Deerwood Realty and Friends Podcast
Wanted to put together a list of things not to do when selling your home…should put you ahead of the field.
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Thoughts/questions:
1. Don’t take your own photos, and don’t hire a real estate agent who does. I get it, right now it’s a hot market for the sellers. But it’s not always going to be that way. When you hire a real estate agent to sell your home, they should expect to be using some portion of their commission check for professional photos. 99% of potential buyers are going to look at your house in photos online before they ever decide to see the house in person. That’s why you need the best pictures possible. Don’t settle for cellphone pictures.
What if your house is a terrible wreck? My opinion in that case is to still take professional photos. Show off the warts of the house..that is the listing strategy you are going with. If an investor is sitting at the computer, they can already start adding up all the repairs needed just by looking at the photos and it could bring you an offer faster.
2. Don’t forget to keep the kitchen clean and free of clutter. For some reason, countertops are the place where things go to rest. Mail, Keys, part of last night’s dinner…all seem to find their way onto the countertop. KEEP the countertops super clean for showings. If you happen to have a lot of kitchen devices on the countertops that you don’t use daily, put them away.
3. Don’t arrange furniture or possessions in such a way that your house looks smaller. I get it…you bought a sectional and it’s huge and it takes up the entire room. You may not care, but potential buyers are going to think the room is small. You put the microwave on the countertop in the kitchen and it’s just fine, right? No, it’s advertising that you have a small kitchen. When preparing to list your home for sale, think of words like sparse, or few. Just the other day I was in a house where they’d blocked off a door with a sofa. Made the house seem as though no furniture would fit anywhere. Do the best with what you have and put the rest into storage.
4. Don’t show off things that might turn potential buyers off. You may be the worlds greatest hunter. You might have heads of deer, antelope, and elk hanging on your wall of fame. You may be the worlds greatest gymnast and have medals all over the place. A shrine to your greatness perhaps? I get it. You’re proud of your achievements. Problem is, the eventual buyer of your house doesn’t know you and frankly doesn’t care that you are into running, or hunting, or anything else. They are trying to picture themselves in this home. Try to be mindful of what I would call “over personalization” when listing your home for sale. A few items here and there are fine, but don’t make focal points out of things where they are important to you but not others.
5. Don’t advertise to your friends on Facebook that you will take less for the house than advertised When you work with an agent to arrive at an asking price to sell your home…keep that between you and your agent. Don’t tell your friend down the street that you would take less. Definitely don’t post on facebook something like look at this idiot buyer who is paying so much for my house….that’s a recipe for disaster. We have super fast communication these days…ANYTHING you say can get back to buyers quickly.
6. Don’t hide things from the seller’s disclosure. No house is perfect. There’s always something that you might be uncomfortable about with disclosing. However, hiding it has the potential to get you into big trouble should a lawsuit be filed. The seller’s disclosure is set up to protect you from that happening. If you know that the roof leaks, put down that the roof leaks. If you made a repair to the plumbing after a huge clog, write down that you made the repair and that there hasn’t been an issue since.
It’s totally OK to not know something as well. After all, you aren’t a professional. It could be that your air conditioner works fine and when the new buyers move in it breaks. You had no idea. And that’s OK.
7. Don’t plan on meeting with the buyers when they walk through the house on a showing. Do you want to know the easiest way to turn off potential buyers? Stay in your house and follow them around with their agent during a showing. The whole sales process involves buyers “imagining” themselves in your home. They don’t want to “imagine” you in it.
Bonus…some real estate agents are late and some real estate agents are early with their buyer appointments. So, give them an hour before or after their scheduled showing time if possible. If it’s the weekend, just plan to be gone.
8. Don’t snoop on buyers. It’s 2022. We have the technology to monitor our homes 24-7. With that technology comes responsibility though. Try not to record or snoop on buyer conversations with their agents in your home. I get the temptation, but it’s also kind of strange. The biggest reason why you shouldn’t be listening in is that buyers want to be able to express what they really think about a house. If they think you are listening, they aren’t going to be honest about the house. UNLESS it’s terrible. Then they don’t care. I feel like there are ethical considerations here as well, but generally, just don’t record buyer conversations and you don’t need to worry about the ethics.
9. Don’t write out a confessional for why you are selling your house. While I have no issues with buyer love letters, I can’t stand seller confessionals. This is where a seller writes out some long detailed letter about their house, how important it was to them, etc.
Here’s why you shouldn’t
a. Buyers are selfish…and they don’t care who you are for the most part.
b. When you write that you’ve lived in a house for 40 years, it’s going to come across as you’ve never updated the home and the buyers should therefore pay less.
c. Appeals to emotion can backfire. If you have someone, say a family member die in the house, putting that in a letter to the buyers might make them not want to buy the house because they don’t want the image of dead people in their house.
d. You could be giving them your motivation. A letter like, “hey I can’t afford this house right now” is automatically interpreted by buyer’s agents into, “I will offer less on this house because the sellers are desperate.”
10. Don’t go out of your way to point out what is wrong with your house. This is different than not disclosing something. This is where you point out the things you don’t like about your own home, either in listing photos or through notes you leave. An example, don’t write a note that says, “we can only put a twin bed in here because anything bigger won’t fit” Or, “we had to buy smaller furniture for the house because the rooms are so small”
This can manifest itself in many ways.
Let’s say you had a mouse you were trying to kill 7 years ago and you just never picked up the traps. Buyers walk through and think you have a mouse infestation. Little things like this can add up to a narrative that your house is too small and filled with rodents. That’s not the best selling point.
11. Don’t forget to clean up after your kids, your pets, or your significant other before showings. I get it. People are messy. But, you need to put your best foot forward here. If the kids have clothes everywhere in their room, put them in a hamper or something. If Rufus didn’t respond well to taco night, clean up after your dog. The goal needs to be to keep the house in it’s best and cleanest possible position throughout the showing process. BUT, don’t forget to keep the house as clean as possible during the entire sales process. Getting the house under contract is just the start of the process…if you revert back to your disgusting ways of living like a pig, a buyer could very well bolt during the inspection process.
12. Don’t hire an agent without seeing previous examples of their work. There are all kinds of guides out there for choosing an agent. Some say you should pick an agent who your friends used. Some say you should pick an agent with many active listings. Some say you should only work with someone who has been in the business 10 years. Everything is subjective. One area where you might really see success when choosing an agent is asking them to show you their last listing online.
Doesn’t matter when it was
Doesn’t matter what type of house it was
Doesn’t matter the price point
What you are looking for is how did this agent market this property online?
IF the pictures are not professional
IF the description is terrible
IF the listing stayed active for many months
IF the materials contain many misspellings
It could just be the agent is terrible. Find an agent that markets their listings in a way that makes you want to buy the house they previously listed.
Sources: Me
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