You’ve put your home on the market, worked with realtors, staged your home beautifully, and you’ve finally found the perfect buyer; now you’re in the home stretch! Sadly, there are still plenty of things that can go wrong during closing and create major headaches for you. Here’s our top five list of things that can go wrong during a home sale, so that you can be prepared and get your home sold successfully!
1. Buyer’s Remorse
A home is a huge purchase – probably the biggest single item you’ll ever buy in your life. Sometimes a buyer will get overzealous and make an offer that they later become less comfortable with for some reason. Perhaps the property is too expensive or they realize they’re not as in love as they thought. Or maybe they don’t have a good reason at all for their cold feet! Whatever the explanation, buyer’s remorse can happen and you should be prepared to cope.
2. Structural Issues
Sometimes during a home inspection, unforeseen structural issues can be uncovered, like foundational issues or roof issues that are going to cost much more than the buyer was planning to spend right off the bat to repair.
3. Mold
Mold issues can be extremely pricey to repair – and scary in general – for buyers. Mold can cause a lot of health issues and some buyers may just decide that if your property has mold issues they’d rather not move into that particular issue.
4. Preapproval Falls Through
For whatever reason, sometimes buyers are not able to back up their preapproval letter. Perhaps they were preapproved based on income only and have no actual credit; that issue alone would make them a very dangerous bet for a lender. Or maybe your buyer had an emergency and needed a new car immediately, so they went and took out an auto loan. These significant credit account changes can bump them out of the running for the amount they were preapproved for.
5. Removal of “Permanent Fixtures”
Did you say that the washer and dryer would be sold with the home, but then take them with you instead? Whoops. This type of mistake may be a deal breaker for your particular buyer.