What would make you buy this house

[dfchelbay]

Well, it's nearly that time...time to sell our house. Looking around at all the for sale signs and on the internet for all the homes on the market, it's just an overwhelming feeling. From a fiscally responsible standpoint, we really should get out of this house. Even though our home has lost value due to the housing crisis and economy, the cost for staying in this home keeps increasing. Property taxes continue to rise, utilities keep going up, homeowners insurance keeps going up, etc. We want to get ahead of this now.

So, my question to you all is with all the homes to choose from, what would make you buy my home? What would you look for in purchasing a home? I am beginning the decluttering/depersonalizing, etc. What else should I be doing. What lures you in when looking at homes for sale? What turns you off when looking at a home. Our home has neutral colors, except the the upstairs carpet that came with the house. It's a rose color and is still in excellent shape. I don't want to pay to re-do the upstairs floors, so that may be a drawback. My kitchen is newer, but not granite counters, which might be a drawback. Two of the bathrooms have wallpaper. I'm not sure how buyers feel about that nowadays.

So, what is it that you, the buyer, is looking for today. What are the current trends/must haves in buying a home. We have lived here so long that I'm not sure what the potential buyers are into these days. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Help us figure out what will make our house standout from the rest in this flooded with homes market. Thanks all.

 

[SunnieRN]

Depending upon the style/decorative pattern, etc., you may want to pull out the wallpaper and paint the bathrooms a neutral color.

One way to keep from changing out floors/carpet, is to offer a carpet allowance. Some people looking for a good buy love the idea that they can use the $$$ to pick what they want.

Don't forget to spruce up the outside of your home. Curb appeal will often make or break a sale! It can also affect the asking price, if people see the potential for a LOT of work to just get the yard looking decent (weeds, over grown shrubs etc.)

The greatest tip I learned, in my real estate days, was to have soft music playing and something baking in the oven, or just baked, to fill up the house with great smells. Used to bake cookies at all my open houses!

Biggest sales tip, price according to market values! Get information regarding all sales that occured recently in your area. Sometimes if your home is priced $2000 below another house the same size, they will look at your house first, due to a slightly lower price tag! That's a biggie!

If you are trying to do a FSBO, make sure to have a flyer they can pick up to remind them how nice your house really is!!

Good luck!!

 

[hanutedmansionmomma]

clean clean clean. nothing on counters, no personal photos. no wallpaper! edit your furniture - don't have something on every wall. show me there's room for all my stuff and then some. make the backyard/patio look nice, put out plants, have a seating area, nice grill, etc. That's where we sat at the end of our tour when we were deciding to buy our current house, and I could see myself sitting there and we bought it!
oh, make sure the house doesn't smell like animals

good luck!

 

[jessiesue]

I cringe when I see wall paper! I had too many bad experiences with taking down wallpaper. It shouldn't be costly for you to take it down, just time consuming.

 

[vicki_c]

Aside from what to do in/around the house - make sure you set the price right as someone said above. Without the right price to draw people in for a first look, the rest of the stuff won't make a difference. Go low.

This is based on my own experience selling my house in Florida in 2006. We just couldn't let go of the price we wanted (although we did reduce our price multiple times - we weren't fast enough to do that, or aggressive enough about it) and it took about 11 months for my house to sell. It was very painful paying 2 mortgages for all that time, and we are still recovering from that financially.

It was also suggested to me to price it below some $x00,000 mark. For example, if you were thinking $260K, price it at $249K. Or $305K to $299K. When people search using the real estate search engines, you want to be on the lower side of those search engine cut-offs so more people see your listing.

 

[phins_jazy]

We're doing the same thing right now. Neutral, neutral, neutral! We have to paint almost every room in our house. Declutter. Make every room look large and spacious. Take out extra unnecessary furniture for the time being. I'm in the process of packing up my sewing room. I really don't want to but if it helps the house sell I'm all for it. Next weekend is fresh mulch in the front yard. Make sure everything has a place and is put in it's place. Good luck to you! There are 3 other houses for sale on our block. It's gonna be tough.

 

[dfchelbay]

OP here - Thanks for the replies and keep them coming.

What are your thoughts on gardens? Our Front, back and side yards are all completely landscaped. Huge perennial beds, arbors, a pond, etc. All low maintenance plants, nothing major to upkeep. They're pretty self sustaining, just a nice edging in the spring and a little fall clean up. It makes for lots of seating areas to lounge outside.

Will all these plants be something that will frighten you off, or make you want to stay?

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

If I liked the floorplan, layout....here is what motivated us to buy the home that we did...

Presentable color palette. The home we bought was a foreclosure and in desparate need of paint. It's condition influenced our offer and negotiation as we would need cash to paint. The walls were filthy. Cleaning them and making sure trim work was finished would have allowed for a better offer. Work to be done = lower offer. (we offered a fair price btw---but if the bank got very glued to their asking price, we could not buy.)

the rose carpet...is that in the main space? I ask...because if someone desired to change it..that is work. It isn't a neutral. I might buy an area rug that is neutral to downplay the rose. It wouldn't affect my offer as long as I liked everything else I saw.

I have a family...I want to look at a house and picture my family. I also am very deficient in being able to "look past" space planning issues. If a room is crowded with furniture and appears small...All the measuring tape in the workld won't help. Rooms must look larger than they appear.

The kitchen---same idea. I'd it isn't a permanent applaince...it needs to be off the counter.

Sometimes you cannot help your layout.
I.e. If you have a 3br, but I really want 4---even though I am considering either...a home that does have the 4th bedroom will beat yours unless you had other space like a lr and fr.

Also on listings--I really prefer pictures of the interior over the exterior and if
room sizes are listed, that helps as well. The last thing I wanted to
do was waste my time, your time, and the realtor's time looking at a property that isn't a good fit from a layout pov. And wide Angle lenses and trick photography annoy me. I often find it deceitful depending in the situation. I don't want to be tricked into expecting one thing and getting to a home tHat isn't as advertised.

 

[DisneyFan32WI]

Haven't read other responses.....

1. Landscaping
2. Neutral paint throughout house
3. Hardwood floors
4. No wallpaper

 

[tileman]

Will all these plants be something that will frighten you off, or make you want to stay?

Not me I always thank a good & nice yard says the owner took care of the rest of the house.

Ron.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

OP here - Thanks for the replies and keep them coming.

What are your thoughts on gardens? Our Front, back and side yards are all completely landscaped. Huge perennial beds, arbors, a pond, etc. All low maintenance plants, nothing major to upkeep. They're pretty self sustaining, just a nice edging in the spring and a little fall clean up. It makes for lots of seating areas to lounge outside.

Will all these plants be something that will frighten you off, or make you want to stay?

I do NOT have a green thumb. But I LOVE beautiful landscaping. Do you have grass in your yard? The only thing I can think of is an open area that children can play or I can envision a swing set. Not that I would put one up or anything.

My only issue is allergies. If I don't LOVE your house bit you had something like oodles of azaleas...or the one house we saw that had three magnolia trees, it would affect my ability to live there. But I can pull them out if it is too much. I'd leave all the plant life in.

 

[bootleg89]

As far as ur landscaping goes, I'd say it's a plus. two yrs ago when I bought, that was something nice to see. Even though I hate them. We bought a house with beutiful landscaping, and needless to say I've removed about half of it cuz I'm just not a flower person but I loved looking at it when I was looking. Just make sure yo have it well cared for... no weeds, trimmed, edged and so on. It shows you took care of the house, inside and out.
Also include as many pictures as you can in your online ad. I skipped looking at some houses because the few pics they included didn't seem to appeal to me.
Good luck.

 

[shortbun]

We painted every room and updated every bathroom as well as the kitchen. We refinished the wood floors, painted the outside and bought new gutters. Because it had lots of updates, we priced it in the top of the comps. It sold in 9 days. We had also moved out so it was a blank canvas as far as houses go and it was immediately available.

 

[prncess674]

Will all these plants be something that will frighten you off, or make you want to stay?

Makes me want to stay. Maybe if you post some photos of your interior and exterior and people can give you some suggestions. Also make sure that the photos your realtor posts are flattering to your home. I am amazed at how many listings I looked at online had photos with poor lighting, bad angles, blurry. Personally I like a house to look neutral but not necessarily staged. If it doesn't look like someone could possibly living in the area I started to get worried about things.

 

[StephMK]

I depends on who would be the typical market for your house. Is it a family home/neighborhood? When we looked 3 yrs ago, we looked for # of bedrooms, location and school districts. Past that, we needed a house w/no cats living there, clean, decent lay out. I can look past wallpaper (and did) but I know for many it's a huge turnoff.

A beautiful, low maintenance garden would be a huge plus in my mind. We bought in Dec and everything was snow covered. There were not many flowers at all, mostly green shrubs. We still haven't done much w/the landscaping but I hope to add many perennials eventually. I might add a note or paper describing the low maintenance aspects of your garden. Some might see all those areas and picture lots of upkeep required.

When I shopped online before flying out, pictures made a huge difference. Do not let your realtor post dark pics or unattractive views w/clutter. I don't know if people don't check or aren't aware, but I never understand why those listings are in there. When we sold our old place, I stayed on top of our realtor and made sure the listing was accurate and favorable. She had a wonderful photographer & great flyers for us.

The home we bought was dated but extremely clean and had all white walls and 2 rooms with wallpaper. Neutrals would be great throughout to appeal to more buyers. There are lots of minor ways to update things to look more current. Light fixtures, faucets, bath countertops and new throw rugs and towels all go a long way to freshen things up.

Good luck!!

 

[LuLuO]

I don't know if this was mentioned but take good photos for online and for flyers. Don't show the same five shots of the back yard. Don't show three shots of the toilet. And make sure there is enough light for the shots. Open the blinds and pull back the curtains for a lot of them.

When I am looking at something online or in a flyer I want to see one good shot of the front of the house and a couple of shots of the back yard and back of the house with green grass and blue sky. Bright and cheerful.

I too like to see more photos of the inside than the outside.

If there are any light fixtures you are taking with you, take them down and replace them with something else.

Make sure the house is very clean including the bathrooms.

Declutter your closets too. I opened every closet and every cabinet. Not to be a snoop, but because it really let me see if the house was going to have enough storage space for us. If the closets were jammed packed with stuff it was a big turn off.

In addition to decluttering make sure things look clean and orderly and organized.

 

[Grumpy's Gal]

clean, clean clean!!!!! We looked at a lovely (really, it was) home one time and we walked into the kitchen and the front of the oven door had spg sauce splattered all over it. That was ten years ago and we still call it the spaghetti sauce house ever time we drive by.

When we moved, I made a three ring binder of our home. We sold in the spring when the flowers hadn't yet come up so I included pictures of what the house looked like in the summer with the flowers. I also included a spread sheet of who did what -- how often we had our furnace serviced and what company in town did it (I included their business card), what company in town fertilized the lawn (I included their business card), etc. I also included all the information, when we had the roof replaced, when we had the AC replaced, etc. I also included the original manuals that came with the frig and other appliances that we were including in the house. People really seemed to like to book and it cost me about an hour to put it together.

 

[LuLuO]

When we moved, I made a three ring binder of our home. We sold in the spring when the flowers hadn't yet come up so I included pictures of what the house looked like in the summer with the flowers. I also included a spread sheet of who did what -- how often we had our furnace serviced and what company in town did it (I included their business card), what company in town fertilized the lawn (I included their business card), etc. I also included all the information, when we had the roof replaced, when we had the AC replaced, etc. I also included the original manuals that came with the frig and other appliances that we were including in the house. People really seemed to like to book and it cost me about an hour to put it together.

Great idea!

 

[clutter]

Location location location.

I just bought a new house because it was within walking distance of schools. Nice lot, great floorplan, recently painted (although I'm repainting in my colors). I will have to re-do the kitchen and bathrooms, but for the price I paid, I can.

I sold my old house quickly because of location. It is the least expensive single family neighborhood that goes to some 'name' schools here. It was all neutral colors throughout (the main floor was neutral with a green/gray tint). Had the deck repainted and the house powerwashed. I'd already pulled a lot of the overgrown landscaping.


So top three would be location, floor plan, price.

 

[LuLuO]

Location location location.

I just bought a new house because it was within walking distance of schools. Nice lot, great floorplan, recently painted (although I'm repainting in my colors). I will have to re-do the kitchen and bathrooms, but for the price I paid, I can.

I sold my old house quickly because of location. It is the least expensive single family neighborhood that goes to some 'name' schools here. It was all neutral colors throughout (the main floor was neutral with a green/gray tint). Had the deck repainted and the house powerwashed. I'd already pulled a lot of the overgrown landscaping.


So top three would be location, floor plan, price.

Sure, but OP can't change the location or the floorplan.