5 Home-Selling Myths to Stop Believing Immediately

Grand Rapids Real Estate Video Blog with Kevin Yoder

There are five myths about real estate that home sellers NEED to stop believing.

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If you’re thinking of putting your home up for sale this year, and you’re planning out how you’re going prepare your home for the market, pay attention—these myths can cause home sellers some trouble:

1. You can do it solo. I’ll say this: Yes, you can sell your home on your own. But I’d follow that up with this question: “At what cost?” There’s always a cost when you sell your home by yourself. This year, an agent I know placed an offer on a home that was For Sale By Owner. We figured out that the home in question was priced at least $15,000 to $20,000 under the market price. Of course, the agent put an offer on the home and got it for a great deal. The seller didn’t know what they were losing out on because they didn’t have access to the metrics that we, as agents, do—metrics that allow us to use data to properly price homes. Unless you’re actively involved with the industry, there’s a lot of critical information you’ll miss out on.

2. You know what your home is really worth. It’s really difficult to assess the value of your own home without a professional understanding of the market you’re in. The emotions a seller has for their own home can skew their perceptions of its worth.
3. It’s fine to sell a home as-is. There are things we can do to prepare a home for sale that allows us to make low-cost, high-impact improvements Before putting it on the market, there are low-cost, high-impact improvements we can make to prepare a home. Touching up paint, updating light fixtures, and cleaning up the landscaping are all examples of simple, little things homeowners can do that will boost your home’s value. Selling your home as-is is rarely a good idea. The time and relatively low amount of money you put into making these improvements will turn into a better price at the closing table.

It’s really difficult to assess the value of your own home without a professional understanding of the market you’re in.

4. Spring is the only time to sell. This absolutely isn’t true—it’s just what most people think. With the exception of crazy, weather-related events, you can list your home at any point there are buyers out looking. Keep in mind the law of supply and demand: When there’s less of something in the market, then demand goes up. This same thing applies to real estate. Since most people wait until spring to list, that means that demand is lower than it would be when there are fewer homes on the market.

5. You can rely entirely on home evaluation sites. These sites are simply starting points, but it’s impossible for the algorithms they use to accurately determine your home’s value. They don’t take into account all the upgrades you’ve done (or haven’t done) when they compare your home to those they have in their database. The only way to get a truly accurate estimate of your home’s value is to contact an agent to have them do a comparative market analysis.

Hopefully, you found this list of myths valuable! If you’d like to read more about these myths (plus an additional one I didn’t discuss here), visit this article from Realtor.com.

If you have any questions or need any assistance selling your home or preparing it for the market, feel free to reach out. We’re here to help.