Strategies to Avoid When Selling Your House In 2023

Welcome to the worst guide to selling your home!

With years of experience helping families move to new homes, we have listed the worst ways you can sell your property. The truth is most tactics and strategies some agents recommend will not work in many cases.

Listing Agent

Whether you have sold a home multiple times or are a first-time seller, you need to know what a listing agent is.

A listing agent is a realtor you hire to be on your side in helping you sell your property. Be keen on finding a professional agent you can trust and work with.

Look up the agent’s profile, check their online presence and read reviews about them. Then, interview the agent and ask about their plans for marketing your property.

Exclusive Listings

Having an exclusive listing means you sign a contract with an agent agreeing that they will not list your home on MLS. They will not do any sort of online marketing and will only sell your property within their own database.

Do you think that process works?

Well, there are a few situations that it does work. For example, when you are working on assignments from builders. When you have a property you haven't taken possession of yet, the builder has their own way of selling it. However, there is not a big market for this in Calgary.

Another example is if you have an uber-exclusive home and the agent you are working with has a handful of potential buyers who could be interested in it. You can give them a specific time frame to make things happen and bind everything in a contract.

Other than these particular cases, having an exclusive listing typically does not work. You need people to see your house online, make them fall in love with it and show up for the open house. And having an exclusive listing won't get you there.

Skipping Staging

“Your house looks great! You don’t need staging.” That’s not true!

Buyers buy off of emotions. Your house might look nice, but you must let potential buyers imagine living in it to make them fall in love with it. Staging is the key to doing that.

If you skip the staging, you could end up having a property that looks blank and lonely. Walking into it may seem like entering a big open space all alone. Nobody wants that!

High Pricing in Hopes of Negotiating

Pricing your home too high in hopes that a buyer will lowball you, and start negotiating is not a good idea. It does not work that way in Calgary.

If your property is priced higher than it should be in market value, you may not get many showings and offers. And if the market is not on your side, getting multiple offers might not be in the cards either because your home is priced too high.

According to the statistics, most properties sell for 98% of the list price. So pricing your home appropriately is super important.

Our team has several tools to help you visually understand the market. These tools enable us to help you determine if your property is overpriced and how we can correct it.

Inadequate Marketing Plan

Like a cup of coffee, not all agents are made equal. Some coffee tastes really good, but some are just below standards. Some agents are naturally gifted in working with buyers but do not have enough expertise in selling.

The reality is the agent who helped you buy your house might not have the best skillset to list your property now. You have to interview more agents and choose someone with the most lucrative marketing plan to sell your home.

Once you have shortlisted listing agents, ask them the following questions. What are their plans to bring in buyers? What is their strategy for pricing your home? What are they going to do for staging? You need to consider all those things when choosing an agent to work with.

Working with the Builder’s Agent

Building a new home is super exciting! You can choose your paint colour, fixtures and every little detail. But then, the builder asks you to sign a contract to let their agent market your house.

Do your homework before you sign anything. The builder’s agent may not always be the best person to sell your home. Finding the best listing agent to represent you should be up to you.

Finding the right realtor for you will improve the whole process of selling your home.

An Agent with Local Reach

Many agents say they have a lot of reach outside of the city and even throughout all of Canada. However, things are changing, and the places where buyers come from have changed over the last few years.

The way buyers are searching for potential homes to buy also changed. So having an agent that is only focused and niched in a city could be better. Look at their social media accounts and understand how they do things to determine if they are the right fit for you.

If you are planning on making a move this year, we will be glad to help you. You can check our Facebook, Instagram and YouTube channels. And if you like what you see, you can send us a direct message on any of our social media accounts or email info@chamberlaingroup.ca.