Want to try to sell a house in Ocala, Florida? The home selling process is complex, and unless you take time to prepare beforehand, you can end up making some huge mistakes. These mistakes can end up costing you thousands of dollars in potential profits.
Selling your home is a major financial decision, so it’s important to make sure you have a plan before listing your home for sale.
In this post, our realtors at Your Home Sold Guaranteed Realty - Coldwell Real Estate Services will discuss the five worst mistakes home sellers often make. That way, you can know what to avoid and ensure you have a successful sale.
Not Budgeting
There are several financial elements that home sellers may not consider when selling their homes. First, you’ll be responsible for the bulk of closing costs in a real estate transaction, including commissions for both your own agent and the buyer’s agent.
On top of that, it’s important to consider the costs involved in renovating, upgrading, and preparing your home for sale.
All these costs must be considered, especially if you also have to worry about the cost of purchasing your next home. Not to mention, the costs associated with packing and moving your belongings from one place to the next.
Not Choosing an Agent Carefully
It’s common for home sellers to assume any realtor can accomplish a fast and profitable home sale. However, this isn’t the case. Every agent has their strengths and weaknesses, and each one has a certain skill set that may make them better in one area than others.
For this reason, it’s crucial to interview multiple realtors before choosing one to work with. Ideally, you should interview three to five realtors.
Ask them about their experience, history in the area, marketing strategies, and track record. When evaluating an agent’s track record, ask for statistics about their average selling speed, how many homes they’ve sold in the past six months, and their average list-to-sale price ratio.
Not Investing in Your Home’s Appearance
Some home sellers may try to sell a house in Ocala as-is just to get it on the market faster and avoid paying thousands on repairs and renovations. While you don’t have to pay to renovate your entire home, it can be a good idea to renovate high-traffic areas, like the kitchen, bathrooms, and living room.
Ultimately, going the extra mile to upgrade key areas of your home might be an upfront investment. But it means you can charge a higher asking price.
Not only that, but you’ll be able to justify your asking price to prospective buyers. These renovations will also help your home stand out compared to others on the market, particularly if your home is older.
It’s important to remember that home buyers will also be considering new construction homes. So making your home more modern will help you compete against these properties as well.
Not Using a Professional Photographer
High-quality photos and videos are crucial. Most home buyers browse listings online, so the photos you use in your listing must show off your home’s best features.
Many realtors have a photographer they recommend using, and they’ll also cover the cost from their commission as part of their marketing strategy.
If you’re searching for your own photographer, be sure to check out their portfolio and the quality of their work.
Not Remaining Objective During Negotiations
Lastly, another common mistake home sellers should avoid is not remaining objective when they receive a lowball offer from home buyers. You should expect the first offer from a buyer to be lower than the asking price.
This isn’t because the buyer thinks you’ll actually agree to this amount– usually, they just want to see if there’s any room for negotiation. You have the option of sticking firm to your asking price or offering to lower it slightly.
If you don’t want to lower it, you can always add in some concessions to sweeten the deal for the home buyer.
But overall, it’s important to evaluate and respond to every offer objectively, and not take it as a personal attack against your home.
We Can Help You Try to Sell a House in Ocala and Get Top Dollar
If you want to try to sell a house in Ocala or around north Florida, it’s important to have a pricing and marketing strategy. This is where a real estate team like Your Home Sold Guaranteed Realty - Coldwell Real Estate Services comes in.
Our realtors have been working in the Ocala, Florida, area for years and have developed a reputation for our selling speed. On average, we sell homes 48% faster and for 2.4% more money than our competitors.
Our success is why clients know us as the best realtor in Ocala. Clients also love working with us because we go the extra step of guaranteeing the sale of your home through our seller guarantees.
This includes our Guaranteed Sale Program, which ensures your home will sell within your desired time frame. If not, our team will buy it ourselves.
To learn more about working with our real team, give us a call at 352-290-3512. You can also fill out the form below for more information.
