8 Deadly Selling Mistakes
Selling Your Long Beach Homes and Condos
1 - Overpricing
Your Property
Every seller wants to get the highest possible price for their Long Beach homes.
Ironically, the best way to do this is NOT to list your property at an
excessively high price! A savvy seller
will understand the long term damage that chasing the market down will inflict
upon them.
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An
overpriced home or condo will cause prospective Long Beach buyers to choose to view other
more reasonably priced properties. As a
result, overpriced homes are not selling, and sellers are finding
themselves chasing the market down.
Never a good position to be in.
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Overpricing your Long Beach home and chasing the market down will eventually cost
you much of the equity in your home and could send you into a short sale or
foreclosure situation.
Read
also:
2 - Confusing a Re-finance Appraisal with Actual Market Value
When equity is present re-finance appraisals often reflect overly high
prices. Unfortunately quite a bit of
this has gone on in recent years leading sellers to believe their Long Beach properties are more valuable than they actually are.
Lenders allowed this tragic behavior to encourage re-financing. Naturally many sellers want to believe the
re-finance appraisal is a real indication of their homes value, however nobody
is better qualified to determine market value than your local Realtor®.
Working with your Long Beach Realtor®, looking at the comparables, and
properly assessing the value of your home is the safest way to insure that your
home is priced competitively for today's volatile real estate market.
3 - Not Staging Your Home
With so many homes on the market in Long Beach, and so few qualified buyers shopping, it has
become critical to put your best foot forward.
Staged Long Beach properties just look better than
their competition. Buyers are no longer interested in purchasing homes or
condos that need much in the way of upgrading, nor do they always have the
after purchase funds to do so. Most are barely willing to paint.
They no longer have to do any of this to get a good buy in today's market, nor
do they always have the after purchase funds to do so.
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A messy or
dirty home is a turn off to buyers, they will either leave or make a very low
offer, it will cost you a lot of money in the sale, if you sell at all.
If you
cannot afford a professional stager the many articles below will assist in
placing your home in the best possible condition prior to placing it for
sale.
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4 -
Sellers trying to "Hard Sell" While Showing
Sellers should not be present at showings.
Selling your home is an emotional experience; it is emotional for the
buyer as well. Sellers often try too
hard to sell to the buyer and often talk the buyer out of the sale without realizing
it.
Buyers need
to be able to speak freely with their agent about what they like and do not
like about the homes they are viewing.
They cannot and will not do that if you are present, nobody wants to
insult the seller - they just want to see the home and decide if they are
interested. Their agent will not be able
to do their job with you present.
You have
hired a professional salesperson - let them do their job.
5 - Showing to Unannounced Buyers
Sometimes a prospective buyer will knock on your door and ask to view your home
on the spot. I strongly advise against
this practice. Your personal safety
could be at risk. Ask them to contact
their agent to make an appointment to view the property. Here in Long
Beach we use the Supra Key Lock Boxes to house your
keys safely at your property. Only a
licensed Realtor® can open the box and obtain entry to your home.
If you want
to sell your Long Beach Homes,
you must make them relatively easy to show. If Realtors® encounter a
difficult time showing your homes, they will pass on them. The Long Beach Real Estate Market is
flooded with inventory right now; they will just move on to show the next
available homes for sale.
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6 - Not Qualifying Buyers
Your
Realtor® should be screening buyers and making certain they are qualified. You should demand a lock in letter and a loan
commitment from your buyer. These
reasonably guarantee that the buyer does indeed have their loan on the terms they were promised, thereby minimizing any nasty surprises during the
escrow term. Nothing can 100% guarantee
that there will not be an upset, lenders are still going out of business and
loan programs are discontinued without warning.
Ensuring that your buyer is represented by a high caliber lender and
insisting that their loan is double app-ed (qualified through 2 banks -1 as a
backup to the other) is the best insurance you, the seller has during the
escrow period. Insisting on the buyer protecting themself, protects the seller as well, it's a win-win.
It can be
tragic to remove a property from the market for 30 to 60 days while pursuing an
escrow that does not close. By the time
the property is returned to the active market there is usually a substantial
loss in value.
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7 - Not Reading
and Comprehending Contracts
Contracts, real estate or otherwise, are legally binding documents and should
be viewed with a healthy respect. It is
very important to be familiar with the terms of the contracts you sign. Most of the contracts involved in any real
estate transaction here in the State of California
have been drawn up by the attorneys hired by the California Association of
Realtors®, among other details, there are points in these contracts that deal
with the repercussions of breech of contract.
You should know what these are before you sign.
Your
Long Beach Realtor® should explain the contracts to you until you understand.
One of the
most flagrant mis-uses of the listing contract that I have recently been witnessing
far too often is the abuse of paragraph 6.
Paragraph 6
of the Listing Contract (C.A.R. form RLA) addresses the issue of the Multiple
Listing Service (MLS). The contract
states:
"All terms of the transaction, including financing, if
applicable, will be provided to the selected MLS for publication, dissemination
and use by persons and entities on terms approved by the MLS. Seller authorizes broker to comply..."
Nowhere
does this paragraph state that your Realtor® is bound to place your property in
the LOCAL MLS used by Realtors® in the Long
Beach area. If Long Beach Realtors® do not have access to your property on the
local MLS, how is your property going to be shown? Through other marketing venues? Hopefully, however
the MLS is a strong pull for other agents with ready and able buyers; homes are
often sold through the MLS listing - it is too important to not be participating. The MLS listing puts your property in front of the entire real estate population. I have personally witnessed some agents
placing Long Beach Homes onto MLS systems out of the Long Beach area causing the seller to receive
little or no showings, sometimes driving them into short sale or
foreclosure.
In one
instance an out of area agent placed a Long Beach Short Sale listing in the
South Bay MLS. One of my buyers inquired
about the property after seeing the sign.
It was not in the local MLS.
After locating the property and the agent through extensive online
research I spoke with the agent. He
informed me that he must represent all buyers and they must run their loans
through him. Understand what this
means. He expects to earn the commission
for both sides of the transaction as well as the loan fees. He is refusing to work with other Realtors®
and does not have an exclusive listing agreement, which is the only way he
could do this. The property had been on
the market for 5 months and had no offers, at that time.
That
property is no longer on the market, it went to foreclosure. Not because it couldn't sell, because that
agent got in the way of any potential sale.
I doubt the sellers have any idea what transpired. The home was vacant so the seller had no way
of knowing if it were being shown or not.
You should hire a local Long Beach Realtor®, first because they know your market best and second because an out of area ageent most likely does not have a membership to our local MLS and is probably not going to buy one for your one listing - it is expensive. They can, for a small fee, place your property on the local MLS, but too often - do not.
Make
certain that your Realtor® is placing your listing onto the local MLS (SoCalMLS
for Long Beach).
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8 - Not Hiring an Internet Savvy Realtor®
Make sure your home is getting comprehensive
exposure on the internet. When interviewing listing agents, ask them about their
internet marketing campaign. Your home NEEDS to be on the internet... All over
the internet, in fact. Consider these points:
- Over 80% of all home searches
start on the internet.* Your home needs to be online, and findable, when buyers begin their
search. Have the agents you interview show you their ability to market your
property on the internet. Step back;
pick keywords that should bring that item to the front page of
Google. Are any of the sites that
your agent is using to promote your property coming up at the top of the
engines? No? Keep shopping. Better yet, call the agents on the front
page of Google, they already know how to get there and you can cut right
through the unlikely candidates.
- Over 25% of all Home Buyers
FIRST saw the home that they purchased on
the internet.* If
your home is not heavily marketed on the internet, you are missing
thousands of potential buyers.
- Multiple photos of good quality are the #1 thing that home buyers look for
when searching on the internet for their next home.* Your listing agent
MUST advertise your home with as many good-quality pictures as possible. Demand this. Few buyers frequent open houses any
longer. They are shopping online
from the comfort of their own homes browsing pictures, slide shows and
video, deciding which properties they will view. They are going to view them on their own
time schedule not in a small time window on a weekend when they have other
things to do. Photos are critical!
- Make certain that your Realtor
is not working another job. The
market has slowed down; many agents have had to take employment elsewhere
to make ends meet making it difficult to meet the many demands of their
real estate career. Your Realtor
needs to be available to field buyer and agent inquiries and handle the
daily business of promoting your listing.
Read also:
Laurie Manny
Long Beach Realtor®
Prudential California Realty
3728 Atlantic Avenue
Long Beach, CA 90807
562-212-5420
Long Beach CA Real Estate
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