A recent survey found that sellers had concerns!

Top fears of sellers:

25%: Not getting the price they wanted
22%: Slow sale
18%: Last-minute collapse
16%: Inspection issues
9%: Not finding a new home in time

My thoughts on each topic from the bottom up:

Not finding a new home in time (9%) – Don’t do this! If you are selling the home in which you reside, then have a clear path to where you will be moving. Renting first and doing the double move is a better option than buying the wrong house at the wrong price. Bridge loans are expensive but will avoid the double-move which isn’t cheap either. Have a solution in place before putting your home on the market to avoid the disaster of having the perfect buyer offer right away and you don’t take them up on it.

Inspection issues (16%) – Get a professional home inspection weeks or months prior to going on the market.  It gives you ample time to correct anything, and/or disclose to the buyers before they make an offer. The conversation to sell our Linda Lane listing began over two years ago, and the house was untouched and tired-looking:

We wanted to make the home presentable without spending big money because we agreed that it would need to be attractively priced due to the proximity to the high school. The buyers’ home inspection revealed what everyone expected, which made it easier to come to an agreement – and they released all contingencies yesterday. If the buyers didn’t have our previous home inspection from the beginning, the condition might have carried more of a shock.

Last-minute collapse (18%) – I heard a story this week about buyers who released their loan and appraisal contingencies and the agent thought the home inspection was acceptable. He removed the staging and had the seller move out – only to have the buyers bail on the last day! In every agreement, there is a date specified for all contingencies to be released – after which the deposit is at risk. We always make the deposit the maximum allowable 3% of the purchase price and it’s very rare that buyers bail out after that day and lose their deposit. The time period mentioned in the contract is 17 days, and there are still listing agents who insist on making it shorter – I had one who gave me three days! A shorter period makes the buyers antsy and more likely to blow out so I want to give them at least ten days. Plus, if you are worried about a last-minute collapse, do a little extra for the buyers when it comes to their repair requests. Deals blow up because buyers get miffed – we operate in the no-miff zone!

Slow sale (22%) – Do everything better before going on the market, and still expect that it’s possible to hit a flat spot in the market. Do more pre-listing improvements, only have high-quality photos and videos, and hire a great agent and take their advice. Mentally prepare for price reductions, and when. Which leads to….

Not getting the price they wanted (25%) – It was only during the frenzy when mortgage rates were 3% that sellers could actually name their price. Throughout the rest of history, the ready, willing, and able buyers have determined what a home is worth. Sellers who embrace that fact and acknowledge that every listing is experimenting in price discovery these days will come out ahead.

The current market conditions are filled with uncertainty and chaos every day, and it’s just a different collection of variables for buyers to tackle (and you can say a better group of variables than having to decide how much OVER the list price to pay and losing several bidding wars).

Buyers have never been that comfortable since prices have doubled, and it feels like miracle work sometimes. But our Linda Lane listing demonstrates how a clear, thorough strategy from the beginning can cause the most challenging of homes to be sold for top dollar the first week and close in less than 30 days without incident! Even in this market!