<p>“As is”=fixer.</p>
<p>Carpeting should ideally be replaced every 3 years. Those things are allergen traps. If I were buying a house, I would never pay asking unless it had hardwood throughout. That said, probably best to give an allowance.</p>
<p>Oh, and buyers love cookies. Bake cookies the day of the open house.</p>
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<p>You must be my long lost twin. I actually convinced my mom to buy an absolutely disgusting fixer (ok not quite) because the square footage for the price was unheard of in our area. The day after closing the place was stripped to the studs and redone from top to bottom.</p>
<p>Actually every time I go to an open house (I’ve been to a lot) all I see is “I don’t like that, I don’t like that, I don’t like that, that needs changing, this layout sucks, etc etc etc” then the next thought is “$$$$$$$$”. I’m going to be one of those people on HGTV that look at like 400 houses and still can’t find one they like despite having an enormous budget. Then end up giving up altogether and just having a house built from scratch.</p>
<p>I agree with having the dogs hang out in the garage – lots of choices from crates to exercise pens for them to be in. </p>
<p>Since they are coming into the house every night though, and they are big shedders I would send them to the groomer and get the dogs clean and groomed. It will make a huge difference. They won’t smell as much, they won’t have as much hair to shed, and they’ll be a big cleaner. I’d ask the groomer what they recommend for frequency. Maybe every three weeks for a bath and brushing while the house is on the market.</p>
<p>I’d never heard of staging a house until getting hooked on some of the home shows on HGtV. It reminds me of the way wedding shows became omnipresent on cable. I find them strangely relaxing. I love looking at houses, esp. when it’s not my own money being spent!</p>
<p>What gets to me after a while are the ‘surface’ they buyers/lookers gush over time after time - granite countertops, stainless appliances, ridiculously shiny new hardwood floors and huge master bed/baths. After a while they all look the same. I’d take a quirky well-built older house (solid plaster walls are nice) any day. Must admit that big closets are nice, though!</p>
<p>The most important thing to remember is to you this is an emotional transaction. To them this is a financial transaction. You have memories, they don’t.</p>
<p>My other adage to my clients: You’re selling a HOME they are buying a HOUSE.
Two different things. </p>
<p>You might love the color you painted your bedroom, but they might not. It’s nothing personal, it’s business.</p>
<p>One other quick tip is to check your dining room/kitchen chairs or your sofa pillows/ cushions. If they are not exactly how you left them, that is a good sign. Many times before a buyer places an offer they actually sit down in the house to think about it. A chair or pillows moved means they sat there.</p>
<p>I don’t know if your area has the SENTRA lockbox. If it does, the realtor will be alerted everytime the box is opened and will be able to see who has come in and at what time. If you are at home and they have this type, always ask the realtor to use the box so your realtor will know that they came.</p>
<p>Also, don’t keep the business cards of the other realtors (buyers) out in the open. Collect them daily and put them in a drawer. Buyers that see tons of cards immediately think, what is wrong with this house if tons of people are coming, but nobody bought it yet.</p>
<p>Finally, I would say that the realtor’s company is just as important as the realtor. As stated 85% of buyers look on the net to preview before they ever enter an office. Jane Smith with local XYZ company maybe the most popular lister in your area, but John Doe is going have a hard time finding her over Mike Jones because he is with Century 21. </p>
<p>I have bought and sold 5 homes in the past 15 yrs. I can tell you that I not only use Realtor.com, but than I go to other sites with brand recognition. </p>
<p>I would also say that I like going with the new agent. They are hungry and want to make the sale, that means sometimes they will shave the commission rate.</p>
<p>I don’t know if you are in a military area, but if you are ask the realtor to pay for advertisement on [MilitarybyOwner.com</a> - Real Estate near U.S. Military Bases](<a href=“http://www.militarybyowner.com%5DMilitarybyOwner.com”>http://www.militarybyowner.com) It is not expensive and many military members use this site because they have the belief that it is owned by a military member, thus, they feel a kinship immediately. </p>
<p>Make sure they do a virtual tour and do it on a sunny day. You would be amazed the difference how even a partially cloudy day could make the house look darker.</p>
<p>If I were selling my home I’d definitely put neutral color of paint on my walls. H, S’s and I recently toured a beautiful home with many rooms painted pink and powder blue. I loved the house but my guys keep calling it the “girl” house and are having trouble visualizing men living there.</p>
<p>One other thing, people need to understand that typically if you try to sell on your own, you usually walk out with the exact same amount of money as if you sold with a realtor, plus a lot of wasted time.</p>
<p>Realtors pre-qual the buyer before they even step into the 1st home. If you do FSBO you could sign a contract without having the buyer qualified and lose time.</p>
<p>Also unless you are a stay at home person, you will lose potential clients. You will be tied to that house for however long it takes.</p>
<p>Finally, ads in a Sunday newspaper and FSBO sites cost money, the longer it takes to sell the more you spend. The realtor pays for the ads and that comes out of their commission net. </p>
<p>I have always told my clients unless they are dead set on having an Open house (Sundays), it is a waste of time because anybody with a realtor would be coming anyway and the only ones you do get are LOOKY LOU’s. </p>
<p>I do what we call Broker’s Open. It is usually held on a weekday where the realtor sends flyers to all of the offices in the town and announces they are hosting a lunch at the house. There you leave comment sheets for the realtors with questions like is it priced correctly, do you have any clients in the price range, what are the negatives, the positives, etc. I then review it with my sellers. Many times these comment sheets make the client re-think what they have been adamant about. I also have a drawing of a $50 gas card to make more realtors show up.</p>
<p>There are a lot of tricks of the trade, but it is important not only to listen to your realtor, but make sure they use those tricks.</p>
<p>I forgot to mention, that the cookies idea is a good one, don’t worry about baking them, but here’s my tip.</p>
<p>Buy the bakery store bought kind and put them on a nice plate on your counter with a note saying help yourself. Since we are coming into summer place a few water bottles out too. Buyers immediately think, oh what a nice owner. They now have an emotional tie to you and the house.</p>
<p>The other tip is to ask your realtor that when they make the brochure, make 2 types of them. One in color for the buyer. The other in black and white with REALTOR COPY written on top. If your state is like NC, AK, VA both parties must sign a disclosure statement. If your realtor makes this, they would include that doc. If a realtor takes the brochure that means they believe the client might be making an offer. COUNT them daily.</p>
<p>I also always make the buyers brochure in a off white or pale blue color because it will stand out in their pile of other brochures and be drawn to keep flipping back to that brochure.</p>
<p>college is correct, if you have gender specific colors in a bedroom paint them neutral. Our last home they had a salmon color and I knew our DS would be in that room. I could see past the paint, but I wrote in the contract that the room had to be painted to beige.</p>
<p>If your state is also like many others most buyers will request a home inspection. A couple of things to do before you place the house up for sale.
<p>I say this because inspectors, at least the good ones are going to look at all of these things, and if you do everything on that list it is one Saturday afternoon. If you don’t the inspector will be like a dog on a scent and start looking deeper and deeper to find something.</p>
<p>If you do have issues, as a seller, you want the inspections issues to say REPAIR. As a buyer, you want it to say REPLACE. Again 2 different things. Repair the faucet is a 50 cent thing, replace is a 50 dollar thing. Look carefully because sometimes you can counterback with repair. When I am on the buying side at a home inspection I always ask for REPLACE. When I am on the selling side, I always counter REPAIR.</p>
<p>About the inspection: as someone who has bought and sold in this terrible market–do the inspection upfront and do the repairs (if you can).</p>
<p>B and P, out of curiosity, what percentage of your sellers want to ask too much for their house? I know pricing is very important. </p>
<p>There was a very successful realtor (luxury home market only) in my area who made a big deal of how fast her listings sold. Another realtor told me it was common knowledge that she would underprice her listings so severely that people would flock to buy them quickly. The owners would be clueless as to how much money they’d left on the table, but happy about the speed of the sale, and would use her again and again and recommend her to others. Before I heard all this about her, I had consulted with her about my home’s value, and she valued it 100K under what I had estimated, based on the comps I could find. She told me “everyone thinks their home is worth more than it is.” We decided not to list our home at all. After the rumors about her methods came to light, I thought, “hmmmmmm.”</p>
<p>I have to buy a new stove soon. My SIL told me that appliances have to match. I don’t want stainless, so I’m thinking either black or white for the stove. This means that before an eventual sale, I’ll have to get a new fridge and dishwasher because they are beige.</p>
<p>Would black or white sell better? Any opinions? Or could I get away with a black stove and white fridge?</p>
<p>Black. And buy gas if at all possible.</p>
<p>White just SCREAMS cheap.</p>
<p>I’d go with black as well. And I agree that they should all match.</p>
<p>The percentage of my clients get 98.5% of their asking price. Typically there are 3 types of realtors. I list REALISTIC.
<p>Tree. GET BLACK.</p>
<p>Many people are starting to dislike SS since finger prints show up easily. We had in our last home all SS, 3 yrs later we built our new home and I was adamant that the appliances be black because of how high maintenance SS is. Many clients now are turned off by SS because they have heard how big of a pain it is to keep clean if you have people actually using the appliance.</p>
<p>TIP: Most dishwashers have a front panel that is removable. Look on the bottom and sides, if there are screws there then 10 will get you 20 that your beige dishwasher front has the option to change to a black front just by flipping it. Same is true if it is white.</p>
<p>White is not appealing to most clients because an all white kitchen was the IN thing back in the late 90’s/early 2000’s. People see white and think hospital or sterile. Kitchens are known as the heart of the home.</p>
<p>Ask your realtor what is common place regarding fridges. In VA fridges convey with the house, in NC they don’t. If it is common, than buy a new fridge to match and take this one with you as a spare for the garage or basement. If it isn’t common, than the fridge will be going with you so it really doesn’t matter. If you buy a new one, DON’T CHEAP OUT! Don’t go overboard either, but nothing turns a buyer off more than a crappy fridge. Also most buyers do not want side by side, they want the bottom drawer freezer. If the fridge conveys, clean it thoroughly because they will open it to see the size of it inside.</p>
<p>Kitchen and baths are the biggest pull. People can look past paint and carpeting, but if they have to tally in their head, that the bathroom or kitchen needs to be addressed it can be a deal breaker. For example, bathrooms/kitchens are such a big deal to buyers I always joke with my buyers, okay so from now on we will call this house the blue bathroom house or the red wallpaper kitchen, because when you see 15 homes in a day the only thing to jog your memory of the home is the bathroom or the kitchen.</p>
<p>ONE MORE TIP:
If you have a fence or a deck, power wash it. People will go outside and if they see green it tells them that they will only have shade. If they see that the deck has not been taken care of then they start tallying $$$ for a new deck, whether it is needed or not. If you don’t want to power washer for fear that you will remove too much of the stain, again do a 1 to 3 bleach ratio, but use a hard broom to scrub it in. It will be bright as new within an hour. </p>
<p>Once you have the big things start looking at the little things because buyers will also. </p>
<p>If you have mini blinds, pull them up and buy a suspension rod and sheers. Buyers hate mini blinds. They want plantation. By buying shears and hiding the mini’s you look more current.</p>
<p>If you have venetians pull them back, buyers hate venetians more than they hate mini blinds…SCREAMS 80’s to them.</p>
<p>If you have blinds, make sure that they are all even and open so from the street it looks even. First impressions matter.</p>
<p>About house odors, one of the best things you can do is to get a powerful window fan. You have to install it properly, ie, seal it into the window, close all other windows in that room, and open windows in the other rooms. The kitchen window is a good place to install it (it doesn’t require hard wiring). Put one on each floor if your house is multi-story. </p>
<p>The other thing is to have all carpets and anything covered in fabric cleaned. That includes all upholstered furniture, pillow coverings (probably the pillow inserts too, or get new ones), bed coverings, etc. Also, pick your cleaning products with care. They also contribute to the smell of a house (and of a person). I can always smell the laundrey detergent, the soaps, the floor cleaner, etc that a household uses. There are some product smells that I have an aversion to (fruit smells, particularly), and it’s a big psychological hump to get over.</p>
<p>bulletandpima…good advice. </p>
<p>Regarding SS applicances, we have gone with brushed SS and it makes a BIG difference. I haven’t noticed a big change in upkeep. Also we went with side by side fridge since we are all tall and don’t like bending down for our frozen products. We’re hoping it doesn’t make a big difference when it comes to selling the house.</p>
<p>Now, we’ve got those nasty moldy stains on our roof and we need to get them off. We’re probably not selling for a few years…hope the job lasts!</p>
<p>tone, many people with children don’t want side by side because of the thought that a frozen pizza box has a hard time fitting in the freezer.</p>
<p>I have had all styles, side, top, bottom. My favorite out of all of them is our newest, the TRIO style. I love the fact that I can get large trays in. The only negative I have with a bottom drawer freezer is that if you pull out the sliding top drawer it is easy to break the ice cube maker handle when the handle is down.</p>
<p>Where I live, if the fridge is not a built-in kind (think Subzero), it is not considered to be “attached” to the house and therefore is a negotiable item, just like washer/dryer. I personally hate black appliances - unless your kitchen is really well-lit with natural light, black applicances make it look smaller and gloomier. And they are much worse than stainless steel when it comes to fingerprints and dirt.</p>
<p>In my immediate neighborhood, stainless subzeroes are expected, and they are all side by side. It’s interesting how different markets all have their own “givens.”</p>
<p>Such great advice here in this thread.</p>
<p>Pima, thanks for your info. I have a question: What’s the best way to choose a broker? If I have no one I already am tied to, how do I know if they’re being honest about pricing strategies? Do you call the local real estate agent, and get the first one who picks up the phone? What marketing activities should I expect? I haven’t done this in a long time, and as many of us, I will be faced with having to sell a parent’s home at some point in the near future.</p>
<p>PS - and how far will you travel :)</p>
<p>One thing: when leaving cookies out, make sure they are as allergen-free as possible (some buyers briong their kids along and do not keep an eye on them, and that can have bad consequences).</p>
<p>H and I made a little info book that we left on the dining table for the prospective buyers. It had information about the school district, where the school bus stop was located, listed all awards the neighborhood schools have recieved, etc. We provided averages of our water and heating bills, the info on the water district, utilities, etc. so the buyer could research this stuff further. The book had some “4 seasons” photos of the yard showcasing the seasonally blooming plants and fall foilage.</p>