Managing Your Emotions When Selling a Home
Selling a home is more than the technical and legal components that define the process. It is the act of attaching a price to an emotion-bearing possession – full of memories – and letting it go to a buyer that shows interest.
The technical aspects of selling such as a new coat of paint, landscaping to improve curb appeal, and simple home repairs are all easy to navigate as you can choose qualified professionals to walk you through these things. The far more challenging side of selling a house is the part that often goes unchecked: emotions.
Brookings Home Team will guide you through the process of listing your house, provide tips for enhancing curb appeal and staging your home, fixing repairs, and accepting offers. However, there's one aspect our Brookings Realtors can’t prepare you for, and that's the emotional aspect of selling a home.
Sell Your Home Without Getting Emotional
Selling a home means saying goodbye to the neighborhood and neighbors you’ve built relationships with. It means leaving the space where you and your family shared so many great memories. When it comes time to list the property, emotions you may never thought you would have begun to bubble to the surface. To help you better navigate these feelings, Brookings Home Team has come up with a few tips that will help you overcome the emotions of the home-selling process.
Avoid Becoming Overwhelmed by the Process
Rely on a support system to cope. Whether that means asking your real estate agent to manage additional responsibilities or delegating tasks to friends when you feel yourself becoming overwhelmed – whatever you do, don't let the process get the better of you. Because feeling stressed out or emotional could lead to hindered decision-making that can affect your property's sale.
Plan How to Address Certain Scenarios
To enhance your chances of making reasonable decisions, create a process that will allow you to analyze information or offers more logically. You can develop circumstances under which you will:
- Reject an offer
- Abandon a deal
- Reduce your asking price
- Accept a lower offer
- Make additional upgrades to your home as a condition of an offer
Focus on New Beginnings
Selling your home signals the beginning of something new. Regardless of your reasons for selling, letting go of your home facilitates entering a new chapter in your life. Great home-selling advice would be to think about what you're gaining instead of what you feel your’re losing. Ask yourself: What will a sale help me accomplish? Consider creating a list. If you are buying another property, start getting familiar with the neighborhood you're moving to. Doing this will help you overcome feelings of anxiety associated with facing the unexpected.
Sell to a Worthy Buyer
If you can't manage the emotions of selling a home, consider reducing those emotions by selling to a worthy buyer. If you're a homeowner who's lived in your property for decades or raised kids in your house, you will have a sentimental attachment to every corner of the home. The best thing you can do to overcome the overwhelming emotions associated with letting go of a family home is to select buyers who will help you continue the legacy you have planned for your home.
Emotions Can Negatively Affect Your Home Sale
According to research conducted by Justus Liebig University, emotions are far more compelling than logic. When you are emotional, you are less capable of reasoning, problem-solving, thinking, or even making sound decisions. Your cognitive abilities can be impaired, which could lead to distressing consequences. In terms you can measure, this means unnecessary delays in selling the property, which often results in missed opportunities, sometimes to the tune of thousands of dollars.
In hindsight, you may realize the emotions of selling your home are to blame for offers falling through at the final hour, having the reluctance to accept an offer, or rushing to unload your property to avoid experiencing emotional and mental stress.
The truth is, being emotional during the home-selling process is more than shedding a few tears. You’ll realize that you need to be proactive in preparation for selling your house so you can properly manage your emotions. Doing this is the only way you can secure a faster (and rewarding) home sale.