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Embarrassing Home Seller Mistakes & How To Avoid Them

Written by Posted On Thursday, 24 October 2019 00:55
house house

Almost all Nanaimo Realtors have ‘war stories’ to tell about home seller mistakes that they just could not believe people would make.

It’s not that they’re making fun of people selling their homes.  It’s just that some home sellers do things unintentionally that make their house very, very difficult to sell.

Some of the most embarrassing home seller mistakes involve pets, children, and well-intentioned decluttering gone bad.

Man’s Best Friend?

Any real estate agent listing a home for sale will tell her clients to put pets out of sight while the house is being shown.  Ideally the pet should be taken to a sitter or a friend’s house while prospective buyers look at the home.

But what some home sellers do is put the pet in the laundry room, spare bedroom, or the back yard.  The pets – especially dogs – do not like this at all.  Especially when they see or hear strangers in the house.

While the home seller tries to do the right thing by putting the pet out of sight, a ferocious barking dog is a big distraction to potential buyers viewing a home for sale.  They can’t go into the laundry room or the spare bedroom, and they don’t want to go into the back yard for fear of being attacked.

What the buyer can do is scratch the home with the barking dog off their list and move on to the next home for sale!

Sleeping In

Unexpectedly finding people sleeping or showering when showing a home is another embarrassing story that Nanaimo Realtors share.

Usually this involves teenagers who for the life of them couldn’t remember being told the night before that somebody would be looking at the house at 10 a.m. the next morning.

It’s bad enough walking into a bedroom only to find a youngster sleeping or half-awake playing God of War, Far Cry 5, or Mario Kart 8.  But imagine interrupting someone taking a shower!

To avoid this embarrassing home seller mistake many people will impose a curfew on their kids or post reminder notes on the PlayStation 4. 

Or better yet, they’ll meet the potential buyer and her real estate agent at the front door, then take the entire family out to the mall while the home is being shown.

Garage Sale Day

Decluttering is one of the most important things a seller can do to make their home easier to sell.  But it can also backfire on them if they’re not careful.

We recently heard the story of one family selling their home that tried to do everything right. 

They improved the curb appeal of their home for sale by keeping the lawn watered and cut, and the bushes and trees trimmed.  The inside of the house was odor free, there was fresh paint in today’s designer colors in each and every room, and accent lighting was used to brighten dark corners of the house and make rooms look larger.

The sellers also wanted to declutter their house, and what better way to do this than by holding a garage sale?

Unfortunately, they’d mixed up their calendar and scheduled the garage sale for the exact same day that their Realtor was holding an open house.  Imagine their real estate agent’s surprise when she pulled up to the house with open house signs, balloons and banners, only to find the driveway and front yard covered with things for sale!

The moral of this story is to always declutter and hold a garage sale before putting a home on the market for sale.

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Lynn Donn

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