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errors to avoid when selling your home
1. Not letting enough people know your property is
for sale
One of the biggest mistakes home sellers make is not shouting it from the rooftops.
In order to achieve maximum sale price it is essential to attract as many buyers as
possible. This requires a multi-pronged marketing strategy.
So many properties have been under-sold from a figure they could have achieved
by the property not being presented to all areas of buyer enquiry.
2. Asking for too much money
When people are in the market for buying a house they become experts and
they will know immediately if you’ve over-priced your house. For the two or three
months that buyers may be in the marketplace they become the best valuers
there are for that period of time. Generally speaking they know every property
that is on the market for sale, they inspect a great number of properties, they know
what every property has sold for and know when a property is overpriced or fairly
priced. Asking beyond a reasonable price will cause many potential buyers to not
even call to inspect a property and so potential buyers are lost because the asking
price is a turn off.
3. Spending too much money on pre-sale renovations
Another major common error is spending far too much money on sale specific
renovations. While it is certainly good practice to patch any holes in the walls and
make minor fixes to the property, it’s not always a good idea to spend thousands
of dollars on a major renovation that you may never get a return on. There is
usually practical and somewhat inexpensive work that can be done to add to the
overall presentation of a home when presenting it to a market.
A coat of paint or re-carpeting can make a big difference but be wary of
extensive upgrades.
4. Not thinking outside the box with marketing
Traditional marketing is still important but digital marketing including social media
sharing, submitting your home to any relevant websites and even creating a digital
tour of your home for potential interstate and international buyers are all areas
to consider. There are active buyers who are constantly looking in the market for
properties to buy and a normal marketing campaign can easily find these buyers.
However these buyers are often the most informed and knowledgeable buyers
and can be the most difficult to negotiate with. There is however another type of
buyer and that is the passive buyer or the inactive buyer. They’re not even looking
to buy and therefore it is the job of a good marketing agent to know where to go
to find these buyers.
by Caroline James
(www.realestate.com)