10 Mistakes in Real Estate

Normally, I like to throw out a fun top ten list once in a while in Costa Mesa real estate Mondays. And believe me, I am the most positive person in the world. However, today I thought it might be a bit more fun to focus on 10 things not to do when selling a home in Costa Mesa real estate. This list came to me as I was trying to sell the house at 1863 Pitcairn in Costa Mesa.

 

 

I tried many times to advise the homeowner on little things (which added together would have made one big thing) to make the house more presentable, and ultimately if you don’t take the time to do things right it will hurt your bottom line – in the tune of tens of thousands of dollars.

 

Ok, enough ado, here are the top 10 mistakes in real estate:

 

1. Don’t make your house available when someone calls to see it. This might be obvious enough, but if you can’t have someone in to see your house, it is likely not to receive an offer.

 

2. Don’t clean your house. A clean house is the one thing everyone has control over. It seems like an obvious thing to most of us, but cleanliness is more than a virtue when it comes to selling your home in Costa Mesa.

 

3. Don’t make your home available when it is convenient to those out looking. If a Costa Mesa real estate agent wants to show your home on a Saturday, make it available. Usually Monday mornings at 8 AM aren’t the most convenient showing time for most people.

 

4. Don’t price your home in line with the market. Listing your home$100,000 higher than it should be will kill the most important marketing time for you home. The first 4-6 weeks are crucial when you market the property, and coming on the market with an ultra high price in Costa Mesa will ultimately lose you more than it should.

 

5. Leave junk lying around the yard. Leaving an old rusty lawnmower, an old broken down bar, and lots of old trash will not help sell your home. Need more 10 mistakes in real estate?

 

6. Don’t conform with the neighborhood. The home on Pitcairn Drive had a very low fence that was open to a busy street. Everyone who came in to see the home complained about the fence. If you are the only one on a block and you stand out like a sore thumb, you’re probably going to need to address that fact in order to sell the home for a higher price. Remember, all these little things will ultimately only cost you money from the bottom line.

 

7. Don’t take care of sorely overlooked maintenance items. A leaky roof? A broken fence? A non-working appliance? Trust me, lots of people don’t want to spend a half million dollars then put tens of thousands of dollars more to fix maintenance items.

 

8. Don”t show interior photos of your home. Ironically, my auto-spell corrector re-did my spelling of “interior” to “in terror” which is how the house often looked. Pretty funny, huh? There is sometimes a reason Realtors do not post interior photos of a home.

 

9. Don’t think it’s you, blame it on a really tough market. Yes, the market has been tough. But without doing the necessary adjustments to present your home correctly, maybe it’s not the market.

 

10. Don’t take your Realtor’s advice. An experienced Realtor who knows homes in Costa Mesa real estate should be able to go through a home and provide head to toe advice on the minimum you need to do to prepare a home for sale.

 

Back to why it took a while for that home to sell – I had that home on the market for well over a year, and I had lots of conversations why it would not sell. Yet things never changed. Lucky to sell, in many ways, that house benefitted from the ultra low inventory problem that has happened recently.

 

Even the cleanest homes need to be constantly cleaned. If I could tell you one bit of advice it is make your house ULTRA clean. If you didn’t do anything else, this at least gives a buyer a good feeling for your home.

 

Want to know the top 10 things to do right when selling your home? Call me or E-mail me and I will be happy to give you the Costa Mesa real estate top 10 list to prepare your home for sale.