The Unfair Toll Emotions Play When Selling a Home

The Unfair Toll Emotions Play When Selling a Home 

By Emilio DiSpirito, Realtor - Team Leader - Radio Show Host

www.EmilioDiSpirito.com

I understand first hand how hard it can be to leave a property in which you grew up or raised a family. Almost always when someone is selling, it's because the home they are in is no longer practical for their lifestyle. So you have to ask yourself.. do you stay in the over-sized hard to manage or finance home for nostalgia or do you move onto something that is more fitting and where you can enjoy your extra money & time?

Brings us to our next point.. Emotions...We all get them.. They cripple us and our bottom line when we incorporate them into the business of selling one of our best assets, our homes. Here is a short list of ways you can avoid the loss of thousands of dollars. 

• Gather information a head of time - When you can shift your mindset from where you are to where you want to be, you start to detach yourself from the property. *Contact an agent months before you are actually ready to list the home. Obtain vital information on market which will give you an overall picture of total time it may take to sell when you are ready. This allows you to be prepared. 
  
• Speak to your goals. Tell the agent your plans. Staying local or moving away? Often times when moving out of the state, your agent can guide you with a Realtor in the location you are going. We can vet the other agents for you so you know you are getting someone reputable and they can provide you with information on locations in which may interest you. When staying around town and downsizing or upsizing, it's important you speak with an agent about neighborhoods and what will suit your lifestyle most. Go by the FORD approach.. Family/Friends, Occupation, Recreation, Dreams. When finding an area to live, make sure it meets all your criteria of FORD.  
  
• Market Price will Net you Much More - We are not short of data now-a -days and we have proof that having your home sit on market in a sellers market for more than 17 weeks gets you only 93% of fair market value when sold. Buyers have access to more information than ever, and they know when a home is over priced. No one wants to pay $20,000 more for a like car in one lot, when they can go down the road and pay $20,000 less. Your over priced home is selling your neighbors while crippling your bottom line. Keep this in mind, If fair market price is $400,000 for your home and you price it at $450,000 because you want top dollar.. the house will sit. You may in the end net $372,000 instead of $388,000. That is a $16,000 difference and that number is real. We can go into why homes that sit get lower prices at a later time. When you price your home to market value and have it prepared, you may have a buyer frenzy and obtain higher than market value. We see this in Rhode Island more often than not. 
  
• You only have 1 first impression Make it Count - Higher a interior designer/home stager. They will make sure your home appears in show ready condition and will help you detach yourself from your home as well as net you a much higher price. If the first thing buyers see when walking into a home is wall paper and a 70's shag rug, immediately they think the home will need to much work and their mind is set. They will overlook often times overlook the fact that your home has a master suite or grand kitchen. Pull up the carpet, pay someone $300 to refurbish your hardwoods leading into the home. Take down the wall paper and have your interior designer pick a color pallet appropriate for the space and appealing to today's buyers. 
  
• Depersonalize - Take down all personal photos. Buyers need to connect to property and can not do so when they see your pics everywhere. Also if they see photos all over of lofty vacations, great restaurants, etc. they may decide that you have money and can afford a lower offer. Also keep in mind by packing up old photos you can start to disconnect yourself from the property. 
  
• Don't hang around - Nothing personal, but you will undoubtedly make buyers and agents feel extremely awkward if you wait "to see" who the buyers are and leave as buyers come in. Again, you only have 1 first impression and you want your buyers in a comfortable mindset.. not an awkward one. Reverse the roles. Keep in mind, the best way to see and meet the buyer is at the closing table. You can exchange stories there. In some rare cases sellers even ask to stay during open houses because they know house best. While they may know the house best, buyers will act standoffish and feel as if they can not speak out loud about concerns in fear that they will hurt your feelings and agents are not actors, they will feel like every word is being picked apart and will not act natural, in the end further making buyer uncomfortable. If you want to sell emotionally, sell with the buyers emotions in mind to net the highest price for your home.  
  
• Don't get insulted by low ball offers - No one wants to pay list price if they don't have to and if there are not multiple offers on the table, even when priced to market, don't be insulted when an offer comes in at $350,000 on $400,000. Recently I had this $399,900 home on the market at a perfect fair market value and received an offer. First offer came in at $360,000.. our sellers stayed cool and we countered offer at list price. We sat tight until our open house where a cash offer came in at $340,000. Now that we had multiple offers we were able to go back to both parties and explain multiple offers were on the table. We are now selling at 99% of list price with the buyers who lost the bid with a backup offer over list price. 
  

For more great content check us out on www.TheRoundTableRadio.com or tune in every Sunday to Rhode Island's best real estate radio show "The Round Table Real Estate Simplified" at 10 am! Aired on Newsradio 920 and iHeartradio "whjj"!

Thanks for tuning in!! :) 

Sincerely, 

Emilio DiSpirito

401-359-2338

PS. You can instantly get your homes value here www.TrustTheDove.SmartHomePrice.com - Instant report and you can even tweak your homes online value which will reflect on over 2 dozen real estate websites!