honest offers. If you need to sell your house fast, be reasonable about which offers you refuse. If you get an offer close to where you want, think about accepting it even if it’s a little low. You never know when the next time you will get an offer like that will be.

Sources

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/22613143/

http://homebuying.about.com/od/sellingahouse/qt/012308_B4Sellng.htm

http://www.remax.com/residential/real_estate_101/selling_a_home/index.aspx