Though these are generalizations pooled from years of experience, it is quite common to find yourself in some of these situations. Your home is your own palace, your lives are lived in it. Naturally you are going to have attachments and emotions around certain aspects of selling your home. If you can, remove yourself from the home when it’s being shown to perspective buyers, and trust your REALTOR® with the process.
Common situations include:
YOUR HOME MAY NOT BE WORTH WHAT YOU THINK
The biggest shock most sellers face is the true value of their homes, either determined in a comparable market analysis (CMA) by an agent or through actual buyer offers. Often, sellers find that their home is not worth as much as they thought. Many factors affect home value and most of them are subjective and hard to measure.
PEOPLE WON’T LOVE YOUR HOME LIKE YOU DO
Buyers have their own lifestyles, preferences, taste, and attitudes, so the chances of finding a buyer who will want your home “as is” are quite slim. Buyers will look at your home with a critical eye, visualizing how they can make it their own and estimating what those changes would cost. They will value your home less while considering these costs. It may hurt your feelings, but you must remember that it is just business. It’s not personal.
SOONER OR LATER YOU WILL LOSE YOUR TEMPER
Your relationship with your buyer will quite possibly be one of love/hate. Since you, as a seller, want to net the most, and conversely, the buyer wants to pay the least, they may pick apart your home to improve bargaining leverage. Many of their requests will be legitimate, while some may seem ridiculous. If you don’t wan to comply, you don’t have to, but the truth is that no transaction takes place without bargaining so letting tempers flare only gets you further from your goal.
You may also get angry at your Realtor, but you must realize that, like other people’s behavior, some things are out of their control. If your agent is a professional, she or he will be able to handle your concerns.
UNEXPECTED SHOWINGS 
Buyers aren’t going to operate on your schedule. In addition to your Realtor showing your home, you may have dozens of other agents and their clients wanting to see the home at almost any time. People will cancel appointments and ask to reschedule. Buyers may show up with no appointment or without an agent, but there is no reason for an unaccompanied buyer to be in your home for any reason. Don’t let them in. Your Realtor will do their best to coordinate showings at reasonable times but you must be flexible, patient, and do your best to keep your home in show condition. Trust that every buyer who enters your home is a potential buyer.
BUYER RUDENESS
Sometimes, buyers enter that enter your home will leave their garbage on your counter, cabinets or closet doors open or even miss their appointment altogether, expecting you to reschedule at a moment’s notice. As tempting as it may be to play Miss Manners, it’s not worth passing up a good offer because the buyer left a dirty diaper in your trash bin.
INSPECTIONS
Inspections kill more deals than any other single factor besides overpricing. All older homes have some minor and some major problems, which can be addressed in the sales price, or as a negotiation with the buyer under contract. How serious these problems are is a matter of the buyer’s opinion. You can hire an inspector before listing your home in order to avoid surprise repair expenses or price reductions. By fixing the problems that must be fixed, you can price the home more competitively and get more maneuverability in negotiations. A buyer who sees a favorable inspection report is more likely to make a fair offer and less likely to place a lot of contingencies in the contract.
