Selling House

[OhMari]

I appreciate everyone's advice. Thank you.

Our stager came after our real estate booker took pictures of our house. She came the day we went to sign the contract. When she got to my house, she said I looked "shocked" when she asked if she could come take pictures. I should have said no.



I am not happy about the laundry room, I had clothes in washer and dryer and I needed to declutter the shelf more above the appliances. Same with sons room, it looks totally different now. The angle of the front of the house looks odd. We asked to have the side view of the house be the first picture. The 2 sheds look awful. One of the sheds we are working on and totally redoing on the inside and the outside is suppose to be old and rustic, but look like crap on the pictures. I felt she didn't need to put those on the site.

 

[DawnM]

THIS!

I sold my neighbor's house for them.

A gal was on my local mom's forum and posted a description of the house she was interested in buying. I happened to know that the neighbor's house fit this description, so I told her about it. She bought it!

Dawn

Regardless of how much you dislike your neighbors, don't put them off. DH is a realtor and he says often a neighbor sells a house. They have friends or relatives who have told them "If a house ever becomes available inyour neighborhood let me know".They are a partof the network.

It has always been my opinion that the misconception of "an open house doesn't sell your house" is just that...a misconception. Mostly everyone I know who has purchased a home saw it for the first time during an open house. I can't even count thenumber of houses DH has sold in his career to pople who saw it during the open house. Is the realtor hosting your open house going to ask any lookers if they are working with a realtor already and if the answer is no, try to obtain them as clients? Of course they are. But a good realtor is also trying to sell your house. They don't make any money if their listing (AKA your house) doesn't sell.

The three most important things in real estate...location, location, location. If your location is good and the house is priced appropriately for the condition it's in, it will sell.

 

[OhMari]

THIS!

I sold my neighbor's house for them.

A gal was on my local mom's forum and posted a description of the house she was interested in buying. I happened to know that the neighbor's house fit this description, so I told her about it. She bought it!

Dawn

I totally agree Dawn. I get along with my neighbors, I just never knew why no one ever talks to anyone. I have talked with my neighbors more in the last 2 years, than in the last 25 that we lived there. It took my puppy to get people to come out of there homes and talk. Our neighbor did come over right away and say his daughter wants to move to our area from Alabama. But we haven't heard anything since that first day he said it.

 

[RadioNate]

I totally agree Dawn. I get along with my neighbors, I just never knew why no one ever talks to anyone. I have talked with my neighbors more in the last 2 years, than in the last 25 that we lived there. It took my puppy to get people to come out of there homes and talk. Our neighbor did come over right away and say his daughter wants to move to our area from Alabama. But we haven't heard anything since that first day he said it.

The pictures look mostly ok. The bathrooms look a little underdecorated & I don't know why they even need pics of the laundry room & so many angles of bedrooms.

I just looked at the flyer on my phone.

However, I know you are selling but do you really want your home address connected to your username all over the Internet?

 

[JanaDee]

I appreciate everyone's advice. Thank you.

Our stager came after our real estate booker took pictures of our house. She came the day we went to sign the contract. When she got to my house, she said I looked "shocked" when she asked if she could come take pictures. I should have said no.



I am not happy about the laundry room, I had clothes in washer and dryer and I needed to declutter the shelf more above the appliances. Same with sons room, it looks totally different now. The angle of the front of the house looks odd. We asked to have the side view of the house be the first picture. The 2 sheds look awful. One of the sheds we are working on and totally redoing on the inside and the outside is suppose to be old and rustic, but look like crap on the pictures. I felt she didn't need to put those on the site.

I am glad you removed the link.

 

[OhMari]

The pictures look mostly ok. The bathrooms look a little underdecorated & I don't know why they even need pics of the laundry room & so many angles of bedrooms.

I just looked at the flyer on my phone.

However, I know you are selling but do you really want your home address connected to your username all over the Internet?

I am glad you removed the link.

After I posted the link, I clicked on them and saw my address pop up, I totally forgot, and I thought, I better not, but thanks for looking out for me too.

 

[arminnie]

The bathrooms look a little underdecorated & I don't know why they even need pics of the laundry room.

As a buyer I don't care if your bathroom is decorated. I don't care about anything that is not staying.

And I do want to see the laundry room. First of all - is there a laundry room.? Does it have a sink? Does it have cabinets? Does it require stackables? Does it have a place to fold or room for an ironing board? Will my pedestal w/d fit there? Not that any of those are deal breakers but nice to know.

 

[bethy]

In my mind the three most important strategies are:

1) remove at least 1/2 of your stuff from your home (rent a storage unit if necessary). All personal stuff should be removed.

2) have the house absolutely perfect before it goes live and before the pictures are taken. You only have one time to make a first impression. People will click through and never come back to look if they dont' like what they see.

3) Have the pictures online be of outstanding quality - someone with some photographic talent should take those critical pics. You've got to get people in the door.

 

[Monykalyn]

Regardless of how much you dislike your neighbors, don't put them off. DH is a realtor and he says often a neighbor sells a house...
The three most important things in real estate...location, location, location. If your location is good and the house is priced appropriately for the condition it's in, it will sell.

Bought and sold 3 homes in last 16 years (currently in 4th house in 3rd state)

First is neighbors are very importantur last house before this one the neighborhood apparently drove a lot of prospective buyers off. what was so bad about neighbors? Well-they liked to talk to each other, frequently had impromptu BBQ's, lots of kids running around (there was lots of woods, walking trail, creek, and neighborhood playground 2 houses away). So it took a family who loved the neighbor feel (us) to buy a beautiful brand new house for less than market value (builder was starting to get desperate). We upgraded nearly everything in the house in the 5 years we were there (did work ourselves) and sold within 3 weeks with competing offers in a "crashed" housing market (to be fair-the area we were in never had the big "high" so it did not have a big "low" either) for 5 digit profit. (Thank You HGTV )

The Realtor is all important: we used the one who sold us our house originally when we sold it because we knew how hard she worked (we moved from out of state and she was always sending us listings and planning for when we were in town). A good realtor will continually keep your listing in other realtors minds...

Good Luck-remember it only takes one buyer to have that "Sold" sign out!!

 

[Shanna-like-Banana]

When we sold our home in Texas we made sure it was in our contract how the realtor would advertise the home.

We had a brokers open, our agent provided lunch on Wednesday. We had our first open house the following Sunday. And another the following Sunday. We had a third scheduled, but didn't need it.

over 30 agents attended the free lunch, and we had just as many bring clients to the open house. We ended up with 3 offers from the open house

She set up an appt. for a professional photographer to come on Monday morning and photograph the home and they had until the brokers open on Weds. to edit the photos and create an online sale link. (like you see all the time, online)

We had colored sales flyers and on the back of the flyer was the floor plan and approx room dimensions.

Aside from the brokers open and open house, she showed the house many many times, and other agents showed it just as many times as well.

I really truly believe doing the brokers open helped.

Our neighbors directly across and diagonal across are both for sale ( side by side) neither of them have even had an open house or really done anything to "sell" the home.

 

[Happy Snowman]

Open Houses will not sell your house! The only thing it will accomplish is allowing your neighbors to walk thru your house to be nosy.

Make sure your realtor has a great photographer to take flattering pictures of the inside rooms in your house. Kitchen, Living room, Master bedroom and Master bath are important pics to show as well as your backyard.
Ask your realtor to show you his/her marketing plan, what internet sites it will be on, Zillow, Trulia, realtor.com-just to name a few are all ways people will be able to look at your home.

Never turn down a potential showing as you never know which showing will be the "one".
Most importantly, make sure your house smells fantastic!! Have the carpets professionally cleaned, all baseboards really clean, fix anything that is broken like leaky faucets, cracks in walls, windows really clean etc. If people see anything wrong, they automatically will think the house could have other things wrong regardless if it does or not.

Plant some flowers by the front door.
Get rid of any signs of animals and dog dishes.
Play soft music during showings
Take down any personal family pictures so people can "see" themselves living in the house. Plus its good for security as well. (this way people won't know how many kids you have, girls vs. boys, etc.

Best of Luck! Its a good time of year as people always seem to be looking especially as back to school gets close.

Only give your realtor 4 month listings. Three if you can. That way, if you really don't like the job they are doing, you can go with someone else.

We have moved and sold 9 houses and not one was ever sold in an open house.

Open houses really depend on your market--we lived in an area where EVERYONE sold on an open house. You rarely had individual tours unless someone wanted a second look. It was kind of a strange real estate market. In another town we lived in, if you had an open house it pretty much meant something was wrong with the house so you never wanted to have an open house.

I appreciate everyone's advice. Thank you.

Our stager came after our real estate booker took pictures of our house. She came the day we went to sign the contract. When she got to my house, she said I looked "shocked" when she asked if she could come take pictures. I should have said no.



I am not happy about the laundry room, I had clothes in washer and dryer and I needed to declutter the shelf more above the appliances. Same with sons room, it looks totally different now. The angle of the front of the house looks odd. We asked to have the side view of the house be the first picture. The 2 sheds look awful. One of the sheds we are working on and totally redoing on the inside and the outside is suppose to be old and rustic, but look like crap on the pictures. I felt she didn't need to put those on the site.

Personally, I would not have listed the house until all the work was done. With the internet now, if the photos don't look nice, people won't look. If you have fixed the things you don't like in the photos, ask your realtor to come back and take new photos to put on the internet then change the price slightly so it shows up as a new listing.

 

[tvguy]

Open houses really depend on your market--we lived in an area where EVERYONE sold on an open house. You rarely had individual tours unless someone wanted a second look. It was kind of a strange real estate market. In another town we lived in, if you had an open house it pretty much meant something was wrong with the house so you never wanted to have an open house.

It certainly could be different in some markets, but the general assumption in the industry is Open Houses are places for Real Estate agents to meet potential clients for other houses.