As a team of seasoned and experienced professional Realtors®, it’s safe to say we’ve been around the block when it comes to encountering real estate myths, rumours, and common misconceptions.
Whether they come from clients, movies and TV, our friends and family, or anywhere else, there seem to be a few recurring myths and misbeliefs about our industry that resurface every once in a while. For us, it’s no great challenge to correct these misconceptions when we hear them, though it can be somewhat tiresome to hear them repeated time and time again.
That’s why we decided it was about time we addressed and debunked some of the most common real estate myths we often encounter by writing about them in one place on our blog. To learn more about what they are and why they’re wrong, read on below.
For Buyers
Find Your Dream Home Before Getting A Mortgage Pre-Approval
There’s nothing like a good search through a real estate listings page to give you new home inspiration and get you excited about seeing which kind of property is within your budget. However, one of the biggest mistakes we see new buyers make is falling in love with a home listed on the market before knowing they can actually afford to buy it.
This is an issue for two big reasons. Firstly, because most of the time, listings move fast — especially in today’s market — and not having all of your ducks in a row to make an official bid for a home before falling in love with it is setting you up for inevitable frustration and heartbreak.
While it’s always fun to look through home listings, some listings pages are better stocked than others. We think ours is pretty well rounded — but what do you think of the current homes for sale on Our Listings page here?
Secondly, no matter who you speak to or consult with about your homebuying budget, you never truly know what you’ll be able to afford to spend on a new home without getting an official mortgage pre-approval first.
You might get quotes, promises, or estimates, but until you’re actually approved by a qualified lender to take out a mortgage, the truth is you won’t know what’s truly within your reach. Therefore, we always caution buyers without a mortgage pre-approval to be careful when looking through listings.
Need a hand connecting with a mortgage lender that can help you achieve your real estate goals? Read our blog post all about Choosing The Right Mortgage Lender: 4 Helpful Tips here.
Home Inspections Are Skippable
When buying a home, one of the most common practices Realtors® encourage their buying clients to do is to request a home inspection. While many sellers may have already conducted a pre-listing home inspection of their own, experienced Realtors® know that it’s generally always best for the buying party to get a second opinion on the condition and integrity of a home from a qualified home inspector before purchasing it — even solely for peace of mind purposes.
Receiving a thorough inspection report from a qualified home inspector is one of the single most important steps we recommend buyers take when purchasing a new home. Read more about why home inspections are so important here:
However, in competitive markets where multiple buyers are interested in bidding on a single property, sellers tend to hold all the cards when it comes to negotiations. And many times, sellers find that it’s not the final sales price that sways them toward one offer or the other, but the list of terms and conditions outlined in the offer that makes the biggest difference.
Most sellers prefer accepting offer contracts that uphold the least amount of stipulations or conditions to complete the deal, most often preferring to sell their home “as-is” without any added complications. Unfortunately for many overeager buyers, one of the first conditions to get sacrificed in negotiations is that the transaction will be complete pending the results of an additional home inspection.
As you can imagine, this frequently results in many uneducated, misguided, and all-around poor purchase decisions for buyers who are investing their hard-earned money in a property that ends up not being in as good a condition as advertised. Needless to say, having to factor in the added costs of fixing any necessary repairs after you’ve bought a home is less than ideal.
At Sidorova Inwood, our in-depth buying process is designed to help buyers of any budget or experience level find and purchase their ideal new home as stress-free as possible. How? Read all about our personalized home buying process here:
For Sellers
Stylish Homes Don’t Need Staging
Although we always include the professional staging of our clients’ homes in our home selling process, not all Realtors® or real estate teams offer home staging services — at least, not as part of their overall selling rates.
Whether it’s to save on money, time, or effort, or it’s simply because they don’t believe most listings benefit from being professionally staged, Realtors® who don’t provide staging services are potentially costing their clients even more money, time, and stress throughout a sale.
In fact, real estate industry research shows that staged houses sell faster and for more money on average than houses that aren’t professionally staged, which is why we always include staging services in our selling process.
Staging makes an enormous difference when it comes to how listings perform in the real estate market. To learn more about some of the most effective staging concepts and techniques, our staging-related links below are here to inform:
- Staging Tips To Make Your Condo Look Bigger
- 5 Home Staging Tips To Make Your Condo Look Like A Model Home
But why do staged homes perform so much better? Not because our stagers have the best taste and design sense, but because there’s a science behind what they do. The best professional stagers mix theory and common practices with years of experience and intuition to create optimal layouts for photography and home tours. That’s why one of the worst excuses we hear from Realtors® who are trying to save a buck when selling a home is that the listing is “already nice inside.”
As a seller, you should always aim to work with a true full-service Realtor® who’s always willing to go the extra mile to earn the best results for you and your listing.
True full-service Realtors® provide their clients with much more than just staging advice. See what else we do and learn all about Why You Should Hire A Full-Service Real Estate Agent here.
Pricing Higher Will Earn You More
For essentially every seller, the primary objective of a home sale is to earn the highest amount of money possible from their sale. Instinctively, this can lead to many sellers being tempted to initially list their homes for sale at a price that exceeds their property’s estimated value.
On paper, it makes sense — if you start with an asking price that is slightly higher than your home’s market value, you might give yourself a headstart in negotiations or at the very worst lead to you compromising on a number closer to your home’s true value.
However, overpricing as a selling strategy comes with many potential pitfalls, and could result in the opposite intended effect for a few reasons. The obvious reason is that should the majority of potential buyers deem a home overpriced, they simply won’t bid on it — especially if there are other comparable listings priced more modestly.
Do you know what your home’s current value on today’s market is? Professional home evaluations are much more than just educated estimates — learn more about what home evaluations look for and what your home’s market value is here:
When a listing fails to attract enough significant buyer interest, it also naturally leads to it spending an extended time on the market, which is also a red flag for buyers. The longer a home spends for sale, not only will it progressively decrease in market interest, but buyers will also begin to wonder about the state of your listing. In their minds, perhaps integral damages or any number of potential concerns about your listing have been previously identified by other interested buyers, deterring them from paying your asking price.
Another potential reason overpricing isn’t always a good strategy is that it often results in fewer total bids too, which nullifies any opportunity to create a bidding war among eager potential buyers of your home. In actuality, underpricing a home in a seller’s market can actually foster this effect, as underpricing a listing means it reflects value for buyers, who then end up so determined to win the war for your home that they ultimately pay more than its estimated market value.
Just because you want to earn the most amount of money from your sale doesn’t mean you should reject alternate pricing strategies like listing for below market value. While listing above market value does sometimes pay dividends, it’s always best to listen to your Realtors’® advice and guidance here.
Selling a home is no easy undertaking, no matter how many times you’ve done it in the past. That’s why our home selling process revolves around making your client experience as smooth and streamlined as possible while we focus on earning you top-dollar for your home. Learn more about how we sell here:
- 5 Reasons To Sell With Us
- 7 Steps Before You Sell
- Our Process While You’re Selling
- Book A Free Seller’s Consultation
