For All Sellers: Viewing a home sounds like it’s all about the visual of the experience. And visuals are critical – your listing should be in its Sunday best, so to speak, when it’s being shown, in terms of being spruced, staged and clutter-free. But when a buyer comes to see your listing, they don’t turn off the rest of their senses. And there is nothing that can turn a buyer off from a home they’d otherwise like more quickly than a powerfully bad odor. That means boys’ rooms that smell like dirty tennis shoes, cigarette or cigar odors everywhere, dirty garbage, cat boxes, etc. 

In particular, cigarette and pet odors in a house that seems to have been well-cleaned create the concern that they might be permanent and that the buyer might not be able to get rid of them without dropping some serious cash on cleaning or even removing wall, window and floor coverings.

If you are listing a home and you know that someone has been habitually smoking in the home or that the seller has had a “challenge,” let’s say, with pet accidents, do not ignore the problem. And do not think that because you had the carpet shampooed or the drapes cleaned, or because YOU can’t smell anything, that the problem is gone. The human sense of smell very quickly gets used to smells that it lives with or is surrounded with on a regular basis.

Mistake #2 Obvious or extreme overpricing.
There’s the kind of overpricing that makes a buyer say, “Hmmm – seems a bit high. Let’s go see it, but we might have to offer a little less than the asking price if we like it.” Then there’s the kind of overpricing that makes buyer say “I’ll wait until a price reduction” or worse, say “they’ve got to be kidding.” “I could buy a home on the lake or one with a pool for that price.”
When overpricing is so obvious, many buyers and buyer’s agents will comment on it or inquire about it. What they are less likely to do is actually come out and see the place – especially if they weed it out online after comparing its specs to all the other homes in the area and the price range. Often, homes this severely overpriced simply don’t sell, or not until after they’ve had some serious price cuts or have been on the market so long buyers begin to feel confident about making lowball offers.
In fact, the goal is the opposite – you want your listing to stand out as a property that is not dirt cheap, but does present a good value for the money – that’s what motivates buyers to get out of their chairs and into the property for a viewing.
Obviously, you don’t set the price of your listings. It’s also obvious that the agent-seller conflict about overpricing is one of those battles that have been fought since Adam and Eve sought to list their first home, The Garden of Eden. Every seller thinks his home and his children are superior to everybody else’s.  The trouble is, he may think it’s best, but nobody else sees it that way. 

 
Complaint #3: Dirt and messes.
When your buyer walks into your front door, you want them to see your home at “its best.” Dirty dishes, dirty floors, laundry stacked everywhere; food stuck to the counters does not make any buyer want to make an offer on your house. Usually when they are greeted by such messes, they don’t want to go any further in there and usually say “let’s move on to the next one on our list.” Yes, you do need to make the beds every day your house is on the market, empty litter boxes, clean the commodes and make it look like a home you’d want to buy. 

 
#4: Lots of little Repairs that need to be addressed
All of us tend to think our homes are in good or fantastic condition. After all, your sellers have had the furnace maintained regularly, they’ve installed granite and dual paned windows – maybe they even took your advice to have the floors refinished or the walls painted in preparation for putting the place on the market.
That’s all fantastic – all the non-cosmetic work that’s been done to maintain and improve your listing should be trumpeted in your marketing materials, and the cosmetic items will (or should) speak for themselves. But here’s the thing: house hunters won’t be running the dishwasher or testing the furnace (at least not until inspections).
What they will do – almost unconsciously – is:
• flick light and fan switches
• open or close window coverings, closet, room and entry doors,
• open and close drawers, cupboards, gates and fences and
• hold the handrails as they walk up and down the stairs.
They will hear leaky faucets and point out water spots from long-ago repaired leaks, and they will notice (or potentially trip on) uneven exterior tiles, paths and walkways. And even though these items might be vastly less expensive to fix than the roof or sewer line you had replaced, they are much more visible and noticeable to a buyer. In fact, buyers don’t always even know that the little malfunctions and repairs that need doing are little or inexpensive. And when they notice a bunch of these sorts of things in a single property, they can jump to the conclusion that the whole place is rickety. They may think “if they haven’t maintained all these little items, we can assume the a/c, hot water heater and big items are in bad shape too.”   They won't want to buy a "money pit."

So don’t wait until you read them on an inspection report; get things repaired, replaced and in good shape before your have people viewing your home. Replace all burned out light bulbs, fix leaky faucets, paint chipped woodwork, clean the mold/mildew off the shower doors, etc.