How to Overcome the Top Challenges to Selling a Home
While you may have been through the home buying process before, the selling process comes with its own set of challenges and obstacles you might not be familiar with. From preparing your home for sale and pricing it right to choosing the best agent and managing your emotions, there are many pieces to the puzzle.
If you’re planning on selling your home shortly, it is important to understand all of the obstacles that might stand in your way so you can plan accordingly. In this blog, we’re divulging the top challenges to selling a home — and, most importantly, how to overcome them!
The Challenges to Selling a Home: What They Are & How to Overcome Them
Challenge #1: Getting Your Home Ready to Sell
Selling your home requires much more than simply putting your house on the market. Many factors go into getting your home ready to sell! These include taking care of necessary repairs or renovations; decluttering, deep cleaning, and depersonalizing your space; sprucing up your curb appeal; staging your house; and more. Sellers typically spend three to six months preparing their homes for the market. While this process can be overwhelming for any seller, this is especially true if it’s your first time.
What You Should Do:
Although it is possible to become a DIY expert and get your home ready by yourself, a real estate agent will be able to guide you through the entire process. After all, no matter how much HGTV you’ve watched over the years, no one knows what it takes to get a home ready to sell better than a real estate agent. In addition to providing their advice, your agent will also be able to utilize their extensive network to connect you with professional cleaners or home stagers in the area — ensuring your home is in tip-top shape before going live.
Learn More: 6 Ways to Prepare Your Home for Sale
Challenge #2: Pricing Your Home Right
Setting the right price can be one of the biggest challenges to selling a home. After all, you don’t want to price your home too high or too low — you want to price it just right. As a seller, it’s understandable to want the best price for your home. However, pricing your home too high from the beginning can negatively impact its ability to sell. By overpricing your house, it may receive fewer inquiries and sit on the market for too long, causing you to lose negotiating leverage. On the other hand, pricing your home too low could result in your house selling for less than it could have otherwise.
What You Should Do:
Another perk of hiring an agent to sell your home is that they can help you set a fair and realistic price — ultimately giving you the best chance of selling it fast! These trained professionals know the real estate industry and your local market conditions better than anyone else. They will perform a comparative market analysis (CMA) to see what similar properties in the area have sold for, helping you determine the best price. Listen to your real estate agent’s advice, and remember to leave room for some negotiations!
Related: 8 Rules for Pricing Your Home Right
Challenge #3: Maintaining a “Show Ready” Home
You’ve worked hard to declutter, clean, and stage your home to perfection before putting it on the market. However, your job isn’t done quite yet! Once your home is listed, you’ll have to work just as hard to ensure it’s always in pristine condition for showings. You never know when a potential buyer may fall in love with your home online and want to see it in person — and you don’t want to keep them waiting!
What You Should Do:
Constantly making sure every room is tidy and spotless can be time-consuming and tiresome, especially for sellers who still live in the home they are trying to sell. In these cases, we recommend temporarily storing extra furniture, bins, or personal belongings in a storage unit, closet, or under the bed for the time being. Although you’ll still have to do some general housekeeping tasks, this will ensure your home stays well-maintained and that you don’t have to hide your belongings every time a showing occurs.
Check Out: Is Your House Ready to Show?
Challenge #4: Managing Emotions and Expectations
From excitement and uncertainty to nervousness, stress, and everything in between — many emotions come with selling a home. Knowing how to manage this wide range of emotions is one of the biggest challenges to selling a home that you will need to overcome. After all, you’ve likely spent years in this house, creating memories that will last a lifetime. As excited as you may be to move into your new home, you might also be sad about saying goodbye to this one — and that’s okay!
What You Should Do:
While it is normal to be emotionally attached to your house, you should not allow these emotions to get in the way of selling it. Even though this is your home, it is still ultimately a business decision. If you are struggling to manage your emotions, this is yet another benefit of hiring a real estate agent to sell your home. Although your agent will be committed to selling your house, they do not have the same emotional attachment as you do. Therefore, they will be able to make decisions based on their experience and knowledge rather than emotions.
Challenge #5: The Buyer’s Role in the Process
Apart from you, the buyer is one of the most influential people in the selling process. After all, without a buyer, there is no sale! Throughout the entire selling process, many things can happen that could negatively affect the sale of your home. For example, a common problem before closing is a buyer getting disapproved of their mortgage. The buyer can also affect other factors like negotiating the price, closing date, final walk-through, inspection resolutions, and more.
What You Should Do:
When it comes to overcoming these challenges of selling a home, your real estate agent will be your greatest asset. The right real estate agent can minimize issues, helping you make the best decision for yourself as the seller. First, they will be able to guide you through the process from the start, helping you negotiate with potential buyers and ultimately pick the best offer. Furthermore, if any problems arise, your agent will work through these challenges with you and the buyer to ensure the sale successfully closes — all while keeping your best interests in mind.
Overcoming the Challenges to Selling a Home With The Redbud Group
While there are many challenges to selling a home, choosing the best real estate agent is the key to helping you overcome these hurdles. Before selecting an agent, be sure to check their online reviews to see what their past clients have to say. This will help you feel confident that you’re making the right decision.
A qualified and experienced real estate agent will be able to help you whenever issues arise. From getting your home ready to sell and putting it on the market to selecting an offer and negotiating with buyers, your real estate agent will assist you through every step of the selling process. In fact, by choosing the right agent (a Redbud REALTORS®, that is!), you may find that these “challenges” aren’t even challenging at all.
If you’re ready to get started with the selling process, or if you have any questions about the challenges of selling a home, then click the button below to get in touch with us.
