Hints for Selling House

[Jsme]

I believe it is Spring. I know the worst time to sell is between Thanksgiving & Superbowl Sunday.

In NC the best time is Summer and even better is the month or so before school is to start. Many people want to be in their new homes by the frist day of the school year.

 

[Jsme]

How much does realtor get--6% on average? And what other costs are there to the seller? I would love to unload my house but think there's only about $20,000 in equity in it.

Our first home we were in for 3 years. We made $21000 on our sale.
Depends on the price of your home. Our first house it was 6% and yes realtors must split this. That is why a realtor will push you at one of their listings. If you have a more expensive house the commission fees can be 10%. That is what the commission fee would be for our current house. That is crazy too!!! We are waiting to see if we have to move due to my DH's job and if we do we are going to use their company and save 7%!

 

[etwinchester]

The comments already posted are great.

*Staying with neutral colors - people change their mind on colors all the time. If you use neutral, they can put curtains up and/or borders and decorations to make it the color they want...When younger, I always hated the moble homes with light brown carpeting & walls throughout. Now I think how smart it is. Just change the curtains, bedspread, and maybe add a border/other decorations, it's much cheaper than painting the walls everytime you change your mind on a color.

*Fixing lights / use curtains that show light thru windows - normally people don't want to live in a dark house, show how much sunlight can come in and how bright and homely it can be.

*No clutter, less knick-knacks & furniture - show how much space the rooms can have, regardless if they don't with all your stuff. You want to remove bulky or cluttering things to give a big/open appearance.

*Flowers or aroma - don't want the house smelling of dogs even if you have some. Some people don't want or have pets and may be discurraged if they can smell pet odors.

*Here is a good helpful hint: Think about you looking for your next house, what would you be looking for? This should help you make any decisions....

 

[Jsme]

I haven't seen anyone mention getting an inspection before listing your house. If your house is more than 10 years old I would recommend getting an inspection up front! We should have so that we could have absorbed the cost of the repairs that were necessary. We had some problems with grading which left water pooling under the house (we had no idea) and $3,000 later we were not happy. We couldn't adjust the price at that point because the buyers knew they "had" us. Plus there are things you can repair yourself before the inspector comes in and writes you up. Once that happens the buyer can require that a "licensed contractor" do the work. If you do the repairs yourself then when the buyer orders an inspection those items will be all done!

All the other advice sounds fantastic!

If you have a good realtor you do not have to worry to much about the inspection the buyer has done. Beleive me when we sold that first house the people that bought it had the best inspector. He came back with over $20,000 thing that he felt needed to be done. Needless to say we did not do any of that stuff. Our realtor told the other realtor if his client wants this house this is what we will do on that list. All we did was fill in a little dirt in front of the garage entrance. We had a seperate door entrance into the garage. Alot of things on those lists are crazy. Needless to say the house sold very quickly. If they did not want it we had two other buyers who wanted it.

 

[Chrissi242]

We are in the process of selling our old house right now. It has been on the market for 12 months and not one single showing. We have done lots of things to improve it. I really think that the main problems are 1. we listed it with a realtor and people in this area tend to shy away from realtor sells and 2. I have it rented. So that limits the buyers to first time buyers because it is so small and people looking for rental houses to make a profit. We have 2 potential buyers now, I HOPE we get an offer, I am willing to take anything above what we owe on it to get rid of it! I hope you get offers soon. I would definetly have the carpets professionally cleaned, it will make all the difference.

 

[Danemom]

Most of the tips here make good sense to me, but why do you need to get rid of personal photos? I would think it would make the space seem "homey" and loved, in a way. What am I missing here?

 

[staci]

Most of the tips here make good sense to me, but why do you need to get rid of personal photos? I would think it would make the space seem "homey" and loved, in a way. What am I missing here?

The rationale behind that, as i understand it, is that a person would have a hard time feeling 'at home' with all the pictures of strangers, so by making it more neutral, they are able to envision thier own families there easier.

I didnt take down our pictures on the walls, but I did remove any small frames on tables, bookshelves, etc. to get rid of clutter. I would probably consider taking down a 'picture wall' (ya know, one with about a million frames and photographs) because of the personal connection thing AND because of the clutter.

 

[Focusdude]

I would replace the stained carpet! I know that even though people can easily change it - it would be a huge turnoff. We are in the process of getting ready to put our house on the market in the spring, and are going to replace the stained carpet with an inexpensive neutral carpet so the house will show well. I think it is a small expense (we are going to use our tax return money to do it) that will payoff in the end!

Good luck!

 

[CarolA]

Most of the tips here make good sense to me, but why do you need to get rid of personal photos? I would think it would make the space seem "homey" and loved, in a way. What am I missing here?

"Homey" is not a selling point.. New and unloved is what folks want.

I did all of these things when I sold mine and it sold in just about two weeks. Not bad when you consider there was new construction in the same subdivision.

And CLEAN is vital!

 

[Doede95]

Hi-
We sold our house in less than 4 hours. I agree, get rid of all of the clutter. We stored it at my parents. We boxed up all of the kids toys, ect. We also did lots of small things that paid off. We cleaned the windows, polished the woodwork, fixed small things, ect. We purchased a couple potted flower pots. One tip that really made the house smell fresh- take Bounty sheets for laundry and put them on the vents in each room and run the air. It worked great!! Good luck!!

 

[dvcgirl]

Clean-Clean-Clean....

Steam clean the carpets.

Declutter...and organize. People will look in your closets and your drawers. Oh, and they'll look in the refrigerator...clean that as well.

We had fresh flowers out when we had people come to look.

Leave the house when people come to look. If you are selling privately, offer to step outside. If you have pets, especially dogs, get them out of the house when people come over to look (see if a neighbor can keep them).

Lighting is very important. I think houses show wonderfully at night. If you do show it at night, have lights on in every room. Imagine your house as if you are throwing a party....and your first guest is about to arrive....some music in the background doesn't hurt either.

And also...take down the personal pix. If you have them all over your walls, take them down now, spackle and paint. People want to imagine themselves in the house, not in *your* house.

I think that's it....

 

[staci]

Good point about the laundry sheets. Our basement had a musty smell that was always faintly there (just old basement smell really). But I loved going downstairs when I was doing laundry cuz it smelled so clean! So before the house was shown (it sold the first afternoon so I only had to do it once ) I put a wet towel with a couple dryer sheets in. It smelled so good!

Oh, and the kitchen floor? idk how big your house is, but putting in new vinyl yourself is pretty easy if it is small enough to not need a seam. It can be done in a few hours pretty inexpensively. I would definitely recommend it in the kitchen. Our old kitchen cost just over $100 for the whole thing.

And the carpet, its ur call but we looked at a few houses with old, worn carpet and it really dates it. I would consider replacing.

Have a GOOD friend come through the house and give their honest opinion. I had my best friend (who is a neat freak) do this for me. We walked through slowly and she gave me a few suggestions on what to do to make it more visually appealing.

 

[lazarru]

Thanks for everyones ideas some real good ones.

Replacing the floor in the kitchen isn't really something I want to do, the kitchen is 20x20 and there's also a laundry room which has the same floor that would also need to be replaced. That plus it would be difficult to just put another one on top of this one likely making the expense high.

The family room carpet is in the same boat, it's 18x22 so I can't even just get a cheap carpet as it's bigger than a roll would be. I'll try getting it steam cleaned, I think we had tried a chem-dry place and it got a bit better but nowehere near "perfect"

 

[staci]

For the large living room, maybe just an area rug over the carpet could help? I know both us and our best friends have area rugs in the living room over the carpet, mainly becuase we both have off white carpet, and we both have toddlers spilling stuff! Its easier for us to clean the area rug than the carpet, but the rug also does good at hiding the few stains that we managed to miss!

 

[soccerchick]

Okay, I haven't seen this one listed yet.

We sold our house in July 2004. It was a great house, 3500 sq. feet, private backyard, CLEAN!, huge family room, etc. It was on the market for 3 weeks, which was a long time for around here. The past two years have had ridiculous spring feeding frenzies, but SLOW summers.

Our agent did 2 open houses. We got several offers after the first but they were lower than what we wanted (and yes, we were bring a bit aggressive w/the price) or they had very strict move out dates that wouldn't work for us. There were also two other, smaller houses for sale on our street.

At the second open house, our agent brought a loan officer who had prepared a beautiful spreadsheet of what was financially needed to buy our house. Prices around here have gone through the roof over the past 4 years and the last 18 months have been totally ridiculous. A lot of people didn't think they could afford a house that was over $500K. The spreadsheet showed monthly payments using many different down payments (0, 5%, 10%, 20% etc. and also based on all sorts of scenarios and loan programs (30 year fixed, 15 year, various arms, interest only, etc).

We ended up with a bidding war that Sunday night between two buyers thanks to those spread sheets. One family's realtor had tried to show them our house, but they didn't like that the basement windows weren't fullsized so they didn't look at it.They drove by and saw the Open House and checked it out and loved it. Another family in a townhouse a few streets over walked in w/o "really" being in the market, saw the financial details and suddenly became very interested! So after 21 days of stress, we got a VERY happy ending.

Good luck! It's a very stressful time - hope it all works out well!

 

[barkley]

oh the laundry sheets would have caused me to leave even if i loved the place-my eyes start swelling from the scent of them, same with scented candles. i would go for a "clean" smell (or the old chocolate chip cookie or apple pie scent).

i don't think you indicated that you have tile floors, but anyone with them who is selling consider hiring a clean-up (not housekeeping, more like servpro or others that do fire and water damage houses) company to clean the grout. i do my best to clean up spills but 6 years and 2 kids take their toll. i have no problem toothbrush cleaning tile counters but a large kitchen, entry way, 2 bathrooms and a laundry room-it would have taken me weeks (and weeks to recover ). i treated myself to hiring one of these firms last spring, they sent in a crew who got down on their hands and knees-my floors look new again-the best few hundred dollars i ever spent.

most shows strongly encourage you to invest in new bedspreads at least for the master bedroom (makes it look fresh and more inviting), and some go so far as to say if you plan on buying new furniture when you move to buy it before you sell to give a more appealing/updated appearance.

i'm not personaly put off by family photos, i'm looking at the bare bones of the house and the floor plan. i am put off by the potential of having to pull down wallpaper or paneling (you never know what lurks beneath ), so removing wallpaper and painting or drywalling over paneling can increase the appeal esp. with an older home.

because our current home is realy well insulated and our heating/air bills are lower than norm for the area i am saving utility bills from this past summer and will for the winter to have available for review because i know this will be a marketing element when we sell (it could be the greatest house but if the utility costs are too high it would knock it out of consideration for me).

 

[Danemom]

The rationale behind that, as i understand it, is that a person would have a hard time feeling 'at home' with all the pictures of strangers, so by making it more neutral, they are able to envision thier own families there easier.

New and unloved is what folks want.

Thanks for the answers. I guess I can understand that reasoning, but if people want a house that's new and unloved, I'd think they should be looking at new constructions only. Good think I'm not a realtor or selling my house, I guess!

 

[blewits]

Those are all some really great ideas! I love the laundry sheet one personally. I've never thought of that.

I've sold 2 houses - both within 3 months. Clean and UNCLUTTERED are the 2 biggest things. I am also convinced that what did the trick for me both times was that when the realtor called and said she was showing it, I would have conveniently "cooked" something.

Sold my first house when I knew it would be shown while I was at work. I put a roast in the crock pot and signed a contract that night.

Sold my 2nd house after making a batch of pillsbury chocolate chip cookies. Even if you only put 2 or 3 in the oven - IT WORKS! My agent also said that brownies or a chocolate cake did it every time! Just keep it in the frig and pop some in before they come!

Best of luck to you.

 

[txgirl]

I'll try getting it steam cleaned, I think we had tried a chem-dry place and it got a bit better but nowehere near "perfect"

We had tried Chem-Dry in our last house and didn't have much luck, BUT we used a steam cleaning company (A-1 I think) and it was AMAZING how much better the carpet looked. You may hear people say, "steam cleaning is bad for the carpet" but you already said it's not in great shape so clean would be best, right?

Good luck!