When it comes to selling a home, there are a lot of factors involved, and its correct preparation and organization, the final results can be without doubts, completely different. And of course, the success probability. So, from my experience I can give some pieces of advice, that will benefit you when you decide to sell a home.
MISTAKE Nº1: SETTING A WRONG PRICE
Frequently, we tend to overvalue our home because of the fact of enjoying it for years, just us or any lovely relative of ours. It is known as “Stockholm Syndrome”. But it is clear, that the market does not understand either sentimental values nor any other emotions generated for a house, but for real market prices you have to cross offer and demand.
In some cases, we find people who tend to use criteria like: “I heard from a neighbour that he is selling it for…”; or: “looking through the internet… I have seen that in this area the prices are….” Effectively, this criteria can be a reference, but if you base such an important decision only on speculations, you are taking a high risk.
So, it is essential working with objective data and trustworthy sources of information, in order to avoid fall in this confusion. Because of that we can lose the market reference with a high price, which could generate 80% of the potential buyers lose their interest in our property, and the house ends up less attractive or burned, as we would say in our slang.
MISTAKE Nº2: THE FIRST IMPRESSION IS THE MOST IMPORTANT
Studies has shown how in the first 90 seconds of a visit, the potential buyer either forget the house or he falls in love with it, having just the opposite effect. For that, this first impression is essential, because depending on that, we will sell the house or not.
Nowadays, the Real Estate professionals use the concept of Home Staging, to define the preparation of a house for selling. This technique gathers a group of actions consisting on getting the best image of the house and giving it a more attractive aspect for the potential buyers.
This kind of strategies can sell the house up to a 15% higher price, and they also reduce the selling time considerably. This is necessary because with the existing stock of houses, the only way to differentiate a house from their competence is, appealing emotions and lifestyles that they can awake those feelings in the client during the visit.
MISTAKE Nº3: NOT SPREADING ADVERTISEMENT ENOUGH
Another frequent mistake consists on thinking that with a simple internet advertisement -understanding internet as the real state websites- and just with an outdoor sign on your balcony, this is going to be enough to find the buyer for your house.
And this is because, nowadays there are 8 houses on average in the market for each buyer, so it is important to know how to differentiate ourselves from the existing competence, both with a very attractive product, and knowing how to offer it and distribute it on the most optimum way, to get our goal. Definitely, selling our house at best price and as soon as possible.
We said in the previous point that it is important to prepare a house for selling, it is equally important to know what channels or media we should use for advertising it. And in this point, it´s where commercialization plan of the house or marketing plan make sense; which is a written document that should include an analysis of the current situation of the house, setting our goals, and defining the different strategies to take into account for accomplishing those goals.
MISTAKE Nº4: DEALING WITH CUSTOMERS
When a buyer is going to do what is probably the highest investment of his entire life, in most of the cases, he is going to be very motivated and he will be able to take his objections and negotiation strategy where is necessary for achieving his goal.
In the same way and as a seller, even though we have a previous experience in sales field, most of the time, either we are going to accept their request or we will end up losing the nerves, which will generate a frustration on both parts and so, the negotiation will break.
However, if we count with a third party for covering this role as a negotiator or facilitator of the operation, this is going to put us in a more comfortable position, and we always could mention a higher person, who makes the decision, leaving us free of pressure. If this third person has a good training in this matter, without doubts he will be able to achieve better conditions that we could get for ourselves.
MISTAKE Nº5: “THE PAPERWORK” OR THE NECESSARY ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURES
It is clear that no one can be an expert in everything, independently to our education or preparation in different fields, the normal situation is that until we have covered a previous experience selling a property, we do not have knowledge about the necessary procedures nor the most optimum way of facing them.
“Googling it” or searching on the internet something like: “taxes and administrative procedures when selling a house” is not enough, which is normal and hurtless, and the information is always good. But this is not going to save us from anything. Even hiring a legal or fiscal advisor, these procedures can be accomplished in time, but it won´t get us the best fiscal and financial structure for our particular need.
In some situations we find operations of heritances, double transmissions, divorces or annulments, subsidies, etc. Just giving some of the more common examples; that can have an extreme complexity, and depending on if you have a good advisor or not, the final result can be significantly different.
MISTAKE Nº6: WASTING TIME AND OUR PRIVACY
Our mothers always told us to “not open the door to strangers”, and for everything else, they were always right. And in the case of selling a house, this makes even more sense, when opening our door to anyone who has rang the bell because he or she has seen the sing on the balcony; or just because they saw on the internet advertisement, it is a risky adventure. And in most of the cases it will generate two main consequences:
On one hand, we are playing with our security and physical integrity, and our family; and in my opinion this is something that should be enough. That could happen in a bad moment when our privacy will be affected by the lack of planning the visits.
On the other hand, nowadays our most valuable assess is time, and it is studied that a visit should last between 20 and 30 minutes, unless we have a filter to know when we face a “real” buyer; yes, and I say real, because only for visiting our house, it doesn´t mean they really want or can buy it. Thus, we are not going to be the owners of our time, while we don´t have someone who acts as a filter.
THE BEST SOLUTION
Maybe none of these 6 mistakes independently comes to the negotiation breaking, but a mix between 2, 3 or more mistakes -and believe me that it´s a normal thing that at least 3 or 4 happen in any operation simultaneously- which will cause problems, and this will end up in delays and economic losses in the same proportion.
So, I highly recommend to give the operation in the hands of a professional with enough experience, and the necessary resources for it, who will help you do this task with the maximum guaranties of success.
