Things to keep in mind while selling a house
If you are a seller and are looking to sell a home, make sure you do not fall prey to mistakes that can be hurdles to fetch you the intended price. Here are a few things you need to avoid while selling a house:
Do not let over-confidence get the better of you:
Keep overconfidence from fouling up your home sale experience by keeping in mind the following:
(a) Market dynamics are intensely local, down to the neighborhood of a city. Hence comparing your home sale with home sale experience of other acquaintances does not help your case.
(b) Markets are subject to change. Although in the current Indian realty scenario, it is highly unlikely that prices would fall, you cannot hope that prices move in the same direction and pace always.
(c ) Be careful about your listing and make strategic calculations regarding your listing. The listings that perform well in hot markets are listings that are competitively priced. The homes that appear to present a solid value for the list price are the homes that buyers will be most excited to go see and make offers on.
Do not overprice your property:
Real estate prices in India has been going up in the last decade and they are expected to rise further. However, you should keep in mind that purchasing power of the buyer depends upon the larger economic scene. Keeping the track of large number of unsold houses in cities like Mumbai, you should not overprice your home, as it may reduce buyer interest in your home, the number of buyers who come to see the place and, ultimately, the number of offers you receive.
Again, a “hot” market at any given time is different from state to state, city to city – even neighborhood to neighborhood. Even if house prices in your city might have increased rapidly, the price rise may not be the same in your neighbourhood.
Overpricing is one of most costly strategic errors sellers make in any market. Avoid making this mistake by working through the data on what similar homes have been selling for in your area with your agent.
Prematurely accepting an offer:
Be patient while accepting offers from buyers. Do not accept the very first offer that comes along because the buyer is offering you a good price. It may very well be the case that a large pool of other buyers who would have offered even more.
It is premature to accept an offer before the property has been fully exposed to the market, as you may miss the best offers that had not yet been made.
Course-correct your plans:
It is essential to know what milestones you should be expecting to hit at various points in your listing’s timeline, based on how well-priced, well-staged listings move in your current market. You should also have a plan of action for what you’ll do to course-correct things if they don’t move along as planned.
Your agent can brief you on such data points as the average number of days a home in your neighborhood stays on the market before it goes pending (days on market, or DOM), and then you can act upon feedback from buyers.
