Mistakes to avoid when selling your home

There is an art to selling your property quickly and for the best price you can. It isn’t as simple as going to an estate agent, putting some photos up and letting nature take its course. There will always be a lot of competition in the local area, so how do you make sure that potential buyers choose your home over someone else’s? In this article we will take a look at some of the common mistakes that sellers make and how to avoid them.

Pricing your property inaccurately

Many sellers know that a buyer might well try to knock them down on price and so are tempted to either price their property at the top end of the valuation or even higher to pre-empt these negotiations. This leads to two potential issues:

• The increase in price could push the property into a higher stamp duty category making it more expensive to buy and so less appealing to buyers
• The higher price might be outside of a lot of potential buyer’s price range and search criteria meaning that it won’t be seen by as many potential buyers.

Conversely, some sellers simply want a fast sale and so are tempted to reduce the asking price to tempt more buyers. Ironically this can have the opposite effect and leave buyers wondering what is wrong with the property and less keen to come and take a look. When you look at the pricing in this way, you can appreciate just how important it is that your property is priced correctly.

Poor preparation

This covers a multitude of sins such as not having your own move sorted, not having all the information to hand that you will need and also not preparing your home for viewings and even using poor photos for the marketing. All of these will play a factor in selling your property and prior planning is important.

• Make sure that you have all your affairs in order. If you are buying a new home make sure you are ready to go with an accepted offer, mortgages in place and conveyancers instructed. Make sure all the documentation you need to sell your property are at hand.
• Tidy up your home, making sure not to ignore that kerb appeal and sort any minor DIY issues that you never go around to. If you have time and it makes sense, make any upgrades too. You don’t want a buyer put off by a messy property either internally or externally
• Ensure you know what key features you want highlighting both in the marketing and when viewings happen. Check all photos and make sure they are bright and sharp and show your property to its best potential.

Hiding issues

Buyers are all quite astute and most, these days, would instruct a survey to be carried out, especially on an older property. You need to be upfront and honest about any issues or get them resolved. If a buyer discovers an obvious issue that has not been identified, they are most likely going to be put off buying.

Choosing the highest or first bidder

Deciding which potential buyer you want to buy your property can be an important factor and the highest bidder or even the first bidder might not be right the right one. Before accepting any offer, check out the buyer’s chain and also their financial situation. It could be that they are in a very long and complex chain with a high likelihood of a failure somewhere in that line of transactions or that they don’t have enough money for the deposit or perhaps are not pre-approved for the size mortgage they will require. Chose your buyer carefully to ensure that you have the best chance of a stress free transaction. An ideal buyer will be reassuring you that they have their deposit ready, have a decision in principle from their lender and a smaller or non-existing chain.

Being inflexible

Understandably there are often emotions attached to a property which can lead to sellers being inflexible on price or the moving process. Try to view the sale as a business transaction and realise that it could be jeopardised by being too inflexible on price or fixtures and fittings or even the move date. Try to work with your buyer to keep things running along smoothly.

Choosing an agent only on price

Not all agents are equal and choosing an agent to sell your property solely on price is probably not the right strategy. You need to check how well they know the local market, what marketing channels they have access to, how they will support you during the process and what properties they have sold in the area recently. This will help you to ensure that you have a great agent on your side who will do all they can to sell your property and who has the capability and experience to do so.

At Lovelle we are your local property experts in the Lincolnshire, Hull and East Riding region. Each one of our offices is owned and run by local experts whose local market knowledge is second to none. If you are looking at selling your property, why not pop into one of our offices and see how we can help you?