Calgary Real Estate Blog by Jerry Charlton - Calgary Realtor

How To Reduce the Stress of Selling Your Calgary Alberta Home

How to Manage Stress When Selling a Home in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Selling a home can be stressful. A lot is riding on a successful home sale. Many homeowners spend the time selling their home sitting "on pins and needles," as they say. It's hard not to worry. From the moment that a home is put up for sale, homeowners ask themselves: What will we do if the house doesn't sell for enough money? What if it takes far too long to sell?

These questions and concerns are real. There are certain things that you can do to make the home-selling process go more smoothly.

If you're a Calgary homeowner who would like to sell your home sometime in the coming months, you can make the process easier on yourself by working with an experienced professional realtor. Below, we've listed ten stressors that homeowners experience when selling their homes, and a few suggestions that homeowners can do to manage these fears.

1. Selling The House Within Your Timeframe

Most Calgary homeowners need to sell their homes on a deadline. If they can't sell their home by that time, they could experience hardships that could lead to losing money.

What You Can Do About It.

Homes tend to sell quickly at certain times of the year. Putting the house up for sale at a time of year when buyers are looking can help the home sell faster. Home Sellers can also help their home sell more quickly by pricing the house right.

A house that is priced too high for its worth could take a long time to attract the right buyer, and may never attract the right buyer if it remains priced too high. Incorrect pricing should be avoided by working with a Calgary real estate professional who understands the local real estate market and knows how to analyze the prices of comparable homes.

2. Selling Your Home for the Desired Price

Most home sellers have a target price range they're aiming for when they put their house on the Calgary Real Estate Market. They often feel anxiety when they wonder what will happen if they don't sell their home for the right price. When an offer comes in below the expected price, this can create feelings of hesitation and concern. Do you accept the offer or not?

What You Can Do About It

Here is another reason to work with a real estate professional who knows how to analyze the price of comparable local homes. An experienced, capable real estate professional can help set expectations, so homeowners know what to expect when they put their home on the market. Although a local real estate agent is not able to predict the future, they can often help home sellers decide what price is realistic, so hopefully, the owners won't be expecting a price that is much higher than it should be.

3. Handling Home Improvements & Home Selling Preparation

Homeowners often feel a lot of pressure to make their house look "perfect" without really knowing what buyers want. They often put effort into home improvements without knowing whether those improvements will pay off.

What You Can Do About It

Homeowners can assuage these concerns by setting up a consultation with their real estate professional before listing their home. Their real estate professional can give them advice that can help them decide what home improvements are essential to do now.

4. Fear of Offers To Buy Your Home Falling Through

Once an offer does come through, it takes a while before the home is officially sold. During that time, the offer can always fall through. Homeowners who are in a hurry to sell their homes quickly often feel the anxiety that they will not be able to stop the offer from falling apart.

What You Can Do About It

An excellent real estate professional can help with any negotiations that could prevent the home sale from falling apart. An experienced negotiator can help keep buyers interested — even if their enthusiasm for the home-buying process begins to wane.

5. Timing the Sale of the Home with the Purchase of a New Home

Selling a home and buying a home at the same time can be an exceptionally touchy process. Usually, home sellers want to sell the house shortly before the purchase of their new home is final. Home sellers often feel worried that their home will either sell too soon before the purchase of their new home or that their home will take a long time to sell after their new home has been bought. Both situations can lead to financial hardship for the homeowner.

What You Can Do About It

Homeowners who want to time the sale of their new home purchase properly should work with an experienced real estate professional for both the sale of their old home and the purchase of their new home. Having a partner who can help them at both ends of the transaction can help with the timing.

6. Anxiety Over the Unknowns in the Home Selling Process & Timeline

Relieve Stress While Selling Your Home

Lack of control over the selling process and timeline can make some homeowners feel like they're out of control generally, which can lead to overall feelings of anxiety.

What You Can Do About It

Homeowners who feel anxiety over the home selling process and timeline should write down a list of questions for their real estate professional at the start of the home selling process to help them feel like they know what to expect throughout the transaction. It's crucial to find a real estate agent who is an excellent communicator who can help the home seller understand what's happening throughout the home selling process. Most home sellers have a greater feeling of control over the selling process if they know what to anticipate every step of the way.

7. Being Unsure if Home Buyers are Interested

Sometimes when a house sits on the market for a long time, home sellers may become concerned that buyers are not interested in their house. This can happen for many reasons. If the house is priced incorrectly, or if the house is not in good condition, then buyers can be hard to bring to the table.

What You Can Do About It

Often, sellers find it hard to believe that their home is not attractive to buyers. Sellers expect their house to be attractive to buyers because it is attractive to the sellers. This kind of perspective can make it difficult for sellers to make their homes more appealing to buyers. Sometimes, painting a room can be helpful. Other times, the house needs to be repriced. For home sellers, the best way to attract buyers is to work with a real estate professional who can make recommendations for repairs or changes that can bring buyers running.

8. Handling Negotiations with Calgary Home Buyers

Negotiating with buyers is one of the critical parts of selling a home, but many homeowners have little or no experience selling much of anything. This makes negotiating with buyers stressful because most home sellers feel unprepared and unable to handle the negotiations themselves.

What You Can Do About It

The best thing that home sellers can do to negotiate with their buyers is to work with a trustworthy real estate professional. It's also important to listen to that real estate professional as they often advise sellers. However, it is the seller who is ultimately in control of many of the actions that the real estate professional takes when trying to sell the house. Working together as a team, the real estate professional and a home seller can help make the negotiating process better overall.

9. Difficulty Keeping the Home Clean for Home Buyer Showings

Sometimes, it takes several home showings before a buyer makes an offer on a home. In between those tours and showings, home sellers often spend hours cleaning and staging their houses. This can lead to wasted time, stress over keeping the house looking its best, and even fights among people in the household as everyone feels pressure to keep their home looking its best.

What You Can Do About It

For many homeowners, the solution to staging and preparing the house between home showings is to have the house professionally cleaned regularly. Some homeowners will even hire landscapers to cut their grass, water their plants, and weed their gardens to boost curb appeal. Having professional resources on hand can help take the anxiety out of maintaining a home.

It's also helpful to work with a real estate professional. A capable and skilled real estate professional can make recommendations that can help homeowners know where to direct their energy when staging their homes. This can help homeowners feel some sense of relief that, even if their home is not in perfect condition when home buyers come to see the home, the house is still tailored to the needs and tastes of home buyers. This can help make the experience of preparing for home showings and tours easier overall.

10. Getting Out of the House for Showings to Calgary Home Buyers

During tours and open houses, the homeowner leaves their home open for anyone who wants to come in and take a look at their possessions. For some homeowners, doing this can be very challenging. Leaving the home open for anyone to wander in means making the house vulnerable to scrutiny and perhaps even security concerns. This is not easy for some homeowners.

What You Can Do About It

There are many things that home sellers can do to assuage their concerns. To begin with, listening to their real estate professional about staging tactics can leave the house seeming less vulnerable overall. Most staging tactics involve putting away personal items that would make the home look a little less generic and a little more intimate. Not only does this make the house more secure, but it can also lead to more significant offers from home buyers.

Also, it's essential to work with a real estate professional who will keep a watch over the belongings in the house while potential buyers are touring the house. This helps keep the items safe and can even help keep the house itself safe.

How to Work With a Calgary Alberta Real Estate Agent to Eliminate The Home Selling Stress

Work with a Local Calgary Real Estate Agent/Professional

When the time comes to sell your Calgary Alberta home, the most important thing you can do to make the home selling process easier overall is to work with a real estate professional. Your local real estate professional can help you by providing advice and guidance throughout the home-selling process, interacting with potential Calgary Home Buyers, and serving as your guide while the house is being sold. By working with a real estate professional, you can alleviate much of the anxiety you might feel while the selling process is underway.

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