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My Seller Lost 50K When They Sold Their Home. He Was His Own Worst Enemy!

Sell Your Home With Kati - Truth in Real Estate®

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How do you price your home right? Kati breaks down a terrible client who was completely unreasonable and didn't listen to her advice. What could she have done differently and was she right to walk away?

I've got a real estate story to share that's all about navigating the tricky waters of selling your home. It's a journey filled with valuable lessons on how to sell your home fast, avoid common mistakes, and understand the nuances of the housing market.

A couple of years ago, I encountered a challenging client situation that perfectly illustrates the difference between staging and decorating, and why it's crucial in the home selling process. This story is a deep dive into the complexities of real estate and is packed with home-selling tips that are gold for anyone looking to sell their house fast.

When I met with a couple who thought their home was perfect to sell right away, I knew we had some work to do.

The couple’s home was full of their own decorating, but I explained that staging a home is different. It’s about making the house appeal to as many people as possible. Despite this, the couple really didn’t want to change anything, showing how hard it can be for homeowners to let go of their personal touch.

Then, we hit another big issue: they wanted to list their house at a high price, not considering things like their home’s location. This led to a lot of stress and not much interest from buyers. When a low offer finally came in, it was a tough moment that showed the importance of setting a realistic price.

In the end, things didn’t work out between us, and they decided to go with another agent. This experience taught me a lot about working together with homeowners and the need for clear communication and trust.

For anyone thinking about selling their home, whether you’re a first-time home buyer or looking to invest in real estate, this story has valuable lessons. It shows why listening to advice on home staging and pricing is key. Also, it highlights how every home sale is a chance to learn something new.

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ABOUT KATI
I'm Kati Spaniak, founder of Truth in Real Estate®. I help you sell your home without blowing up your life. Everyone tells you what your home is worth. I tell you what selling it will cost you: the money, the stress, and the wrong agent. And then I find you one I'd trust with my own home.

I've personally sold almost $500 million in homes, referred thousands of sellers nationwide, and worked with thousands of people.

#SellYourHome #KatiSpaniak #HomeSellingTips #SellingAHome #HomeStaging #TruthInRealEstate

Kati Spaniak, founder, Truth in Real Estate®
Broker, eXp Realty
Call or text: 847-713-1556
https://truthinrealestate.com

20 Comments

@KatiSpaniak Creator 2 years ago (edited) Pinned

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@newlevelsofsuccess 10 months ago

I was an agent a year ago….had a seller contact me to list his home. It was worth about 550k. He wanted to list at 725-750k. His home and neighborhood were the 550k kind of home. I pulled up homes in his desired price range and asked him if his home on the outside looked like the 750k. His response to me was “ I spent over 150k in the backyard landscaping. Mind you it was a fence, a pergola, bushes, 2 trees and some paver blocks. In addition there would be no open house, no sign in the yard (didn’t want the neighbors to know) and that I MUST be present at every showing. He was very firm on his price. I stood up, shook his hand and said “I am not the best fit for you. I wish you luck on selling your home.

Sometimes as a realtor you need to just walk away. He would have been my nightmare seller!

@carolmcintosh5066 1 year ago

Pets are another stress-inducing obstacle to listing a home for sale. It's difficult to keep my home show worthy when my pets continually shed hair. Even after thorough vacuuming, in sunlight random hairs can be seen floating in the air and small tumbleweeds can form after a few hours. I'm sure that's a turn off for buyers. When I sell, I am going to move into temporary accommodation with my pets and then stage my house for showings to maximize my chance for a timely sale.

@DarrellReevesLiving 1 year ago

Very good advice. I was a realtor 2013-2019 and it was just so frustrating to list homes too high, thinking, well, "Let's try it and see what happens." It NEVER NEVER NEVER worked out. Either the listing would expire, the seller would go to the second agent, but the house was then tarnished with that overpriced listing and on the market too long and get less than what I originally told them to sell it for and often they wouldn't listen to the advice I'd tell them to fix things before listing and that would explode in their faces EVERY SINGLE TIME.

@jack_0U812 1 year ago

When we were looking for a house, we had a couple houses where the owners where there and "helped". What they did was waste our time. One house, I literally thought in 3 minutes that it was bulldozer ready but the owner was showing us the custom cabinet doors that he made. They were obvious amateur grade with nothing straight or matching. Going forward, if the owner was home, I'd stop and say "Nope, let's go to the next one". When selling, we required a call 30 minutes ahead of the showing and we vacated.

@Nadja-MariaDaveluy 2 years ago

Trust your gut! you knew from the start that they were trouble ;-) When I have clients like this, I just walk away and let somebody else handle the trouble. We don't need a listing at any cost.

@Vincent_Beers 1 year ago

Some sellers don't grasp: it's not going to be your home anymore. Let it be staged.

As an artist my living room is set up like a maze of equipment, paint, canvas,plus my office in the center, and some workout equipment and the TV. This would make it look cramped and unusable to anyone buying it, because they don't know my work patterns.

It's actually a pretty big space, if I were selling it everything would be in storage and it would be staged as a normal living room, not an art studio/office.

@Mary_refinery 1 year ago (edited)

We bought our home because after looking at a ton of others, this was the only one that my husband was willing to actually purchase. Even though I was against buying the place, I was also tired of traipsing through all of these homes knowing that my husband was going to veto every one of them. He really did have his heart set on a fixer-upper. It did have a lot of items on our checklist, 3 acre level lot, in ground pool, three bedrooms, three baths, screened porch. That said, there was all of this horrible overgrown mismatched landscaping, outdated kitchen (barely functioning) and bathrooms, limited storage. The house is a center hall colonial, which I love, but was really sad-looking as it sat. Also, the majority of the inside was painted white, but with a pink undertone. It felt cold, unfriendly, and sad. We learned pretty quickly that the couple was divorcing. The home definitely had an energy. 😢. We immediately set about updating the home and making it a warm and happy place to raise our family. We added wood floors throughout, repainted the entire house-inside and out, renovated the kitchen and all tree baths, opened up the kitchen/dining/family rooms by adding beams and cased openings instead of walls, all new landscaping, rehabbed the pool, and the list goes on-a new roof coming in the fall. We’ve lived here for twenty plus years. We’ve hosted our kids friends as they were growing up, hosted our youth group for pool parties, retreats, and small group parties. We held the wedding rehearsal dinner for our daughter and son-in-love. Now our kids come back for holidays and bring their own kids. We host Grand Camp a couple times per year where all five grands stay with us for a week. So many wonderful memories were made in this home. It’s definitely possible to change the energy of a home. It takes time, intention, and a lot of work, but SO worth it!!! Honestly, if we hadn’t been avid diy-ers with actual skills, this place would have been a money pit!!! Thank you so much for all of your advice and for telling the behind the scenes stories.😊

@HummerLuv25 2 years ago

Real estate staging taught me so much about how clutter makes me anxious and sad!

@karinbinnie1862 2 years ago

I love my house and I bought it for the view. A house down the block with the same floor plan had recently sold for a great price so she priced it at the same point. It sat on the market for six months with two price reductions. I was the only offer ever and finally bought it for $80,000 less than the original price. Your advice on pricing is right on.

@jlanderson21257 2 years ago

I love your point that many of us sellers need to realize that we are selling to buyers like our adult children. They don't want to move into Mom and Dad's house. They don't want antiques and Henredon dining sets. They want crisp, clean, IKEA/NFM and whatever the latest trend is in paint colors.

@Vfd6610 1 year ago

I have bought 2 homes and a seller’s agent has never been there and I appreciate that.

@weird_law 11 months ago

Those sellers sound like an absolute nightmare. You have the patience of a saint.

@Marilyn-CH 1 year ago

I put my house on the Market. I knew Market value was around 200k to 220k. Since my house was lived in and had potential, I listed it at 175K. Then people would come in and tell me all the things wrong. My response was, I already cut the price in consideration of those things. I finally got an offer for asking price under a VA loan giving them back 6%. It was a hard no and I pulled it off the market.

@Ishkabibble-o8y 1 year ago

I think it's a mistake to assume all potential buyers for your home think monolithically. Sure, buyers looking solely for "Trendy" may be in the majority, but I guarantee you that there are practical buyers looking for value (the best bang for their buck). My elderly aunt went into a nursing home several years ago, and I sold her house as-is with no realtor, her neighbor found a young couple by word of mouth who bought the house knowing they were going to have to paint, update the washrooms, etc.. I did not get top dollar for it, but then again, I only did minimal cleaning and repairs, and I was within a few thousand of what two agents told me the house would sell for after their fee. The young couple sold it after owning it for a couple of years and putting some elbow grease into it, and IMHO made out quite well. Price fixes everything, and to quote my BIL, "There's an ass for every chair".

@misterogers9423 2 years ago (edited)

I walked into a house that was on the market for a month and a half with no price cuts and it smelled really musty. It had beautiful trees, busy street, an extremely efficient floor plan with 4 bedrooms with under 1700 sq ft, was in a trust with no disclosure at all, and patient seller with an assumable loan at under 3%. I wanted to offer 80%, but my buyer agent was hesitant due to the smell, low offer and poor price comps. A month later it went contingent and still no price cuts. My agent reached out and apparently they accepted a low offer who really wanted the assumable loan, but they did not share the details, but apparently it was the only offer and it was 60+ days on the market.

@sherb_4023 2 years ago

Absolutely agree that houses carry energy and you can feel it when you walk in.

@Heb101922 2 years ago

I think the #1 red flag when dealing with a potential client is when they don't value your time, and this was reflected in how the husband refused to respect your expertise. For independent contractors, time is money.

@criticalthinkerAF 2 years ago (edited)

Staging a house myself was fun. I followed the agent's suggestions. I bought a solid little suburban brick rambler that was in foreclosure for $59,000. (2013 and in Kentucky). New HVAC and shingles, cosmetic repairs and it sold for $120,000 in 2018. Better than renting while I was there!

@betsyward7915 1 year ago

When we listed our home of 20 years I asked our realtor for a stager. I thought my home was lovely but wanted a professional opinion- other than the realtor. The first thing the stager said walking into my house was it looks like your grandmother decorated the living room. That was the first time I saw the living room differently. She was RIGHT. The buyers for homes in my neighborhood were young families raising children and OF COURSE would find this off-putting. So long story short, we made almost all the changes that were suggested and the house was sold and closed in 8 weeks for just short of our asking price. For us it was perfect. We moved on and never looked back.