Selling a house can be an incredibly stressful and slow process. Although we can’t change how selling houses works, at PropertyRoad, we can give the advice and tips to speed up and make the entire journey as easy as possible.
To ensure that your sale progresses and that you get the value you deserve (or to prepare you for the market), avoid these common mistakes when selling a house.
1. Don’t overprice your property
We know you want the best price and maximum value for your property. However, overpricing your house can be a death warrant to some sales. Based on this study’s findings, overvaluation is one of the most significant factors affecting a property’s time on the market (Cirman et al., 2015).
In most cases, overpricing will turn off potential buyers and make the entire process take twice as long as it should.
Let’s look at two hypothetical options to show how overpricing can affect a property’s sale. Jenny is selling her property, and her valuations have placed its value between £170,000 and £180,000.
In option A, Jenny lists her property for offers over £180,000.
In the first few weeks, she received very little interest and viewings, as it was out of the price range of most potential buyers.
With limited views and no offers, Jenny decides after a month to lower the asking price to £175,000.
More viewings are booked, and after over 2 months on the market, she accepts an offer of £170,000.
In option B, Jenny lists her property for £170,000.
In the first two weeks, she gets very strong interest from the market, appealing to more people because of the lower price.
Within the first month, Jenny receives an offer. With more interest in the house, she’s able to negotiate this offer to a higher amount.
She sells the house at £175,000, in a shorter amount of time.
Although this is just an example, it shows the real impact that pricing can have on housing. Data reveals that overpricing can increase time on the market by 50% – 100% and decrease the final sale price by 3%- 5%.
2. Not being 100% ready to sell
Getting a property ready to sell takes work. If you’re thinking about selling, you not only need to be mentally ready to let go and move on – but make sure that you’ve done the following steps:
First, give yourself time to declutter (houses without clutter are easier to sell!).
Next, repair any damages and freshen up any tired areas of your home.
Then, speak to a financial advisor to ensure that all of your finances are in order, and to get a solid budget of what you can afford moving forward. Don’t forget to factor any repair, moving, and solicitor fees into these calculations.
Cross all of those off your list, and the selling process will be much easier and smoother.
When we decided to sell our home, we gave ourselves a month or two to prepare it for the market. Although it meant spending weekends cleaning, repairing, decluttering, and decorating, it was well worth the effort.
Not only will it give potential buyers the impression of a well-cared-for home, but it will also reduce the risk of being negotiated down due to little things that the buyer feels they would need to do.
We know from our own experience how a house that hasn’t been prepared properly comes across. When you see things that need repairing everywhere you look, you start to mentally add up the costs. And if you are willing to make an offer, it will be a lower one because of it.
That’s what you want to avoid. You want people to look at your home and think: it’s been well cared for, there we won’t need to do much to make it our own.
3. Choosing the wrong estate agent
The right estate agent should be experienced in your local market, have a great marketing and communication plan, and do all in their power to sell your home for the best price – while keeping you in the loop every step of the way.
Unfortunately, sometimes house sales slow down because people aren’t working with the best agents, who mismanage the properties and don’t promote them effectively.
Working with inexperienced agents even resulted in homeowners losing out on as much as 10% of their property’s value. These transactions also took longer to close than those with seasoned agents (Waller & Jubran, 2012).
It’s easy to get blown away by an initial call and valuation. Before you choose your estate agent, it’s important that you do your research.
To pick the best estate agent, make sure you look at:
Their local experience and expertise
How well do they know your area? How many similar properties are they dealing with? And what price are they listing them for?
Online presence
Are their properties turning up on Rightmove or other selling websites? Do they use social media to promote properties or featured listings?
Quality of photography and listing presentation
Do the pictures on the other listings look good? How well done are the floor plans and the listing description? How much time and effort do they put into their listings?
Reviews and reputation
Do they have any client reviews? What are other sellers saying about the agent?
Their team
Are they a small team that works on a selected number of properties, or is it a national company that operates a call network? Will you have a dedicated member of staff to keep you updated and handle your calls?
If you need a more in-depth guide, learn how to choose an estate agent here! Remember, all of the above factors are very important, so make sure you take your time to investigate and decide.
If you don’t want to sell with an estate agent, there are plenty of online platforms where you can sell by yourself. These are great options for some sellers, but they do have their own challenges that you need to be aware of.
This includes not having the resources or access to create some of the marketing material you need (like floorplans) or paying extra to complete them. It also means you’re the one spending time chasing potential buyers and organising viewings yourself, and without professional advice and guidance can slow the process down.
If these skills aren’t your strong point, you might want to consider getting an agency in instead.
4. Using bad photography on your listings
Photos tell a thousand stories. And when there are so many properties to choose from, it can often just take a glance for potential buyers to decide if your house is the one or not.
Well-lit, professional photography will ensure that your property is showcased in its best light. This involves not only having a professional take the pictures but also making sure that your house is ‘dressed’ and prepared.
Before taking pictures, ensure the house is clean and tidy and all clutter is packed away. People need to imagine living in your house – and it’s hard to do that if they have to ignore all of your belongings.
You also want to avoid showing any ‘unsightly’ objects—like bins, laundry, litter boxes, pet bowls, or beds—to keep them out of sight and out of mind.
The more empty space, the better.
This is especially important for counter spaces or shelves. It’s fine to have a few decorative items on display, like flowers or candles, but everything else should go to really emphasise and maximise the space on offer.
When we are house hunting, the photos are the first viewing. They give us a sense of the house and tell us if we could see ourselves living there. But that’s very difficult if the pictures aren’t good.
One thing that is really annoying is if there are arty pictures, like of a vase with flowers or a close-up of a door handle. I’m not sure why some estate agents think these are helpful. We are looking to buy a house, not flowers.
Another thing you need to make sure is that there are pictures of every room. When we see a listing where some rooms aren’t shown, our first thought is that the seller is hiding something. We have ruled out properties because of this.
I’m sure we aren’t the only ones who are put off by the lack of pictures.
5. Not having a floor plan
In our opinion, this is one of the biggest mistakes when selling a house you can make. Floor plans are incredibly useful tools that buyers love.
In fact, Rightmove suggests over a third of buyers are less likely to enquire about a property if there’s no floor plan. 1 in 5 would actually ignore the listing completely.
Why are floorplans so important? They provide buyers with a visual roadmap of the property, allowing them to:
Visualize the space
Buyers can mentally picture the layout and flow of the home.
Understand the room sizes and positioning
Buyers can accurately gauge the size and location of rooms without needing to visit in person.
Make informed decisions
Floor plans provide valuable information that helps buyers decide if the property meets their needs. You should also ensure you use high-quality plans that clearly list sizes.
The more information you can give to potential buyers, the better.
For us, floor plans are vital when we look to buy a property. And yes, we have discarded houses that didn’t have a floorplan on their listing. Unless the pictures are stunning and make us want to view the property, not having a way of seeing the layout of the rooms puts many people off.
6. Hiding any issues with the property
When selling your home, you want to show it in its best light. You don’t want to scare people away by letting them know there’s a weird crack on the walls or that you get terrible damp issues in the winter.
But you can’t hide certain issues forever. That’s what surveys are made for.
If you have any known issues about your property (such as selling in a flood zone), it can be best to be upfront with your buyer and let them know what flood defences are in place.
7. Ignoring maintenance
If you have any minor jobs, like mowing the garden, or small repairs that need to be made, like replacing worn-out caulking around the bath, give yourself time to make sure that these jobs are done before you have people around to view them.
If viewers notice these unfinished tasks during the viewing, they might assume that the home requires additional work and maintenance, which could put them off your home.
8. Not tidying up
It’s hard to live in a house that you’re selling, especially when you’re trying to fit viewings in around your work and life. We get it. But before every viewing, you need to make sure that you have enough time to tidy up and clear away any clutter before potential buyers come around.
The less clutter, the easier it will be for potential buyers to see themselves living in your home.
To ensure the space is perfect, schedule a block of time for viewings to accommodate as many as possible in a row. That way, you will only have to clean up once per block rather than for each visitor, making maintenance a bit easier.
You could also consider hiring a cleaner to help you prepare for viewings.
When our house is on the market, we step up our cleaning routine. We sacrifice an hour every evening to keep our home tidy and clean. While we don’t like it (who would?), we know that it will help us sell our home quicker and for a better price.
The reactions of potential buyers showed us that we were doing the right thing. We always got compliments on how clean and tidy our home was. It shows that our property stood out from others they had seen, and that’s what you want.
9. Having too much personality
That’s one of the most common mistakes when selling a house because many people don’t even realise they’re making it.
Not everyone has your taste. When selling your house, it can be useful to try and knock the personalisation back a notch to make it easier for people to picture living in your home.
We’re not saying you have to turn every wall in your house back to white and remove all your belongings. But it can help to remove some of your more eccentric taste and neutralise what you can.
Depersonalisation is a key part of home staging, or getting a property ready for sale by fixing it up, improving lighting, etc. (Bonenberg & Wlazły, 2022). The ultimate goal is to help potential buyers picture themselves living there, and that’s kinda difficult to do when you have your tot’s trophies on display.
For example, when selling one of our homes, we had a gallery wall of photos in the office and pictures of family and friends in the hallway. Knowing this wasn’t to everyone’s taste, we took these sections down and left the walls plain, so viewers could picture the decor they wanted in these areas.
10. Not being flexible with viewings
Fitting viewings around your life can be hard, especially when it means tidying up and keeping your house in tip-top form. Although having set blocks of time for viewings can be a helpful tip to manage maintenance, you don’t want to turn people away.
Try to be flexible when you can offer viewings, offering a range of time slots to accommodate different types of people (e.g., those who work 9-5, those with kids, or shift workers).
For instance, you could allocate one day of the weekend, two evening slots, and a weekday morning slot to try to accommodate everyone’s needs.
If someone requests a certain time, and you have more than 24 hours of notice to get your house ready, try your best to accommodate them.
11. DIY’ing your viewings
Depending on the viewing time, it can be much easier to show people around by yourself rather than trying to arrange a time with the estate agent.
However, if you’re not very experienced with viewings and aren’t sure what to say, it might be best to leave this job to your estate agent.
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This is because they have more knowledge and experience in the area and are more equipped to predict and answer buyers’ questions. Capable agents can provide a sense of professionalism and expertise that puts potential buyers at ease.
But we would always recommend that sellers conduct their own viewings and feel comfortable with it if they can. That’s because you are the best person to sell your own home.
An estate agent will point out the features, whereas you can tell people what it’s like to live in the property. We discussed this in an interesting article illustrating why you should do your own viewings.
12. Ignoring early offers
If you’ve received an early offer, you might be tempted to ignore it because, surely, more will come along. But just because an offer is early doesn’t mean it’s a bad one.
Instead of outright rejecting the first offer you get, make sure that you give it as much time and consideration as you would any offer.
The time of the offer isn’t the most important factor—what is important is the offer price, the eligibility of the buyers, and any chains that you would be joining.
13. Letting the house sit on the market for too long
If you’re after a very specific price and aren’t in a rush to sell, it can be tempting to just let your property sit on the market as long as it takes for the right offer to come in.
However, the longer a property sits on the market, the more you will drive away potential viewers. If they can see that your house has been listed for months and hasn’t sold, they will start wondering why – and imagining different problems and scenarios that put people off.
The longer you stay on the market, the more people believe there’s a catch – which makes it harder to sell.
14. Listing at the wrong time
The property market changes throughout the year. Generally speaking, listing a house in spring is one of the best times of year to sell – it’s lighter outside, there are more bank holidays for people to view houses, and people can get excited about completing before summer.
Although you can list anytime, there will be less interest in winter. It’s darker and colder, budgets tend to be tighter, and people don’t want to undergo a move during Christmas.
If you’re thinking about selling when it’s currently winter, you might want to consider postponing a few months to Spring for better options.
We made this mistake once, putting our home up for sale in November. And we had to pay for our mistake: we had to wait until March the following year to get an offer, which was lower than we had hoped.
Had we waited, we might have sold our home quicker and at a higher price.
Avoiding common selling mistakes
If you can avoid these 14 common mistakes when selling a house, you should be able to sell your home successfully. It’s hard work, but it’s worth it in the end.
To steer clear of these pitfalls, you need to make sure that you are fully ready to sell and can do the work and preparation for your visits.
Do your research and pick the best estate agents, photographers, and other professionals.
Lastly, you should set a realistic price for your home and consider all offers carefully.
For more help and advice on selling your home, discover all our guides on selling here.
