Greed: This is a big problem. It was easy in a seller’s market to get in touch with your greedy side. Feeling like Midas, everything you asked for from a buyer turned into gold in your hands. Intoxicated with that kind of power, buyers often felt powerless to deliver if they wanted their home. In a balanced market, or even a buyer’s market, many sellers have not kicked the habit of greed. Ironically, greed is costing those vendors money. Ask any real estate agent and they will tell you stories of deals that fell through because of a $300.00 item that couldn’t be agreed upon. They no longer have the advantage, many sellers refuse to compromise if it means less money in their pockets, but now buyers are free to move on to the next house on their list. A seller may refuse to fix a $500.00 item on the house, or provide an affordable home warranty, but when the buyer moves to a willing seller, the greedy seller is forced to wait for another buyer, all while making payments. of the mortgage in the same place. house they can’t sell. Bad move.

Unrealistic expectations: Anyone who has ever sold a home on a seller’s market will have a hard time understanding the buyer’s market. If you want to sell your house, you have to forget everything you remember about selling your house in the past. Chances are your house won’t sell in a week, or you’ll get multiple offers. Unrealistic expectations are the foundation of guilt and resentment, keeping you from selling your home. The first few weeks of having your home on the market are filled with hope, anxiety, and unreasonable exuberance. It’s completely normal to believe that your home is somehow more special than others on the market, and yours will be the exception to the tough market. Once it’s clear that the bidding war hasn’t materialized and his house is still sitting next to the others, a home seller with unrealistic expectations is squashed. Stay positive about your home, but don’t be blind to what selling it will entail. A home seller with a realistic view of what it takes to sell a home in a balanced or buyers market can easily adapt to changing market conditions, use constructive feedback to improve their home, and sell their home in return. faster.

Pride: If you really want to sell your house, promise yourself right now that you will never utter the phrase, “I’m going to send that buyer a message.” If you like to send messages, maybe you can breed homing pigeons. If you want to sell your house, remove that phrase from your vocabulary. The message that sellers send when they respond to buyers in this way is “I don’t want to sell you my house. You have insulted me.” In the end, all you have left is your pride and that house that just won’t sell. As an active Ebayer, I have never witnessed a transaction where the seller of an item was outraged at the lowest bidder. Everything is business. Divorce your emotions from the home-selling process, and you’ll have an advantage over angry sellers in your area, because the buyers you turn away with your “messages” are going to buy a home, but not theirs! The message to be sent to a buyer must be in the form of a counter offer. Nothing else. Nothing less.

Impatience: He wants this house to be sold. Now! The impatient seller can’t understand why his house didn’t sell in the first week. By the third week on the market, the impatient home seller is furious and wondering how to get out of the listing deal. Are you an impatient home seller? If he carefully chose his real estate agent and, when he signed the listing contract, believed he was up to the job, sit back and let the market roll. The impatient seller calls his agent more than once a day for updates, even if there has been no activity at the house. He asks her, “why isn’t it selling?” is regularly alleged over the phone. Are you, the impatient seller, doing whatever it takes to sell your home? Have you done what your agent suggested to get your home in resaleable condition? Did you really listen to the comparable price data provided by your agent? Or did you have a fixed price in mind and refused to change it when you put the house up for sale? The impatient seller can create a tremendous amount of stress for everyone involved in the home sale, and it’s totally avoidable. In the end, the timing of your home sale will be a combination of price, condition, and luck. No amount of impatience is going to change that.

Ignoring the market: Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is a disaster for a home seller. Yes, we know that his neighbor sold his house for the same price he wants for his house, but that was four months ago. The residential real estate market is more fluid than ever now. Learn about current market conditions, not last year’s market, or even last month’s market. A home seller who ignores the market will interview a few real estate agents, read the data provided by the agent, then ignore the data and make a list with the agent who gives them the least argument about the price of their home in an insignificant way. realistic. Real estate agents don’t price homes, sellers do. Agents will provide valuable information and input to help the seller choose a price. Some agents will refuse to accept a listing if they feel the seller is unrealistic about the price, but many others will accept the listing with the caveat that the seller will be willing to lower the price later. With so many other properties on the market, an expensive house will sit there like a deli tray at a gathering of vegetarians. So, the seller will be chasing the market by lowering the price after seeing prices fall around him. Eventually the house may be sold, but the price will be determined by the market, as it always is. If you’re guilty of ignoring the market, you can save yourself a lot of time and heartache by scheduling a meeting with your real estate agent to review your home’s current sales data and set a realistic price now.

Stubbornness: When selling your house, it is better to imagine yourself as a flexible tree that sways gently in the wind, rather than a donkey with its heels rooted solidly in the ground that resists all attempts to be moved. Stubbornness can appear in many situations. When you are contacted to schedule a visit, do you leave the house? While it’s a fact that your home has a better chance of selling if you’re not there for the show, do you refuse to be hassled by leaving? You can tell yourself that shoppers can fit into your schedule. They will not. The possibility of a sale often fades because a buyer is uncomfortable with the homeowner and cannot freely evaluate the home. Expect to have problems when you sell your house. It is part of the process.

Do not cooperate: Are you a partner with your real estate agent when it comes to selling your home? Are you resisting every suggestion from your real estate agent to make changes to your home that will help it sell faster? I have had this conversation with home sellers many times. Is it fair for people to judge your home based on things that aren’t going to be in it when you move in? No, probably not. Do buyers judge your home based on those things? Absolutely. I’ve seen buyers lose their enthusiasm for a home based on a decorating theme that didn’t suit them. No matter how many times your real estate agent reminds you that you can decorate in your own style, it’s too late. The house is now known as the “duck house”, the “doll house”, or the “pink house”. Each house is given a nickname when buyers are shopping. Don’t let your refusal to cooperate prevent your home from being the “perfect home.”

Selling your home requires the cooperation of countless people, many of whom you’ll never meet. The key word here is “cooperation”. We, as home sellers, expect cooperation from those who are working to complete our sale transaction. And you, the seller of the house? Are you willing to meet the buyer halfway through negotiations? Are you willing to work someone else’s hours to get something signed? Remember, you may be selling a property, but in the end, real estate is about humans. Be good.