Avoiding "haters" is nearly impossible, unless you hide in a closet and never interact with anyone. When putting your home up for sale, you are opening your home and everything about it up to everyone, including the "haters". As a home seller, you job is not to try to make your home be all things to all people. That said, you don't want to be the house that nearly every buyer and broker sees, rolls their eyes and utters the same few, predictable deal-killing criticisms. Fortunately, what is predictable is avoidable.
Over the next few posts, we will explore the most common things buyers hate about listings they see. In the process, you'll get equipped to sidestep those issues and, in large part, hater-proof your own home.
House Hater Complaint #1: Odors. This may seem like an obvious situation that most home sellers naturally avoid. Unfortunately, it is a very common complaint from potential buyers and their agents after viewing properties.
Viewing a home sounds like it's all about the visual of the experience. And visuals are critical - your home should be in its Sunday best, so to speak, when it's being shown, in terms of being spruced, staged and clutter-free. But when a buyer comes to see your home, they don't turn off the rest of their senses. There is nothing that can turn a buyer off from a home, they might otherwise like, more quickly than a powerful, bad odor - in particular, cigarette and pet odors in a house that seems to have been well-cleaned. This could create the concern that they might be permanent and that the buyer might not be able to get rid of them without dropping some serious cash on cleaning or even removing wall, window and floor coverings.
If you are a seller and you know that someone has been habitually smoking in your home or that you have had a "challenge" with pet accidents, do not ignore the problem. Also, do not think that because you had the carpet shampooed or the drapes cleaned, or because YOU can't smell anything, that the problem is gone. The fact is that the human sense of smell very quickly gets used to smells that it lives with or is surrounded with on a regular basis. So it's critical to get your agent, stager or even your friends and family members (who don't live with you but love you enough to be honest) to help you detect bad smells and odors, and make sure they are eradicated by any means necessary, before you place your home on the market.
House Hater Complaint #2: Glaringly extreme overpricing. With the availability of information today through various Real Estate websites, buyers are more educated than ever when it comes to home values. If buyers realize that a home is "slightly" overpriced, they will still see it to see if they like it enough to make an offer and negotiate a favorable price. If a home is overpriced by a larger percentage or amount, buyers will monitor it to see if and when price reductions occur before spending their time actually visiting it. Then there is the kind of overpricing that makes buyers run away from a property as fast as they can.
When it comes to extreme overpricing, most likely buyers will sit and watch to see if the sellers will ever get serious about selling. Extreme overpricing usually requires several price reductions which, in turn, makes the property sit on the market for a much longer period than necessary. The listing becomes stale and, in the long run, sells for much less than if it had been priced properly to begin with. With our market getting stronger every day, we are seeing newer listings sell very quickly (often within days and with multiple offers) because they have been priced properly. The greatly overpriced properties from a year ago are still sitting on the market and being ignored by buyers. When it comes to pricing, we often say to our sellers: "Do you want to be on the market or in the market?"
In our next post, we will discuss the affects of cleanliness and imperfections.
Some aspects of this post were taken from an article written by Tara-Nicholle Nelson for Trulia's Real Estate Realist.
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