<p>What if you want to market your home as a tear-down? We’re not on the market yet but I want to move; DH wants to wait and see what our graduating DS ends up doing (i.e. assuming he gets a job; otherwise I guess he’s living with us). Our town used to be a tear down capital and there is no way we could fix up our home enough to compete with the market for move ins, e.g. updated kitchen and bath, master suite, etc. We always figured we’d sell the lot instead of the house; once upon a time we could have gotten a bidding war but alas that is no longer the case. We have new carpeting but everything else is totally dated and worn. There are also structural issues that would need to be addressed. We are in one of the best locations in town for families wanting to build but do we need to do anything to market as a tear down? I’m looking ahead since DH moves at the speed of a snail on these issues.</p>
<p>At the top of the real estate market, my parents repainted and recarpeted their condo and put in new stainless appliances. They sold within a week and did well. Two months later the bottom fell out of the California market. They were lucky but they did what the realtor said and sold quickly. Whew.</p>
<p>Regarding smells. House up the street took a LONG time to sell. Main reason? The family who lived there for a few years cooked a lot of CURRY dishes. The smell WOULD NOT LEAVE. It finally sold for a very low price.
I like the idea of a subtle scent…maybe cinnamon. Or throwing some cookies in the oven on the day of an open house. And open up those windows and air it out. Pet smells can be troublesome though. If you get new carpets, maybe a friend or family member can watch your pets until you sell the house. I can detect kitty litter smells in a second!</p>
<p>I guess I’m not a typical home buyer. When I see freshly repainted walls and especially new carpets, I get suspicious - what is hidden underneath the run of the mill HD synthetic stuff? Was there a leak or something else that caused damage to the subflooring? Do I need to get in the crawl space and invesigate? I expect a 10-20-yr old house to have carpets showing wear and tear - carpets do not last forever. If the homeowner spent $3-5K on the new carpets and is passing the cost onto the buyer, I do not want to be that buyer, because I want my house to have nice carpets (they cost much more than $5K to install). I’d rather use that as a downpayment for the carpets of my preference.</p>
<p>My nose rivals the sensitivity of a GC/MS, and I can smell right through any Febreese or cookies. 
I use a lot of garlic in my cooking, so if we ever have to sell our house, we will be eating lots of raw veggies and salads (but no cabbage or broccoli)!</p>
<p>Most houses on the market in my area are staged to the nines. Either the owner has moved out and the living room, dining room, kitchen, family room and master bedroom have dramatic new furniture and accessories (all other rooms empty), or the owner is still there and all rooms are decluttered & staged. It’s very unusual to see an unstaged house.</p>
<p>Staging typically includes new paint, which is often a neutral but not always. What’s important is that the colors flow from one room to another. If colors are dramatically different it tends to make the house looked a little disjointed.</p>
<p>Buyers have very little imagination and want to see a perfect house that’s in move-in condition. They’re willing to pay top dollar for this. Those buyers who can see past the cosmetic flaws are rare, and they tend to come in with very low bids.</p>
<p>Another thing that’s very common in my area is for the seller to pay for inspections (roof, house, termite and earthquake). This seems like it might be catching on in some other parts of the country as well. The inspection reports are placed in a binder with the rest of the disclosures and are available for any buyer to view. Buyers are free to hire their own inspector as well, but having everything disclosed upfront helps move the sales faster. In addition, the seller can choose to remedy any defects found by the inspection prior to listing the house, thus taking issues off the table completely.</p>
<p>I agree with most of the things on BulletandPima’s list except the Febreeze, I can’t stand the stuff, like Workinprogress, it always makes me think you are hiding something. Better to leave fresh baked cookies.</p>
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<p>BB, I do think you are not the typical buyer. I’ve done quite a bit of reading on the subject lately, and the consensus seems to be that buyers do not want to have to do a lot of work after they purchase your home. Also, there is a psychological factor at play. Beautifully furnished and staged homes usually sell quicker than those that are not. The buyers aren’t buying the furniture, but the warm feeling they get from seeing a beautifully presented home vs. one that is not translates into a higher bid. </p>
<p>Our house is a decade old. It is lovely, but it will be competing against a lot of new construction (lots of tear downs in my neighborhood). Homes in my neighborhood must be absolutely immaculate to compete favorably with new homes of similar size. We will have a lot of work to do on our house to get it ready to sell, but selling it as is would cost us quite a bit more in the long run.</p>
<p>I’m sure some of this is market dependent, though.</p>
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First, make sure that your lot is in fact buildable. Many old homes are on lots that are “grandfathered” but if you try to alter the house’s footprint you find that it can’t be done without special zoning permission.</p>
<p>If your lot is buildable once the house is gone, and the house’s footprint can be changed, get updated copies of the zoning ordinances and have them available. Translate them into English to give the buyers an idea of what they can and cannot do - describe set-back, vegetation, open space and other requirements. Have a new survey of the property done and have that available so that all can agree on the actual property lines. Describe any areas that are not buildable (wetlands, conservation land, etc.)</p>
<p>Make it as easy as possible for the buyer to envision his or her dream house on your lot.</p>
<p>I would be very cautious about “air freshners” such as fabreeze that can set some of us sensitive types off and make us miserable (there are more & more folks who are sensitive these days). Clean and cookies/bread are pleasant smells, as is cinnamon or vanilla. You don’t want to overpower the potential buyers or make any of them start having allergy issues.</p>
<p>humm…maybe treat the sale of your home like you would if you were to sell your car. IE-would you clean and polish up your car? Would you have the engine tuned/oil changed? Replace bald tires? Remove misc items in the trunk? Check out your competition to see what they do to make the sale of their car most appealing? Collect paperwork showing repairs made to the car over the years? Figure out an asking price and then tweek that price to be competitive?..or nothing but put a For Sale sign up on the windshield?</p>
<p>In my experience, new carpet, freshly painted walls, and staging a home is VERY important. For staging ideas, you might like to look at pics of other homes that were staged. You can find them on sites like Realtor dot com.</p>
<p>To build on the idea of fresh towels (bathroom and kitchen), make sure that if you have a shower curtain and rods, bathroom rug, that it all looks new. Declutter everything. Small touches of “home” do matter (ie: nice bar of soap next to the sink, possibly some lemon in the kitchen, a green plant, candles, the right Nicknacks in the right places etc.).</p>
<p>You can completely stage a home, after you paint and recarpet for, $1000 if you are a very good shopper (I have done it for a home that really needed everything). Unless you need the decorating expertise of a professional, you really do not to rent the staging props from a company. If the home does not sell within a few months, it gets expensive to continue paying for their staging props.</p>
<p>Make sure that you have pictures on the wall that are in proportion to the wall and what is in the room. In addtion to fresh towels, shower curtain, I’d have new looking beadspreads with decorative pillows. Make sure your furniture is the proportion to the room. You might think about some simple green plants, candles, etc.</p>
<p>APOL has very good points. I just cross posted. Make sure that each light bulb works. Fix things like a leaky faucet. Attack any little dirt that you can find. Your potential buyers will find it for you, if you don’t!</p>
<p>I just remembered to add that many people shopping for homes shop using the internet. They look at sites like Realtor dot com. If your home has pictures of the inside and outside on a site like that, it should look fabulous! This is what might bring in a potential buyer for your home!! You will see pics of homes that were not cleaned up and staged, and those that were made to look beautiful. On this site you can compare and see for yourself. Making your home look great really matters!</p>
<p>I respectfully disagree with the car analogy. When I’m looking at a used car, I know that I will not be able to select the exterior paint, carpet color, etc. When I’m looking at a “used” house, I’m looking for points where I can customize it to my liking. When we were buying our current house, it was frustrating to go through so many homes only to see that the sellers replaced their worn carpets with stuff that looked nice yet felt like sandpaper, replaced their old brass light fixtures with hideous “craftsman” ones, added stainless steel appliances by the maker that I would not touch with a long pole! I’d hate to pay for all of this only to throw it out as soon as I move in! As a home buyer, I want a home with solid bones, no LP siding, etc., and the rest is cosmetics! We ended up buying a brand new home (made an offer when it was just a foundation and sticks!) because we could choose everything without paying for it twice.</p>
<p>But I’m not your typical house buyer. So staging, painting, etc. works.</p>
<p>We had a ball staging my parents house and my sister and I have staged some other houses
since. The most interesting thing we did was in the master closet. On on side we hung a tux on the other side we hung an evening gown in the center we put a slipper chair with a beautiful robe on it…etc. We did cute and interesting things in all of the closets we even did the laundry utility area - we had a gift wrapping table set up. The house sold to the first person who saw it.</p>
<p>When we bought our house, it had hideous (to us) lime & lavender accents, yellow & avacado appliances that fortunately were NOT included in the house. The floor had sheet vinyl that the owners had recently put in & was nicely painted. The roof was due to be replaced in the near future.</p>
<p>We were not put off by the accents, but I KNOW some others might have been (we bought it before they had a chance to show it to anyone at list price). My sister & her D are very influenced by how things LOOK; I believe there are many buyers like her out there and in a tough market where there are many competing homes for sale, if one wants their home to move, sometimes one does have to make their home more enticing. The devil is in the details.</p>
<p>Figuring out the balance of what can be changed economically that will add to the value of the home & be appreciated by prospective buyers (including BunsenBurner) is an art rather than a science. Realtors vary at their skill in assessing the balance.</p>
<p>Definitely recarpet. We recently recarpeted two rooms in our house. It is amazing how much warmer and more inviting both rooms look.
I am laughing about the odors. I made curry 5 nights ago. Everytime we go out and walk back in our house you still smell curry. Once you have been inside a bit you don’t notice it.
One way to save on carpet is to find a carpet dealer in your area who has access to large remmants. We saved a ton of money on our carpet by only looking at the discounted carpets. We were able to get a top of the line stainmaster carpet installed with great padding for less than buying a cheap competitive carpet. We found our carpet dealer through a realtor my H uses for business. Realtors often are a great source for handymen and other trades people at good prices.</p>
<p>Oh boy…one of my favorite things to do is sear fish in a pan. I might have to stop doing that if we ever sell this house…hopefully it doesn’t leave long term smells. </p>
<p>I really hate Fabreeze and other “perfumey” smells. Lowes sells this stuff you put in the air filter and it comes in cinnamon and vanilla. Much more pleasant and low-key. </p>
<p>Wow…staging closets. Very cool. Mine aren’t really big enough to do that…but I would at least declutter them!</p>
<p>My SIL uses her George Foreman grill outside on her patio, to cook her fish without smelling up her house. That might be an option while you’ve got your house on the market. :)</p>
<p>Have not read all the other responses, so apologies if this has been said already.</p>
<p>No matter what, make sure you clear out all of your clutter before putting your home on the market. You want people to focus on the potential of your home, not your stuff. If necessary, rent a storage unit. Better: throw away whatever you won’t need/want in the new place. Make sure your home smells good, and is spotless. That includes the property.</p>
<p>I haven’t bought or sold a house in more than 20 years, but my best friend sold their house recently. They did it on their own. They decided that they didn’t need to stage it, and that most people would be able to see through the clutter, the lavendar-tiled bathroom, the stained kitchen counters, and the stark white walls that made the place feel cold. If friendship means biting your tongue, let me tell you, I was a good friend. It took them about 13 months to sell the house. I’m convinced that if they had fixed up and staged the house, even a little bit, they would have sold more quickly, and at a better price.</p>