Selling Your Home? Small White Lies Could Jeopardize the Sale

When you’re selling your home, you want to say everything you can to convince buyers that your home is the perfect property for them.

But what you don’t want to do is lie to them.

While sellers telling white lies about their property isn’t uncommon, it does have the potential to backfire—and cause the entire deal to go downhill.

But what, exactly, are the white lies sellers commonly tell, and why is it important to avoid those lies?

A recent article from realtor.com outlined white lies sellers sometimes tell that could jeopardize your home sale, including:

“The house hasn’t been on the market for long.” Buyers sometimes think that, if a house has been on the market for a while, they can get it for a cheaper price. In an effort to avoid lowball offers, some sellers try to make it seem like the home just hit the market, particularly if they took it off the market for a time and then relisted it. But with so much access to information on the Internet, buyers will most likely find out the truth—and if they feel deceived, it could cause them to not move forward with an offer, or affect how they deal with you if they do.

“We just installed a new roof!” Trying to make your home seem more attractive by claiming you made recent upgrades (for example, a new roof, HVAC system or appliances) will almost surely backfire. Buyers will find out that you were lying about the upgrades during the inspection process. If they find out, for example, that the “new” roof will actually need to be replaced in the next 5 years, it could make them walk away from the deal. You could also get in legal trouble for failing to accurately disclose material facts to a buyer, so make sure to accurately disclose all information about your house.

“This is a great neighborhood.” It’s fine to talk up the positives of your neighborhood. But exaggerating or flat-out lying about neighborhood details is never a good idea; most buyers will do their research on the neighborhood—and if they find out that things aren’t as great as you made them out to be, it could jeopardize the sale.

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