Four pricing and preparation missteps quietly cost Salt Lake sellers tens of thousands, and they're almost entirely avoidable.
There’s a mistake costing home sellers in this market a staggering amount of money, and it’s almost entirely avoidable. I call it the $100,000 mistake, and across the properties I’ve evaluated, the lost value adds up fast.
It comes down to a handful of decisions sellers make before they ever list, and getting them right is the difference between attracting the market and chasing it.
Make the updates that bring a home to market value. The first question to ask about your property is simple: what actually needs updating to bring it to market value? If there are maintenance or safety issues, those have to be handled, and if there’s deferred maintenance dragging the home down, it’s worth investing to bring it up to where buyers will value it as true market value. When a home carries poor maintenance or lacks the updates the market expects, the buyer, the agent, and the appraiser will all devalue it against the competition.
“The longer a home sits overpriced, the more it quietly helps your competition sell instead.”
The key is not to spend on everything. Focus on the items that deliver the biggest return, and skip the rest. Often, that means the improvements that actually add value, the front door, garage door, paint, carpet, the things that hurt you when they’re flawed. And sometimes the fix isn’t a renovation at all. Some of those items just need to be cleaned and polished, not replaced. A handful of small repairs can make all the difference.
Overpricing helps your competition sell. In a market where inventory is higher than it was a year ago, buyers have choices, and an overpriced home does the seller no favors. When you overprice, you’re essentially helping the competition sell while your own listing racks up days on market, and days on market erode value every single time.
Picture a buyer who finds the perfect home but can’t justify the price. They wait. Everyone else looking at it thinks the same way, so nobody acts. By the time the price finally adjusts, those buyers have already toured more homes, and more of the competition has sold. Worse, the longer a home sits, the less likely anyone is to make a full-price offer on it.
A property that’s been on the market 30, 40, 60, or even 90 days simply doesn’t draw the offers a fresh, well-priced listing does. People often ask why buyers don’t just make an offer, and the answer is straightforward: why would they offer on a home when there are ten others priced better, in better locations, in better condition? Overpricing takes a home out of the competition entirely.
Don’t ignore curb appeal and presentation. The way a home presents shapes the offer before a buyer ever walks through the door. Curb appeal, along with kitchens, baths, and amenities, is one of the levers that most affects how buyers perceive value, and it’s the easiest to overlook. A property with weeds and rough edges reads as a project, while the same home, cleaned up and adjusted with a little work, reads as somewhere a buyer can picture bringing friends and family. The gap between those two perceptions is worth far more than the cost of closing it.
Invest where it counts, then attract the right buyer. This is exactly why some sellers take advantage of a renovation program where the team invests money into the property up front and is paid back at closing. For a homeowner who knows certain things need doing but doesn’t have the cash on hand, it turns a flawed item into something genuinely attractive and brings out the home’s full value. It matters even more given where prices sit.
With the median home price in Salt Lake County running well above $500,000, plenty of buyers have enough for the down payment but not enough left over for updates. If your home needs work and a buyer has to fund it themselves, you’re narrowing your pool to investors and bargain hunters, the people least likely to pay top dollar. Handle the updates, the maintenance, the pricing, and the curb appeal first, and you attract the market instead of chasing it.
If you’re weighing what to do with your home and where to put your money before you list, that’s a conversation worth having. Call or text me at (801) 285-0521, email me at Justin@JustinUdy.com, or visit justinudy.com. I’m happy to walk you through what would give you the biggest return and help you sell strategically, because being intentional about this process is what produces the best results.
