Are you looking to sell your Barrhaven home? Did you know home sellers tend to make the same mistakes, time and time again, costing them money, time, and unnecessary energy?
The good news is that you can avoid this. As experienced real estate agents, this isn’t our first rodeo. Our expertise in Barrhaven’s housing market gives us insight that the average homeowner doesn’t have.
Avoid These Common Mistakes When Selling Your Home
MISTAKE #1: UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS
One of the most common mistakes sellers make is having unrealistic expectations about how their home should be priced and/or how much return on investment they can get for upgrades or renovations they’ve done or are planning to do.
The seller’s personal connection to the home can lead to both overvaluing and undervaluing their home. Someone who loves their home may overestimate how much others will love it. Conversely, being acutely aware of all its flaws can lead to fears that the house will never sell and cause a seller to underprice the property or accept a low offer.
Your Barrhaven realtor can provide a more objective and informed evaluation of the property’s value and help prevent you from making emotional decisions about such a major financial transaction.
Knowing which home repairs or upgrades will pay off is not black and white. The answer is often “it depends”.
- It depends on the state of the housing market
- It depends on the general condition of the house
- It depends on whether you can do the work yourself or pay someone to do it for you.
Our real estate agents have the expertise to weigh those contextual factors and make a call on what will provide the best return on investment in your particular situation.
MISTAKE #2: NOT PREPARING THE HOME FOR SELLING
When you’ve lived in your own home for a long time, you stop noticing the little things – a crack in the light fixture, the yellowing of a shower curtain – but people coming into the house for the first time will notice those things.
Your home has been decorated to suit your own tastes, which may not reflect the buyer’s taste. It’s filled with memories and mementos that are meaningful to you but may negatively affect the buyer’s impression of the home.
To the seller, family pictures make the house feel homey, but buyers have a harder time picturing themselves living in the house when it feels too much like some other family’s home.
We also adjust to the unique smells of our own home, such as pet odours, and may underestimate the effect that can have on potential buyers.
Our Barrhaven realtors can help you identify what needs to be done to make your house more appealing to buyers. In most cases, cleaning, decluttering, ‘neutralizing’ and staging your home to reflect what the average buyer is looking for will sell your property faster and for more money than showing it ‘as is’.
MISTAKE #3: NOT USING AN EXPERIENCED BARRHAVEN REALTOR
Trying to sell your home without a realtor, or choosing a realtor without doing proper due diligence, can be a costly decision. While the possibility of saving money on the commission can be tempting, an incorrectly priced home or poor negotiation strategy can end up costing you more in the end.
Selecting an agent who is a friend, or a friend of a friend, is not always the most prudent strategy. Interview multiple agents to find one whose experience and approach you’re most comfortable with.
Beware of automatically choosing the agent who provides the highest assessment. While sellers are naturally prone to get excited by higher numbers, this can reflect the realtor’s sales tactics and may not necessarily be the most strategic list price.
The rationale for the suggested list price should be made transparent, or you can end up with a house that stays on the market too long and ends up requiring a subsequent price reduction. Consider these tips for choosing a Barrhaven realtor.
AVOID COSTLY MISTAKES
An experienced Barrhaven realtor can offset the bias created by your personal connection with your home by objectively evaluating its value. Their expertise enables them to assess how to maximize the return on your investment.
Choose a realtor with experience in the Barrhaven real estate market who can help you come up with the best marketing, pricing, and negotiation strategies to get you the best possible price for your home.
Buy and Sell with Confidence. Choose The MacDonald Property Group.
At The MacDonald Property Group, we have a dedicated, national award-winning full-service team all under one roof, ready to provide the expertise you can trust. Our team and associates are recognized as the top 1% in North America since 2010.
With over twenty-five years of experience in all aspects of real estate, we have bought and sold well over a thousand homes. We’ve been honoured to help thousands of clients in Barrhaven and across the Ottawa area close a deal with confidence and satisfaction. Give us a shout and let us show you what we can do for you!