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Vince Grillo
MBA, REALTOR®
Exceeding Your Expectations! |
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The 9 Most Deadly
Mistakes You Can Make When Selling Your Home
Each year, in
our area, many home sellers make the same mistakes over and over
again. When you add up these mistakes, they total more than a
million dollars each year! It pains me to watch these same
common mistakes made over and over again, so I finally decided
to do something about it — and thus this Special Report
outlining the nine most common (and most expensive) mistakes
made by home sellers each year.
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Deadly
Mistake #l: "Hard Selling" During Showings: People
buy homes on emotion, not logic. Buying a home is always an
emotional decision. People like to get a feel for a house to
see if it is comfortable for them. It's difficult for them
to get comfortable in a home if you follow them around,
telling them all of the things that you've done to the house
and pointing out every improvement that you've made. It may
even have the opposite effect that you want to accomplish by
making the prospective buyer feel that they are intruding
into your private space. Resist the temptation to talk to
the buyer the entire time that they are in your home. Let
them discover the home on their own. I recommend tasteful
signs to point out hidden features that they might miss.
Another good idea is to have a photo album on the kitchen
counter with photos of the home during other seasons.
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Deadly
Mistake #2: Mistaking "Lookers" For Buyers: If
you're selling your home yourself, you'll always get more
activity than if your home is listed with a real estate
broker. If you open your front door to everyone who walks
down the street and sees your sign, you may be spinning your
wheels. I recommend that you ask buyers a few questions
first to make sure they are qualified before wasting a lot
of time with them. A qualified buyer is one who is ready,
willing and able to purchase your home if it fits his/her
needs. Over the years, I've found that many people who look
at For Sale By Owners are curiosity seekers, nosy neighbors,
and people with poor credit hoping to get you to help them
with the financing. Other buyers may be qualified, but
they're six months to two years away from being ready. They
don't want to bother a real estate agent yet, so they call
and look at For Sale By Owner homes to get a feel for what's
available. Many of these folks have a home to sell first, or
they need to save money for the down payment, or they may
need to work on their credit rating. When everything else is
finally in place, that's when they seriously begin their
search for homes working with a real estate agent. I always
"screen" buyers to make sure they are qualified before
showing them homes. I won't show a buyer a home unless I
know he/she can afford the house, how much he/she has to put
down, how good his/her credit is, how much he/she can pay
each month, and how much money he/she will realistically
walk away with when he/she sells his/her present home. Those
are just a few of the questions that I recommend that you
ask prospects before you show them your home. I've learned
the hard way to ask questions before you waste a lot of time
working with a buyer who may be unqualified or just looking
for decorating ideas.
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Deadly
Mistake #3: Pricing Your Home Incorrectly: As a
seller, you want to sell your home for the most money
possible. Putting too high of a price on your home will
often get you less money than you could have realized by
putting a fair market value price on your home. Keep this
statistic in mind: On the average, buyers are comparing your
home to fifteen to twenty other homes. If your house is not
priced competitively, people looking at your home may reject
your home in favor of superior homes priced very comparably.
Overpricing your home usually increases the time on the
market, and many buyers are aware of how long homes have
been for sale. The longer your home is for sale, the more
buyers are inclined to feel that there's something "wrong"
with it, and the lower the offers will be.
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Deadly
Mistake #4: Failing To Prepare Your Home For The Buyer's
Eye: Buyers look for homes, not houses. Buying a
home is an emotional decision and they end up buying the
home that makes them most comfortable. It's what I call the
"Wow" effect. I've watched dozens of times as buyers have
walked in through the front door and gasped "Wow," and
immediately fall in love with the house. Owners who fail to
make necessary repairs, who don't spruce up the house inside
and out, who don't do all the little things that make a
house show like a million bucks will suffer from lower
offers and longer market time. Think about it this way: if
you were selling a car, wouldn't you wash it and maybe even
give it an extra good cleaning inside and out to get the
highest possible price? That's because a buyer looking at
your used car is purchasing on emotion, just like someone
looking at your home.
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Deadly
Mistake #5: Signing A Long-Term Listing Without A Written,
Specific, Performance Guaranty: Many times, an
agent has good intentions about marketing your house, but
circumstances can change. Other real estate agents are
taught by their brokers to take any listing for any price,
in an effort to begin to "control the inventory." These
agents seem genuine at first, but you never hear from them
again. Always protect yourself by making sure that you
receive a written promise stating that you can cancel the
listing, without charge, if specific written performance
details are not adhered to by the broker. Sellers who don't
heed this advice sometimes wind up tying their home up for
months on end, with absolutely no activity. Always protect
yourself by getting a guaranty of specific performance with
the right to cancel. I always provide you with the Written
Patterson-Schwartz Promise, which allows you to cancel any
agreement you sign with me with just a 24-Hour Notice. This
gives you the right to cancel any time, for any reason
whatsoever. That's how sure I am that you'll always be
ecstatically happy with my services.
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Deadly
Mistake #6: Not First Obtaining A Qualified Bank Appraisal
And Commitment For Financing From A Home Lender:
How would you feel if your home sold for $189,000, only to
find out from the bank appraiser after the buyer made an
offer, that it was worth $209,900 In today's real estate
market, this happens more often than you think. Your home
will have to be appraised by a state or federally licensed
lender sooner or later. Sooner can result in several extra
thousands of dollars in your pocket Bonus: A qualified bank
appraisal is a tremendous marketing tool for your home,
because buyers are afraid of paying too much for a house.
That's why they often make low offers. Think about it. Much
of the real estate advice that you've received in your life
has been, "make a low offer." Without an appraisal, you're
just guessing as to the value of your home -and when you get
an offer, you'll be guessing as to whether or not the offer
is fair or not fair. Just going on a gut hunch has cost many
sellers thousands of dollars, by emotionally reacting to a
low offer. A certified bank appraisal gives you a point of
reference, a "benchmark" of value on which to base your
decisions. More importantly, a professional appraisal helps
you sell your home for full price, because the buyer can see
that the price was realistically established by an
uninterested but qualified, competent third party.
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Deadly
Mistake #7: Making It Hard For Qualified Buyers To Obtain
Information: The two marketing tools that
consumers think REALTORS®
use to sell homes (open houses and classified ads) are
actually not very effective at all. Surprisingly, less than
one percent of all homes are sold at an open house. As a
matter of fact, real estate agents use open houses to
attract potential prospects, and very seldom actually sell
the home itself. Furthermore, dozens of advertising studies
show that less than three percent of people purchase their
home as a result of calling on a classified ad. The few
people who do call on classified ads and don't obtain the
information on the first call (perhaps they get an answering
machine or a child) never bother to return the call. I
recommend that you use a 24-hour real estate hotline
dedicated specifically to your house, so that buyers can
obtain information on your house 24-hours a day. Another
marketing technique that I use that you may find helpful is
to distribute flyers throughout the neighborhood and
surrounding areas, where homeowners may be interested in
moving up to your home. When marketing your home, don't just
think that a classified ad will find the right buyer. It
takes effort and persistence, but effort and persistence
usually do pay off in the long run.
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Deadly
Mistake's #8: Not Using A Written Purchase Agreement:
Many sellers think their home is sold, only to find out
weeks or even months later that the buyer was not able to
obtain a home loan. Other sellers find out too late that
dozens of items such as surveys, title insurance
contingencies, assessments, tax prorations, pest
inspections, structural inspections, and a host of other
details can come back to haunt them if not properly
addressed right at the very beginning. It's not uncommon to
see a buyer willing to terminate a transaction only to have
a seller cave in and capitulate and absorb the expense of an
item that realistically should have been a buyer's expense
to begin with, had it been written into the purchase
agreement. I have several forms of purchase agreements in my
office, and would be happy to provide you with copies of any
or all of them. They're free just for the asking.
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Deadly
Mistake #9: Not Obtaining Written Pre-Approval For A New
Home Loan For Your Next Home: Nothing is more
heartbreaking than to sell your home and find your new dream
home, only to find out that you can't obtain financing for
the dream home. A written pre-approval is a formal written
promise by a home lender to make you a new home loan. I can
often help you get them for no charge, which will be applied
to your down payment when you get your new home. Do not
confuse a verbal pre-qualification with a formal written
pre-approval. Verbal pre-qualifications are just that –
verbal. They are not binding on the home lender. Many home
buyers have received verbal pre-qualifications, only to
later be denied a home loan and have their dream shattered.
I'd be more than happy to give you the name of several
highly competent, well-respected home lenders, who may
provide you with a formal, written pre-approval at no
charge, as a result of my recommendation. Please feel free
to give me a call for their names. The above recommendations
come from years of experience in the real estate industry
during buyers' markets, sellers' markets, high interest
rates and low interest rates. In any economy, however, the
listed recommendations apply in all situations. Follow these
guidelines and you will substantially reduce the often
stressful and sometimes expensive mistakes made by hundred
of home sellers in our area each year. |
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