The 5 Lies All Home Sellers Tell

Home sellers are solely their own kind of client. While my career in real estate brought me in contact with many home sellers who all had different expectations and varied reasons for selling their home, they all had one thing in common: They shared the same spiel. I'm not sure if they all read from the same "home seller handbook" or if there was a secret website that gave them a scripted dialogue, but if I heard these things once I heard them a thousand times. Before signing a listing agreement, there were five things almost every seller would say that they knew weren't necessarily true. Regardless, we savvy and experienced agents are on to these sellers. From my years of experience, I knew how to persuade a seller to tell the truth.

'My house is the best in the neighborhood'

Indeed, in their mind, it may be the best house in the neighborhood. The truth is that they haven't been in every house in the neighborhood, so there is no possible way that they know this. As attached to a home as a seller might be, it's been my professional experience that once you take them to see other properties in the area, they start seeing their home in an entirely new light. It's an eye-opening experience, and they realize there is stiff competition.

'I've done more improvements than any of the neighbors'


This tiny fabrication ties in to the seller professing that he has the "best" house in the neighborhood. Honestly, he doesn't know what the Joneses and the Smiths have done to their homes. The more homes that I took a seller to see in the general neighborhood, the less he said that his home was the most improved in the neighborhood. In fact, in many instances, sellers found their home right on par with improvements, if not under-improved. This not only brought down the seller's expectations for his property, it also usually got me the price reduction I needed.

'I won't take less than...'

Many sellers begin the process with a dollar amount that they want to make on their property. They are unwavering in the fact that they won't take less than "X" amount for their property. They have no problem vocalizing it loudly and often. For many sellers, however, I found this to be an all-out lie. The fact is that a seller will "take" a fair amount for his house, and that ultimately the amount he will "take" is in direct proportion to what a buyer will pay. Unfortunately, this usually isn't the highest-dollar amount that he wanted when starting the sales process.

'I'm not going to give my home away'

For many sellers "giving" their house away ties in to the "I won't take less than X" speech. Sellers believe anything less than what they "want" for the house is giving it away for next to nothing. As a real estate agent, I knew this was the time to hammer the seller with market data. After explaining the sales facts in their neighborhood, I could usually get sellers to see the light
.

'I'll do whatever it takes to sell'

Admittedly, I was always suspicious of these folks. Sure, they say that they will do "whatever it takes," but they are not entirely prepared for the stress associated with selling a home. When meeting with these sellers, I would explain the factors that go into a successful sale. The "I'll do whatever it takes to sell" speech was usually quickly replaced with admissions of "I didn't know that."
This list is of the utmost importance for sellers to review, before putting their house on the market. I have seen many a seller lose many an excellent agent because he didn't do this homework before his listing appointment. If you want the best agent, as a seller, you have to know the ins and outs of being the best seller for that agent. One way to be the best seller on the block is to avoid these all-too-common lies that so many sellers so often tell.

*Note: This was written by a Yahoo! contributor. Do you have a real estate story that you'd like to share? Sign up with the Yahoo! Contributor Network to start publishing your own finance articles.

Shauna Zamarripa, On Friday June 3, 2011, 5:56 am EDT