8 Mistakes to Avoid When Selling Your Home

If you are like most people in the United States, your home is your most important asset. The importance of your residence stems from its financial and personal value. If you reach a point in time that you have made the decision to sell your home you need to prepare properly for that endeavor. There are eight mistakes to avoid when you put your home on the market.

#1: Putting Your Home Up for Sale Before You Personally are Ready

As mentioned, a moment ago, your home is likely your most important asset, both financially and personally. As a result, putting your home on the market for sale can prove to be a personally challenging decision. Selling your home can prove to a physically, emotionally, and mentally challenging endeavor. As a result, you must be absolutely certain that you are fully personally prepared to sell your home.

You need to make a full, comprehensive evaluation of your situation to make sure you are fully prepared to sell your home and move. As a practical matter, you might want to take a traditional approach to this analysis. You might want to consider making a list of pros and cons associated with selling your home as part of this process.

#2: Blindly Entering into the Housing Market

Another mistake homeowners sometimes make when putting a residence up for sale is to enter the housing market in a blind manner. In other words, some homeowners fail to do appropriate due diligence.

As part of the effort to do appropriate due diligence a homeowner needs to closely examine the local housing market, particularly the state of the market in a person's very neighborhood. In the grand scheme of things, most homeowners are best served during the due diligence process by engaging the services of a professional or professionals to assist in amassing data associated with the idea of entering into the housing market at this juncture in time.

#3: Uninformed Decision to Sell Home "By Owner"

More than a few homeowners believe that selling their homes by owner is far and away the best strategy for selling a residence. They typically make this decision based on the assumption that they will make more money on a home sale by going by the by owner course.

In fact, that is not always the case. Some research suggests that even with Realtor fees, homeowners walk away with on a home sale when they have a Realtor than is the case when they go it alone. The reason for this situation is the reality that a Realtor knows everything from how to properly price a home to how to appropriately market a property. You may also need to access other home sales-related professionals as well.

#4: Not Trusting Your Instincts When Considering a Realtor

A common mistake made by a homeowner interested in putting his or her home on the market is failing to trust his or her instincts when it comes to retaining the services of a real estate professional or Realtor. The bottom line is a homeowner needs to confident in his or her ability to make a wise judgment about a Realtor.

Relying on a person's instincts to engage a Realtor cuts two ways. First, your instincts might tell you to hire a particular person. Second and conversely, your instincts might be suggesting you avoid a certain real estate professional. The bottom line in seeking professional assistance in selling your home is that you do yourself a disservice by not going with your gut in many instances.

#5: Hiring a Friend to Sell Your Home

Time and again when a person makes the decision to sell his or her home an individual reaches out to a friend in the real estate business to assist in selling the property. Although on the surface, oftentimes when a friend is hired to be part of this process, the combination of a business and professional relationship proves problematic. In the final analysis, you can end up at professional loggerheads with your Realtor. If you've retained a friend for this service, you are also at risk for professional disputes or disagreements bleeding over and negatively and even permanently impacting the preexisting friendship.

On the flip side, if you hire a friend to be your Realtor, your friend may face dilemmas. For example, if bad news needs to be conveyed to you, your friend serving as your real estate professional will be reluctant to do so. A friend as your Realtor may sugarcoat what is conveyed to you. In other words, you won't be getting the most accurate information you need to evaluate matters related to your home whilst it is on the market for sale.

#6: Pricing Your Home on the Profit You Want to Realize

Home sellers err when the determine an initial sales price based on a calculation of how much profit they would like to realize from a sale. In reality, the factors that must come into play when determining the initial sales price for a home include:

• comparable sales prices in the neighborhood

• period of time since a comparable home sold in the neighborhood

• condition of residence

• amenities of residence

• appraisal

#7: Letting Emotions Govern Your Decisions

Home buyers make a significant mistake when they permit their emotions to run amok when negotiating with a prospective buyer. Despite the immense sentimental value understandably attached to your home, when he put your residence on the market for sale you must maintain the focus that you are dealing with an asset or commodity.

#8: Not Disclosing History or Residence of Material Problems

A major mistake a homeowner can make when a putting a residence on the market is to fail to disclose the history of the property or problems at the premises. Keep in mind that there are certain types of disclosures that are required to be made by law. In addition, there are other problems that can exist at a property that are better disclosed than hidden even if there exists no legal requirement to do so.