While underestimating competition and overestimating the value of your house can be detrimental to selling your house, they are not the only road blocks.
Other common mistakes people make include:

Is your house located in a prime area?

3. Depending Solely on Location

Is your property located in the heart of city or close to a metro station? Are you in the middle of a well-known school district? Having these perks can work to your advantage, but you cannot rely on location alone!

Buying a home is a huge investment for many people and sometimes interested buyers are not willing to sign on the dotted line till they are convinced that the house is exactly what they are looking for. If the house looks shoddy, you’ve failed to make a good impression. What’s worse, you might have lost your buyer to another home down your street.

Put your house together cohesively. Presentation is key! It’s important that you take time out to get your house ready for a sale.

4. Over-personalizing and over-spending

You might like to collect artifacts from African tribes, but your potential buyer might not like to wake up to a war-marked mask every morning! Leaving signatures of your taste can discourage the buyer from looking at more important things like your floor plan or storage.
A helpful hint: people looking at your house want to picture their lives inside this home. De-clutter and de-personalize wherever possible.

A pool table in the living room might not help sell your house.

Plan to upgrade before selling?  If you spend a lot of money redecorating your house it might sell faster, but it will not necessarily sell for a higher price. Know where to put your money. Avoid making Dramatic custom upgrades. You do not want potential buyers to estimate the cost of re-doing a customized room then deducting that cost from their offer.

Are you looking for professional help to sell your house fast? Express Homebuyers can help. In the past five years we’ve sold over 800 homes within the D.C. metro area. We can help you list your house for sale. If we can’t sell your house in 60 days, we guarantee to buy it from you, no matter what the condition.

Call us at 877-804-5252 or visit our website to chat with a representative.

This series will be continued. For more insight on what mistakes to avoid while selling your house, continue to read our blogs.

If you have any tips or suggestions that you’d like to share, please feel free to comment on this blog post.

Selling a house can be an easy task. It’s the one-size-fits-all approach that could mislead you from doing what’s right for your property. Your property is unique and though you want to gauge your market, your area and your neighborhood, it isn’t always wise to do exactly what every other seller on your street is doing!

Here are some questions that you need to answer to check if you’re doing the right things for your house:

Clear away clutter and depersonalize your home to attract more buyers and sell your house fast.

1. Overestimating the Value

Know what home buyers are looking for. Do your own research. Often sellers look at other houses on their street, and set the home price on structural similarities. A three-bedroom-two-bath home with a hot tub Jacuzzi in the master bathroom and a fully upgraded kitchen is bound to sell for a higher price than a regular three-bedroom-two-bath.

If you decide to sell your house as is, you want to take some of common factors into consideration. Some critical features that buyers have been looking for include: location, neighborhood and community, structural design and size, number of bedrooms/bathrooms, special amenities, availability of schools, privacy and other facilities. Some things are not in your control, but there are areas that can we worked upon.

2. Underestimating the Competition

Your property may be one-of-a-kind, but if a buyer has come to see your house, chances are that they will also check out the other available houses on your street. It’s not a bad idea to go out and investigate all the comparable prices of houses in your area and neighborhood. It’s time well-invested.

How Unique is your House?

Better still; hire an appraiser who would have done your homework for you. They will be able to point out problem areas or asset depreciators that have come in the way of a good sale. Sometimes, just fixing or upgrading a few things in your house could raise its value by a huge amount.

Have you been trying to sell your house for a while now? Think you need professional help to sell yours fast? Express Homebuyers is here for that very reason does just that! In the past five years we’ve sold over 800 homes within the DC metro area. We can help you list your house for sale. If we can’t sell your house in 60 days, we guarantee to buy it from you, no matter what the condition.

Just call us at 877-804-5252 or visit our website to chat with a representative.

This series will be continued. For more insight on what mistakes to avoid while selling your house, continue to read our blogs.

If you have any tips or suggestions that you’d like to share, please feel free to comment on this blog post.

You’re not alone. Many households in the United States share you circumstances. In fact, more than 1 million American households are likely to lose their homes to foreclosure in 2010 – a number estimated by lenders working through the backlog of people who missed, fell behind, or stopped making payments towards their home loans.

It's time to put an end to foreclosures!

We’ve entered the second half of the year already, and the foreclosure problems are hardly behind us. According to RealtyTrac Inc., a foreclosure listing service, 2009 saw a total of about 900,000 foreclosed homes. If you winced at that number, you’re in for a bigger surprise! The first half on 2010 recorded a whooping 528,000 homes reclaimed by lenders, eight percent ahead of last year’s numbers. With another five months to go this year, these numbers will escalate further.

Overall, about 1.7 million homeowners received foreclosure-related notices in the first half of 2010, which equates to one in every 78 homes in the United States!

Around 1.7 million houses in the United States are in the Foreclosure process.

Many financial institutions are using active measures to regulate the current situation. New delinquent payers are not facing foreclosure just yet. Banks are allowing people to stay in their homes for an extended period of time to diminish the surge of foreclosures hitting the market. On the other hand, lenders have been working hard to reach out and clear all the backlog of bank-owned properties on the list.

Do you think you might be facing foreclosure soon? Do you need to sell your house fast? We can help. In the past five years, Express Homebuyers has bought and sold over 800 homes within the DC metro area. We are ready to assist you. If we can’t sell your house in 60 days, we guarantee to buy it from you, no matter what the condition.

Just call us at 877-804-5252 or visit our website to chat with a representative.

17. Mirrors: Another trick to give the illusion of space is to add mirrors. While you don’t want the room to look like a clothing store dressing room, with good judgment, this tactic works well.

An Open-Spaced Kitchen with clean counter-tops and less clutter will help you sell your house faster.

18. Counter-tops: Over time, cooking and baking can create sticky layers of dirt and grime on your kitchen counter-tops. Use a good de-greaser while cleaning the kitchen. Don’t forget to look for debris under the stove.

19: Kitchen: Upgrading your kitchen can bring great return on investment. If you have the resources, put in stainless steel appliances, granite counter-tops, the works! Your house is bound to sell for much more. Even if you decide to let it stay as is, make sure that your kitchen is spotless. De-clutter leaving cabinetry spaces empty. Keep the area dry and avoid leaving dirty dishes in the sink.

20: Bathroom: A dirty bathroom leaves a permanent impression! Do you want THAT to serve as the reference point for your home? It is an area of personal hygiene and you want to be doubly sure you present it well. Keep it extremely clean. Check the bathtub and shower panels for grime and leaks. Include fresh towels, a clean shower curtain, nice warm bathroom rugs, and an air freshener.

21: Fragrance: A home with a pleasant fragrance is always more inviting. Don’t use any strong headache-inducing fragrances. Aromatherapy candles or a mild fresh fragrance could do the trick. Also, not everyone who walks into your home is a pet-lover. If you have pets in the house, pay special attention to the carpet and other areas that might reek of pet odor.

Creating a warm ambience in the living room to attract serious home buyers.

22. Presentation: Leave a basket of baked cookies, some snacks and a beverage for visitors. Extra touches go a long way in making the home-buying experience positively memorable. Even if people who come to your house don’t end up buying it, your hospitality and presentation can generate a lot of word of mouth!

In addition, it’s important to know that buyers like to explore houses on their own. If comfortable with the Realtor or visiting prospect, leave the house so that the potential buyers can explore the house to their satisfaction.

That completes the whole list of 22 tips and tricks. Don’t look at this whole process as one big chore. Be creative and you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to make your home look nice and shiny.

Still unsure if you can sell your place? Need an expert’s opinion? Talk to us. Express Homebuyers has sold over 800 homes within the DC metro area, in the past five years alone! We are ready to assist you. If we can’t sell your house in 60 days, we guarantee to buy it from you, no matter what the condition.

Just call us at 877-804-5252 or visit our website to chat with a representative.

If you have any tips or suggestions that you’d like to share, please feel free to comment on this blog post.