Avoid costly mistakes when selling your home

If you are planning on selling your home and would like to avoid the same mistakes that sellers make when it comes time to put their home on the market, then continue reading.

However, if you’re a back-seat real estate professional being guided by Uncle Vic, who has given you his “old world” advice, i.e. Vic’s translation of curb appeal is hand- painting your curbside street numbers with finger paints, then stop reading and head over to your local hardware store and buy a “For Sale By Owner” sign, a roll of duct tape for home repairs and a dozen plastic pink flamingos for your front yard.

I’ve witnessed many mistakes that sellers make and it makes me shake my head as to why sellers forge ahead with unwise strategies instead of listening to an experienced real estate professional.

This happens because the seller becomes impatient or is a procrastinator and has an unrealistic deadline. Do not put your home on the market until your Realtor has previewed your property and has given you the green light. First impressions are everything. Make sure that your prep work is done before marketing your property.

This happens with unnecessary additions and upgrades that make the home a neighborhood anomaly instead of a nice addition to the community. Regardless of Uncle Vic’s advice, a flock of plastic pink flamingos is not an enhancement to your home.

This pricing strategy always ends in failure. Sellers can control the asking price, but cannot control the sales price (the market dictates the sales price). It doesn’t matter what the seller wants, the price is determined by the reality of the market.

Make sure you hire a real estate professional with proven results. It might be nice to hand over your largest asset to recently licensed Uncle Vic, but make sure he has a mentor to keep your deal from going south.

This is one of the biggest challenges home sellers face when putting their home on the market. Once you decide to sell your house, it’s no longer a home, but a commodity. It needs to be prepared as a commodity, marketed as a commodity and priced as a commodity. It doesn’t matter what you want, only what the market can bear on pricing. People are going to come in to kick the tires, so to speak, and you can’t get emotional about how they may or may not appreciate the nuances of your home.

Most states have a property disclosure/disclaimer form — use it wisely. If you fail to disclose a leaky roof or dilapidated heating system that’s discovered 30 days after close of escrow, you can be sued.

This would involve financing, reading the fine print on your current mortgage to ensure no pre-payment penalties, not paying attention to the details of your local market, etc. If your local market is dictating lower home prices, do not list your home above market value or it will cost you more.

Avoiding these mistakes is not that difficult. There are plenty of resources and real estate professionals who are available to help you step over the pitfalls.

Do your research early, and listen to that voice in your head (it’s probably the whispers of the finance, real estate or insurance person who’s warning you of a hole you’re about to step into).

(Doug Hecker is a Realtor with Frank Howard Allen in Petaluma. He can be reached at 775-2256)