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- Business Insider asked real-estate agents around the country about what it’s really like working in their industry.
- We asked agents about the top mistakes people make when trying to sell their homes.
- The biggest mistake a seller can make is overpricing their home, according to most of the agents.
- Other common mistakes include not decluttering the home before listing and failing to realize that some furnishings are too taste-specific to appeal to most buyers.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Business Insider asked real-estate agents around the country about what it’s really like working in the industry, what they wish they could tell their clients, and the biggest mistakes people make when trying to sell their homes.
Almost every single agent we talked to said the biggest mistake sellers make is overpricing their home.
Other common mistakes include not decluttering the home before listing and failing to realize that some furnishings are too taste-specific to appeal to most buyers.
Here are nine of the biggest mistakes people can make when trying to sell their home, according to real-estate agents.
1. Overpricing the home.
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The biggest mistake people can make when trying to sell their home is overpricing it, according to almost every real-estate agent we talked to.
"The best thing you can do is price at fair market value or just below fair market value, but when you overprice a property you miss out on all of the buyers who see it during the first month on the market and then over time you reduce the price until it sells," Spencer Cutler of Corcoran, who sells homes in New York City with an average price of $6 million, told Business Insider. "It wastes time, effort, and sometimes nets you less money than if you priced it correctly to begin with."
Michael Hahn of Compass, who sells $1 million homes in New York, said sellers often make the mistake of overpricing their home in order to leave room for negotiating.
"It’s better to price at the market level or even slightly under to yield the most profit in the end," Hahn said.
2. Failing to accept that not everyone has the same taste they do.
EUTERS/Chris Helgren
"The inability to step back from one’s own personal asset is very normal, but it can be damaging when selling a home," Maggie Ross of Compass, who sells homes in Brooklyn at an average price of $2 million, told Business Insider. "Sellers often think that their subjective taste will be appreciated by the wider market, and that’s not the case."
3. Not paying attention to the market.
WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty Images
Tim Swearingen of Coldwell Banker Bain in Washington and Oregon, who sells homes priced at $1.2 million on average, says one major mistake sellers make is not paying attention to market conditions.
"Good brokerages have weekly meetings about the changes in [the] market and how that affects every end of the housing spectrum," Swearingen said. "Dips, increase and other changes can greatly affect how the sale of your home can change and how people react to your property — your broker is at the front lines when putting a deal together and we are constantly getting feedback that wouldn’t be appropriate to share with you."
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
See Also:
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- I toured a $39.5 million triplex penthouse in an iconic NYC building that’s beloved by celebs and musicians. From the futuristic lobby to the Elon Musk-inspired study, it was unlike anything I had ever seen.
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Source: Business Insider – kwarren@businessinsider.com (Katie Warren)