Home Selling Mistakes

Fairly often, I see owners that don’t keep up with the maintenance of their home after they’ve accepted an offer. This is one of the biggest home-selling mistakes you could possibly make.

You’ve still got to get through inspections

The home inspector will be crawling your house from top to bottom in order to provide the buyer with all of the information they need to make a decision about moving forward or canceling the sale. Some of that hidden, deferred maintenance can come back to bite you in the form of a laundry list of items the buyer wants to be repaired or (even worse) the buyer can choose to just walk away. Also, if you’ve accepted an FHA or VA financed offer, the appraiser will be closely looking at the condition of your home as well. Their job is not just to ensure that the house is worth what a buyer is paying, but also that there are no safety issues.

What about after inspections are completed?

There’s a clause in the Louisiana purchase agreement that says your property will be in the same or better condition than when the offer was written. If the air conditioner breaks, the fence falls down, the garage door opener malfunctions. Those are all things that can cause a delay in your closing if they are not addressed. The last thing you want is to have the buyer do their final walk-through and put the brakes on everything while you scramble to have repairs done on the fly.

The bottom line on home selling mistakes

Keep your property in the best condition possible between contract and closing. If a repair issue comes up, call your agent immediately. Open communication is the only way to keep your sale alive.