How NOT to Sell Your Home for the Most Money

We always hear about how to sell your home for the most amount of money. But equally, if not more important, is knowing how NOT to sell your home for the most amount of money. If you don’t know, you may just make the same mistakes so many sellers do and get less money for your home than you could have.

Here’s a true story about how my buyers bought a home for over $35,000 less than what it was really worth thanks to the seller doing some things he should NOT have…

When I first came across this property, I had a feeling that it would work well for one of buyer clients. But one thing struck me…it seemed like it was priced extremely well, but it wasn’t selling. That set off a red flag to me and I started to wonder what was wrong with it.

I previewed the home on my own the following morning and that’s when I realized why it hadn’t sold.

As I pulled into the long driveway, I was greeted by three barking and overly excited dogs – a Jack Russell Terrier, a Boxer and an Australian Shepherd. They came running at me at full speed. The Boxer jumped on me while the JR Terrier and Shepherd wouldn’t stop jumping around and barking at me. Not a big deal to me, but not everyone is a dog lover nor OK with strange dogs doing that to them.

The seller told me to not let the dogs in the home. But the dogs were bulldozing there way around and through my legs as I tried to enter the home via the front door and, of course, two got in. To get them out of the house, I had to break out my Cesar Millan/Jedi mind tricks on the dogs to calm them down a bit and then physically picked up one of the dogs while holding the other by the collar. (Not recommended when you’re a stranger on their “turf”, but how else was I going to get in?)

After the “grand entrance”, I proceeded to walk-through the home and take notes for my clients. There were a lot of positives, but there were also a lot of negatives. The house was cluttered, needed a cleaning and was definitely a bachelor pad in every sense (you should have seen the man-cave). Considering my clients were totally opposite  in their personalities and the typical 2.25 kid family, these things were going to be negatives.

Well, guess what happened when they came out to see the property a few days later…

The JR Terrier and Australian Shepherd chased and barked at them and their two little children while the Boxer jumped and tackled one of their kids. (The Redskins should have taken notice to this tackle. Just sayin…) I had to leap at the Boxer and pull him off their kid by his collar.

Not a good first impression to make on potential buyers.

After we finally made it inside (which included picking up one dog and holding the other by the collar – again), the how NOT to sell your home for the most amount of money lesson continued.

The clutter and lack of cleanliness were very apparent to my clients and they had a hard time looking past it. And their initial experience with the dogs left them with a bad taste in the mouth. Despite all of this, they loved the structure and location of the house. The next morning, they told me they wanted to place an offer on the property.

But…

While discussing what to offer, my clients took a few things into consideration…

1) Their initial experience with the dogs was a negative psychological barrier

2) The cleanliness, clutter and overall condition of the property was well below their standards (as it would be for most buyers)

3) I found out that the seller was in a bind to sell his house as soon as possible because he was in the middle of contract negotiations on another house in the area (aka more leverage for us when negotiating)

After negotiations, my clients ended up paying  $35,000 less than asking price. In addition, the appraised value was even higher than the seller’s asking price. Needless to say, my clients were thrilled! As for the seller, probably not so much.

Had the seller spent a few days de-cluttering the home, a few bucks hiring a cleaning service and making sure the dogs weren’t jumping at buyers and their kids, the home would have sold long ago and for much more. I will bet money that other buyers that came to see the property were also turned off by the dogs and condition of the interior. And I’ll also bet that at least one, if not some of the buyers would have placed an offer on the property had they not had such an experience seeing the property.

So there’s today’s lesson about how NOT sell your home for the most amount of money…

Spend the time and money to clean and de-clutter your home and make the home “approachable” rather than “hostile” to potential buyers. Your efforts and money will come back to you ten-fold in the way of days on market and amount you sell your home for.

Note: I am a dog lover and have two of my own so I understand wanting to keep your dogs happy. I’m not saying you should lock your dogs in a closet. But there are other steps you can take to ensure your dogs don’t harass potential buyers while allowing your dogs to be happy.

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