Often times when someone is looking to move into a new home, their ability to purchase said home is dependent on the home they already own being sold. Basically, they can’t buy a new home until they’ve sold the old one. When a home sells quickly, this usually isn’t a problem. However, some folks find their homes languishing on the market month after month and don’t know why it won’t sell. After all, the real estate market is supposed to be back on its feet, right?
There are a lot of factors to consider when selling a home, and while the health of the housing market is one of them, it isn’t the only one. Often, it isn’t even the most important. Let’s look at the sales price, for example. You definitely want to get all you can from the sale of your home, but if you overprice it, studies indicate you can reduce your prospective buyer pool by at least 50%. There’s a very fine line between pricing a home at its current worth and overpricing it. Talking to your real estate agent about pricing your home can be crucial as they have access to a ton of incredibly useful market data that will help you determine the proper price.
Next, there’s flexibility. Now we’re not talking about the type of flexibility that allows you to touch your toes, but schedule flexibility. If you only want to show your home between 2 and 4 p.m. on Sundays, you’re going to turn off a lot of potential buyers. Be open to scheduling walkthroughs throughout the week, and if you’re not currently living in the home, let your real estate agent put a lock box on the door. That way, he or she can easily show the home as often as possible.
And now we come to, arguably, the most important factor when determining the salability of a home: condition. There’s nothing wrong with selling a home that needs a little T.L.C. (we’ve all heard of a “fixer-upper,” right?) but if that’s the case with your home, it’s going to affect the price. Additionally, “fixer-uppers” will attract only the type of buyer who’s willing to put in work. Anyone who’s looking to buy a home and move right in will likely skip over your listing because they lack the knowledge, desire, money (or all 3) to put in serious work once the home has been purchased.
