8 Money-Costing Pitfalls to Avoid when Listing Your Home for Sale
To attract the right buyers, close fast, and get top dollar for your home, it pays to get everything just right. Surprisingly, many homeowners make several costly mistakes when listing their homes for sale.
I’ve rounded up 8 of these common (and easily avoidable) mistakes. Learn to pinpoint and get rid of these, and you can take your home-selling ambition to a whole new and exciting level. Well, it doesn’t hurt to save oodles of cash in the process.
#1. Setting the Price of Your Home Either Too High or Too Low
Besides location, the price is one of the primary things buyers look for when hunting for good estate sales in Houston. However, underpricing or overpricing is a costly mistake that can make home-selling a massive headache. Setting the asking price too high, for example, can drastically reduce the number of potential buyers interested in your property. That is why it’s important that you make due diligence and get familiar with the prices similar homes in your neighborhood sold for. Also, know what similar sellers are offering – and your best bet is to undercut them.
#2. Failing to Read the Fine Print
We have all heard the cliché that “the devil is in the detail.” Well, the “devil” is in the fine print when it comes to estate sale contracts in Houston. Carefully go through the contract documents, disclosure forms, and whatnot. It also helps to ask as many questions as possible until you understand the nitty-gritty of the terms of contract. It’s at this point that a certified probate real estate specialist in Houston Texas can come handy. He or she should be able to offer you clear-cut explanations in layman terms.
#3. Not Taking Into Consideration the Importance of Online “curb Appeal”
When making estate sales in Houston, it’s important to have an out of the box approach. It’s well documented that physical curb appeal can help you make a fast estate sale in Houston. But did you know that the same goes for online curb appeal?
In today’s digital age, it’s no big secret that buyers start off their search on the internet. Sure, you can put out lots of literature about your home on the listing, but that won’t catch the eye of the buyer. Sizzling photographs, however, will. That is why it pays to hire a professional real estate photographer to capture the best of your home. Ensure that the photos you post accentuate one or two features that make your home stand out in a sea of others.
#4. Depending on Obsolete Information
The housing markets meltdown of 2006 – 2010 changed real estate industry as we know it. To add insult to injury, Hurricane Harvey took a huge toll on Houston homes. Obviously, if your home was affected by the floods you’ll have to reassess the list price as well as make a few renovations to bring it to market standards. Don't rely on out of date information. Of course, the demand will shift in favor of the "flood-nots" driving up prices, but demand will shift away from the "floods" (flooded properties) driving prices down.
#5. Not Making Full Disclosures
This is a no-brainer mistake that could end up costing you big bucks. For one, most Houston homes bore the brunt from Hurricane Harvey. In fact, this is a game-changer when it comes to disclosures for any future estate sale in affected areas of Houston. For those that got flooded, it will negatively impact the value of the homes. By how much? It's too soon to tell. It's the difference between the "floods" and the "flood-nots" that’ll affect house valuation for probate in Houston TX. As you wait find out to what extend insurance and FEMA will pay you for the loss or not, it’s still paramount that you make full disclosures.
#6. Setting the Sale for Days That Doesn’t Take Advantage of Tax Benefits
Here’s the thing that most sellers don’t get when selling an inherited house in Houston TX: mistiming the sale by even one day can set you back thousands – even tens of thousands – of dollars in additional Texas capital gains tax on real estate. Ring a bell? See to it that you speak with a tax-savvy attorney or accountant to determine if long-term Texas capital gains do affect your estate sale in Houston. This way, you can know the dates that these tax apparatus come into play.
#7. Neglecting to Make Relevant Repairs
I won’t lie to you; if your home is a fixer upper, you might want to sell it “as is.” It’s probably the best way to get the most money. Otherwise, you will have to take care of repairs and a little remodeling (if possible) before you list your home for sale. A house with a few cracked shingles, for instances, can cost less than $5000 out of pocket in repairs. If left unrepaired, it might cost you something to the tune of $70000 as the buyer will ask for credit or offer much less that market value. The choice is yours. Trust me; you can almost always recoup your repair money.
#8. Failing to Hire a Professional Real Estate Agent
Thinking you can save money by listing your home for sale on your own is sheer madness. You need the experience and wealth of knowledge of a certified probate real estate specialist Houston Texas. And numbers don’t lie – sellers who use real estate agents to list their homes make faster sales and end up with big bucks in their bank accounts.
About the author ~ Caroline Allison, Top 500 Realtor at RE/Max Fine Properties ~ Since 2001, Ms. Allison has bought, renovated, and sold over 200 homes, apartment complexes, distressed hotels/office buildings, with the aim of generating maximum returns. Because of her vast experience in real estate, she has a knack for walking through a property and sizing up the cost of repairs quickly. These skills come in handy when working with homeowners to get their property prepared for sale. When working with Ms. Allison, her clients get the extra benefit of getting access to her crew of contractors to turn a property around quickly to get it sale-ready.
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