Many homeowners venture to sell their home without knowing the basics of the process. Defining how much the house is worth, for example, is one of the most complex and important steps for the sale to come to fruition. And yet, it is where more mistakes are made. Something similar occurs when calculating the expenses for the sale of the home or when gathering the documents: it is common for certain costs of the operation to be omitted or for the documents to be left to the last minute, assuming that they will be obtained in a few days.
"These common mistakes harm the sale in several ways: they slow it down, they can reduce the profitability of the operation and even cause it to fall at the last moment," say the specialists of the real estate comparator HelpMyCash.com. And how can they be avoided?
Assigning a higher price to the home than the one dictated by the market is the most common mistake in a sale. Because? According to Paula Eseiza, HelpMyCash real estate expert, the cause is emotional value. "We tend to believe that our house is worth more than what buyers are willing to pay, because we associate it with our experiences and the love we feel for it," explains the specialist.
But this represents a problem in most transactions. And it is that a home that goes on the market for too high a price, fails to capture the attention of buyers, so months can go by without the owner closing the operation. You may even be forced at the last moment to sell faster, which requires a significant drop in price.
How to avoid it? From HelpMyCash they advise doing at least three home appraisals by a real estate professional. They also suggest evaluating the prices of other similar properties on real estate portals and only in case of doubt, request an official appraisal from an approved appraiser. In this way, the owner will have different points of view on the price of the house and will be able to identify if he is overvaluing it.
Energy certificate, deeds of sale, community statutes, latest utility bills... Some of the documents needed to sell a flat can be easily obtained, but others take time and even require a visit to the home by a qualified technician. If an owner discovers, for example, that the energy certificate has expired, he must process it in order to sell his property and the process can take about seven days.
In some communities, such as Catalonia, the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands and Navarra, among others, the habitability certificate is also mandatory, a document that certifies that the property meets minimum conditions to be inhabited. If it is expired, it must also be processed and it can take between 30 and 90 business days, depending on the autonomous community.
The third most common mistake when selling a home is not taking into account the expenses involved in the operation. This point is, in fact, more important in case of selling a house to buy another; since the money obtained from the sale will be used for the acquisition of the new property.
And what are those expenses? In general terms, they represent between 5% and 15% of the price of the property, including the real estate commission and taxes, such as personal income tax or municipal capital gains. They vary, however, depending on the autonomous community where the property is located, the type of agency chosen and other characteristics of the property, such as its cadastral value.
