We were young once too. Our first house had a LOT of “decorating challenges”. We saw past those and got a great first house. We replaced almost everything…windows, doors, flooring, appliances, counters, bathroom fixtures, painted inside and out, landscaping.
But the house had really good “bones”.
Funny…we listed it for,sale with the same agent who sold it to us. When she came to see it, she was quite taken with all,the work, and agreed it looked terrific. Her comment about the house when we bought it “when you said you wanted to put on a bid on this house, I almost puked. Clearly, you saw potential I didn’t see.”
We bought a house that was part of divorce. We were told that the sellers were unlikely to accept below list price because the H didn’t want to sell the house at all. We bid the list price and have been happily living in the house now for decades. We didn’t play these nasty games asking for things to be fixed. We did have to have party wall agreements because the fences on 3 sides of the property waved in and out of the property lines. The agreements were drawn up by a real estate attorney and registered with the title office.
When my mother was selling her condo, the market was very depressed. Similar units in her complex had been on the market for months. She’d already moved into an apartment, so it was easy to take care of the freshening. Everything was painted and carpets professionally cleaned. My husband installed new bathroom vanities with granite counters and new fixtures on both baths and New flooring in both. The RE agent was a neighborhood expert. She had the place staged and did great marketing. It sold within a month while other units continued to languish.
The cabinets were still 1980s refurbs and the kitchen counters were laminate, but the appliances were newer, the hardware all brushed nickel, and the hideous dropped ceiling fluorescent lighting removed and replaced. The place was immaculate and move-in ready. 1970s appliances, fixtures, and decor, no matter how expensive at the time, wouldn’t sell and those owners couldn’t figure it out.
In a seller’s market, cleaning, neutralizing, and freshening up obviously dated items are probably enough.
If you’re trying to get the seller to do more than was promised and warranty things that aren’t even there and were never agreed to, it becomes a nasty game of how far can I push, imho.
My realtors in CA were good. They had house inspected, and had us do all the repairs listed. Attached to open house brochure were the extras that were done.
sorry…i cant get past the “wont look at a house with brass doorknobs let alone buy it” mentality. it reminds me of the ridiculous HGTV buyers that wont buy a house because they dont like the paint colors.
i, for one, am not changing a single doorknob for anyone, unless it actually doesnt open a door.
maybe its regional, but if its clean and well taken care of with good bones and actual amenities that someone wants, and priced at the point they want it at, it will sell. in the scheme of things, you guys are talking about personal taste things (and low dollar ones at that). i think buyers might need to adjust their expectations rather than assume sellers will have used dove white over decorator white because its a deal breaker.
When we sold our house, the inspection found a problem with our pool equipment we hadn’t known about. Buyers asked us to fix it, so we did. They also asked us to repair a broken ice maker in our wet bar that we had disclosed in the official disclosure form they signed when we went under contract. DH refused, saying they had known about this and made no requests about it in our initial agreement.
Their realtor hammered on us, threatening to walk over the deal. I got nervous and told DH we should not let our deal collapse over a 700 dollar appliance. He said “NO. WE ARE NOT FIXING IT.” And he insisted they were not walking away. I asked him how he was so sure. Smiling smugly, he pulled an envelope out of his sports coat and said “HERE’s why I know.” It was a confirmation of their change of address from the US postal service, lol.
I agree that selling a house is definitely a regional thing. What sells really well in upstate New York can be really different than what sells well in another part of the country.
Some easy things you can do which don’t cost a lot of money:
Clear out all of your clutter from the house.
If you have things to sell in a garage sale, do the garage sale BEFORE you put the house on the market.
Donate anything that you don’t want to keep.
Pay a professional house cleaning service to do a thorough house cleaning just before the house gets listed. We did this and all of the potential buyers remarked about how spotless the house was.
Put away all family photos.
Don’t clutter up the front of your refrigerator with a lot of magnets and stuff hanging around.
Paint the rooms. But don’t paint them gray. Well, in Arizona, nobody would ever buy a house with gray interior walls. Maybe it sells well in other parts of the US!
Re: my post #231, I should make clear that the envelope, which was addressed to the buyer at our physical address, made clear on the outside what it was. DH did NOT open their mail!
The previous owners of our house had professional cleaners come through the day before closing. Walked into an immaculate house. I vowed on the spot that we would do that for the next family who lives here.
I made sure our house way super clean when we moved out. I am a bit OCD about it anyway and I
also think that if you leave a house move in ready that the new folks will feel great and maybe won’t complain about something that was missed in the final walk through. Somethings like a spot on the wall or whatever.
Our new owners were super grateful as they were moving from out of state.
They wanted to socialize with us–H wanted to- but I have a friend who was a realtor and she agreed with me that this was business and to leave it at that. We also left them a letter and all of the info/warrenties etc that we had and some wine.
On a funny note–this was a 1959 midcentury house (which is ALL the rave now but after 17 years
of frustration you can have them) and every room had a cool copper intercom in the wall.
We tried to get it to work but we were not successful over the years. We never spent the money
for a professional. I had totally forgotten about this. Every room had a nice picture over the
copper panel. It was only after the sale and we were packing the final things that we realized
that the new owners knew nothing about this.
I called the realtor in a panic. Turned out the new owners loved it and I think figured out a
newer technology for music–not sure but that is what they wanted to do.
Lol. We looked at one house, and our realtor stalled by one of the photos. Turns out, back in the Stone Age when he was in Jr High, he dated the sellers’ D. Lol!!! The family selling the house had a very common name, so only when we got inside and saw the photos he figured out that he knew the owners well. The parents apparently liked and still like him.
Our first house was spotless when we moved out also. The owners and both real estate agents commented on it. We left all of the warranties, the picture album we had out for showings that showed before/after pics…and flowers in bloom all summer. And we bought the new owners a nice houseplant and a bottle of wine…and left them a note.
We sold my dads 37 yr old house in upstate NY. The realtors wanted us to make lots of expensive cosmetic changes and we refused. The house was extremely well built and had a customized floor plan and extra large garage.
Realtors were not hired and proceeded to not show anyone the house after we went with another realtor. They told everyone it wasn’t worth looking at.basically blackballed it. It made me really very angry.
The house sold for a good price just before the recession. The new owners absolutely adored it. They are fixing it up the way they wanted.
We are slowly getting ready to sell our 20 yr old house. Needs new flooring, etc. Have no idea what to do but boy, oh, boy, I have no desire to ask a realtor.
I was just out measuring a house that a client of mine recently bought. (Well will by, the closing isn’t for another couple of weeks.) They put the lockbox on the basement door and made you go through the dark unfinished basement to get into the house. (Well maybe the smart real estate agents had the clients wait at the front door.) They’d turned off the heat as well, so it was absolutely freezing - I’m pretty sure colder in the house than outside. It’s really strange what they left behind. Several closets have shop vacs in them. They put in new laminate floors upstairs and then the roof leaks ruined them.
