If you are a seller courting buyers, you must read this!

Brought to you by Kelly and Wanda, The Partners With Panache

Turnoffs can be detrimental in the realm of your real estate goals. Turn a buyer off, and you risk not selling your home - period - or getting a lower price than you might have otherwise.  As you proceed on your quest for drama-free real estate, factor in these frequently occurring gaffes that turn off buyers and our tips for avoiding them.

1. Hanging out when buyers are viewing your home: Buyers stalk properties online and off, checking obsessively for price reductions and the like. But buyer-side home stalking is unobtrusive to sellers. On the other hand, buyers can feel personally stalked in their ability to fully explore or verbally process their impressions of a home when the seller is hanging out inside the home while it’s being shown.

As soon as a buyer sees you in the house, it instantly becomes much more difficult for them to”
(a) envision themselves living there (it’s your house, after all),
(b) be comfortable opening up drawers, closet doors, etc., and
(c) express their thoughts about how this house might be exactly what they’re looking for, if they can knock out that wall and get rid of those cukoo murals you so lovingly painted in your children’s rooms.

Sellers: If you want to sell your home, it’s best to not be around when buyers are looking. Give them some breathing space and a chance to truly walk around and consider what they like and/or dislike about your home without lurking and looming nearby.

2. Showing a messy house: Life gets hectic, and it’s easy for your every day duties to fall by the wayside. It’s also difficult to keep the home in which you and your family plus pets, etc. live in perfectly spotless for months at a time, while you’re waiting for an offer. But when you decide that you’re going to sell your home, it’s imperative that you make a pact and a plan with yourself and your family that the place will be in tip-top shape when buyers come knocking.

Remember: your home is competing with dozens of others, as well as with buyer’s HGTV-infused visions of what their next home should look like, so first impressions really count.

Sellers: Stuffing the closet is not the answer. Pack up your personals like you were moving (best case: you are), and put all but the essentials in storage, if needed. Get the carpets cleaned, do the dishes, make the beds, mow the lawn, dust, sweep and mop. Ask Kelly and Wanda, The Partners With Panache, to give you a gut check on whether your idea of clean is clean enough (better yet - ask us for the number of a house cleaner who you can engage to get the job done to showable standards).

3. Overpricing your home: the prospect of trying to negotiate down a crazily high asking price is just too much work and too outside their comfort zones for most buyers to deal with. The average buyer won’t even bother looking at your home if the asking price is clearly high and off base compared with other similar, nearby homes for sale; they’d rather sit tight and wait .

Sellers: Price to sell from the beginning. Work with Kelly and Wanda, The Partners With Panache to determine a price that is supported by the data on how much nearby homes have recently sold for. You’ll save yourself a lot of time and anguish and get a lot more legitimate bites from serious, qualified buyers

As always, if you are thinking of buying or selling a home in Northeast Florida, we would love to help you, contact us (904) 280.1115 and let us help you achieve your real estate goals!