If you're planning to sell your home, the ideal result is to get as much from the sale as you can. This leads sellers to look for any and all features or qualities that could potentially raise the price. But the fact of the matter is that the market sets home values, not individual sellers. There are a few common mistakes sellers make that lead them to list their homes at overpriced values, which doesn't benefit them in terms of actually getting the sale to happen.

Sometimes sellers even purposefully list their home above market value. Usually, they are thinking they can start high and drop the price if no one is buying. However, all this does is reduce overall interest and cause the sale to take longer. If the price is right to start with, multiple people will be interested and might be forced to offer over asking to compete with other prospective buyers. The other reason sellers sometimes purposefully list above market value is that they need to reach a certain price to gain profit from the sale. There's no point to this -- either the home won't get sold at all, or the seller will be forced to drop the price anyway and take a loss.

Of course, the seller is not always intentionally overvaluing their home. You might think that the value of a home includes both its intrinsic and extrinsic value. While this is technically true, extrinsic value is highly subjective. Don't attempt to raise the price simply because you love the paint color you chose or you have good memories living there. If those feel like a significant portion of the home's value to you, you probably don't actually want to move. Of course, external factors may mean you have to sell -- in that case, just remember to hold your emotions at bay. But what if you actually did make tangible improvements to the home? Well, that's great, but not all improvements have a great return on investment. Keep in mind that it's entirely possible you aren't making a profit from every single upgrade you made.

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