5 Reasons Buyers Will Cross Your Home Off Their List!

5 Reasons Buyers Will Cross Your Home Off Their List - Tim Feuling, REALtor

1. Zombie Sellers
   
   
   Zombie sellers are homeowners who insist on staying home and hovering around prospective buyers during a home showing. Buyers HATE having home sellers present during home showings. When you are buying a home you want to freely examine every aspect of the home and feel free to discuss the home openly with your real estate agent showing you the home, without fear of being heard.
   
   
   Buyers will typically cut Zombie Seller home showings short and head to the next home on their list, not to return. This also includes home sellers who want to monitor showings through listening devices and video cameras.
   
   
2. Sickly Colors
   
   
   Home sellers who fail to repaint bright orange, Barney purple, Firetruck red or worse yet black walls in rooms are halting their own success. Now any great agent is going to recommend repainting when they see this so you should have a heads-up but if not, be proactive and put neutral paint colors in place of those loud colors disliked by most buyers.
   
   
3. Unwanted Residents
   
   
   Spiders (even daddy long legs), mouse/rats and rat traps and other unwanted insects or rodents are a HUGE turn-off and show that the property has deferred maintenance which is a red flag for any buyer to get a pest inspector out to the property if they have any interest in your home still after seeing all of this. Be proactive and get a pest control company out to your home before you go on the market to get everything cleaned up. Take a few minutes before every showing to clean up any new spider webs or unwanted insects showing up. Again, a home with obvious pest issues is going to give buyers and any good agent a reason to hesitate before placing an offer. Take care of it before you get on the market.
   
   
4. Pet Cemeteries
   
   
   If Fido, Fifi, Barney, Smiley or Happy is buried in the backyard since their beloved passing, make a decision to dig them up for relocation (hopefully just ashes or a box) or remove the headstone you have at their pet cemetery site. Last thing buyers want to inherit or be concerned about is the previous owners deceased animals in the yard. And even more so the headstones or memorials set up to memorialize their best friends passing.
   
   
5. Undisclosed Deaths
   
   
   Be sure you disclose any death on the property based on the rules in place in the state you are in. In California you have to disclose any death on the property if it occurred in the last 3 years.
   
   
   Not sure where the 3 year rule came from, but there are definitely buyers that for a score of reasons will not buy homes where someone passed away. More likely are buyers that are okay with a death on property as long as it wasn’t a suicide or homicide even worse. Failure to disclose a death on property could equate to very costly litigation if the buyer chooses to pursue. And don’t think you can just not disclose it; your neighbors will likely tell them within the first year in casual conversation.