6 Ways to Successfully Sabotage your Home Sale

From my personal experience, it seems to me that preventing potential buyers from seriously considering your home, or even really seeing your home, is a real skill that takes effort and determination to accomplish. Here are some sure fire ways to prevent yourself from getting an offer: 

1. Greet potential buyers at the door. One of the most expedient ways to prevent a potential buyer from making an offer on your home is to be home while the buyer is walking through. This will most certainly make the buyer self concious and undermine his/her ability to focus on the property at hand. To heighten buyer anxiety, be sure and follow the potential buyer from room to room, eagerly explaining all upgrades, features, and personal touches to the home. 
2. Allow your pets to greet potential buyers at the door. What could be more welcoming than having a big dog romp through the home, waiting to jump up on and welcome potential buyers?! If you’re real lucky, Fido will roll around on the living room carpet and invite visitors to join in on the fun.
3. Show off your unique sense of style and decoration. If you have a strong sense of style or a flare for bold colors or unique decorating, be sure and leave your most distracting decorator items around your home. In particular, stay away from soothing or neutral colors and decorate touches as these are boring and non-offensive to most people.
4. Leave personal items prominently displayed so that potential buyers will get a sense of who you are. Don’t be afraid to show off who you are or particular hobbies or fetishes that you might have! These personal items will be sure to distract potential buyers from seeing the true potential of your home.
5. Enhance the sensory experience of touring your home. Allow potential buyers to experience what it is like to truly live in your home. Cook with garlic, Thai fish sauce, and other pungent ingredients immediately before a scheduled walk-through. In addition, the use of heavy perfumes and scents can also enhance the buyer’s experience.
6. Overprice your home. Ignore all the stuff in the news about excess housing inventory and extended market times, as this likely doesn’t apply to your home. Certainly potential buyers will see the value of your home over all the others for sale in your neighborhood and willingly pay a premium for it.  

Have you observed any other tactics that home sellers use to undermine a sale on their home? If so, we’d love to hear them! Add a comment below and share what you’ve seen with us!