What sellers get wrong before they call me.

1. “Most agents basically do the same thing, so commission is the easiest way to compare them.”

This is probably the biggest one.

If you believe every Realtor is going to put your home in the MLS, put a sign in the yard, take some photographs, hold an open house, and wait for a buyer, then it makes complete sense to hire whoever charges the least. That assumes the service, and more importantly the outcome, will be the same.

They are not.

There is an enormous difference between putting a home on the market and creating and managing a strategy to sell it. A good agent invests significant time before the property ever goes live: analyzing the market, helping decide what should and should not be done to the house, coordinating resources, developing pricing and positioning, paying for professional marketing, using technology to increase exposure, communicating with other agents, monitoring buyer response, and negotiating when offers arrive.

The better question is not “what commission do you charge.” It is “what are you actually going to do to put me in the strongest position to get the outcome I want.”

The least expensive agent can become very expensive if the home sells for less than it could have, sits on the market unnecessarily, or a transaction falls apart because something was not handled properly.

2. “The online estimate already told me what my home is worth.”

An online estimate is a starting point. It is not a pricing strategy.

An algorithm can see square footage, bedrooms, bathrooms, tax records, and previous sales. What it cannot do particularly well is walk through your home and compare what a buyer will actually experience against what buyers saw in the other homes that recently sold.

That is why I go deeper. I look at the actual comparable properties. The interiors, the renovations, the condition, the exterior, the lot, the location, the days on market, the original list price, the final sale price, the concessions. Then I compare those homes visually against yours.

Two homes can look very similar on paper and be very different in the eyes of a buyer.

3. “We spent $80,000 on improvements, so the house is worth $80,000 more.”

This one is difficult, because homeowners remember exactly what they spent.

Maybe you invested heavily in landscaping and hardscaping. Expensive door hardware. Custom window treatments. Specialty finishes. Improvements you really value.

Those things can absolutely make a home more desirable. They may improve the presentation, help it sell more quickly, or contribute to overall value. That does not necessarily mean a buyer will reimburse you dollar for dollar for what you spent.

There is a difference between cost and market value.

Part of my job is helping you look at your home through the eyes of today's buyer rather than through the receipt for what you paid.

4. “The house down the street sold for $1.2 million and ours is better.”

Maybe it is. Before we assume it, I want to know a lot more.

When did that home sell. What did the interior look like. Was it completely renovated. How large was the lot. Where exactly was it located within the neighborhood. How long was it on the market. Did the seller make concessions. What was the original asking price compared with the closing price. What were market conditions at the time.

There are reasons buyers paid what they paid.

That is why I actually show my sellers the comparable homes and walk through the differences. I do not want you simply taking my word for it. I want you to see the information I am seeing, so the pricing decision is based on evidence.

5. “The buyer can just take care of that after they move in.”

This is probably the most expensive assumption.

The buyers can paint. They can replace the carpet. They can fix that. They will probably renovate the kitchen anyway.

Technically all of that may be true. But the buyer is mentally subtracting for those things while they are deciding what your home is worth. And buyers do not subtract the actual cost. They subtract the cost, the inconvenience, the uncertainty, and the fact that they did not want another project.

If the objective is simply to sell the house eventually and you do not particularly care about price or timing, preparation matters less. That is rarely the objective my clients give me. Usually they want to sell within a reasonable timeframe and maximize what they walk away with. If that is the goal, preparation matters.

6. “It is still our home.”

This is the hardest one, especially in a home you have made your own.

You chose the colors. You arranged the furniture the way you like it. You made improvements based on how you live. There are memories attached to the rooms and to the things in them. I respect that.

But once we decide to sell, we also have to begin looking at the house as a product we are positioning for the next buyer. Today's buyers may want very different things than what mattered when you purchased the home. Different expectations, different taste, different priorities. That does not mean they are right and you are wrong. It means they are the buyer.

Our job is to understand what today's buyers are responding to and remove as many reasons as reasonably possible for them to say no. That may mean depersonalizing certain spaces, changing furniture placement, painting, repairing something that has not bothered you in years, or presenting a room differently than you personally use it.

That is why I bring in a professional stager, and why we spend so much time preparing before photography. I would rather address those issues while we still control the process than have buyers tell us about them later, through a lower offer.