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Fix it tips, for selling a house.
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 2008-01-08 3:04 PM |
Master  2468    Muskego, Wisconsin |  Subject: Fix it tips, for selling a house.My wife and I are planning on putting our house on the market next month even though we don't move until Dec. We'd rather rent a place for 8 months then struggle with trying to sell late in the year. We also like that we won't be forced to sell because we're out of time. I'd like to know what YOU look at when looking to buy a new home. For instance my Dad walks into a home and immediately notices how good or bad the paint looks, my mother in law has a thing for molding and windows. Anything that can be fixed and should be fixed before putting a house on the market. This house is only 2 1/2 years old but I want to make sure I cover all my bases. Oh yea, I know it's a terrible time to put a house up but my wife is a Navy Doc so we're leaving in December. Which we think is great because we're not too thrilled about Jacksonville and as of right now we're either going to Virigina Beach (lots of family), or Okinawa (cool). Thanks, Chris |
| 2008-01-08 3:17 PM in reply to: #1142927 |
Master 1914  Finally north of the Mason-Dixon Line | Subject: RE: Fix it tips, for selling a house. SMELLS IN THE HOME.... be careful of what you cook the night before a showing. Cooked cabbage just doesn't make me want to buy. Walls - i WILL NEVER buy another house that has wallpaper in it. My nightmares of removing wallpaper are too many to share - so if possible remove any and paint with nice nuetral color. Plus clean up base boards and slap a fresh coat of paint on if needed. street appearance or the curb appeal... Smell above all is #1. have a batch of chocolate chip cookies baked the morning of a showing... and turn all lights on in the house when you show... I really liked walking into a house and seeing everything right away - one house even had soft music playing. we didn't buy that house (didn't move to San Antonio) but I remember the house... make the house memorable when showing. Good luck selling! |
| 2008-01-08 3:58 PM in reply to: #1142927 |
Pro 6838 Tejas | Subject: RE: Fix it tips, for selling a house. Remove all personal items like family photos and such from view. Seeing who lives in the house can put a negative spin on the showing(odd, but true). Clean and tidy is a must. Keep the yard and garage in order. Seeing things all messy sets a negative tone in the buyers mind, makes em think upkeep on the property will be too much. The fresh baked cookies is a home run, as is the lighting. Make the inside of your home as light and bright as possible for a daytime showing. Go with a more subdued tone fror evening. Put a new coat of shellac or paint on the front door and sweep the entryway of leaves and debris. Anything that shines in the kitchen should be polished and smart looking. Edited by mdg2003 2008-01-08 4:00 PM |
| 2008-01-08 4:02 PM in reply to: #1142927 |
Champion 34263 Chicago | Subject: RE: Fix it tips, for selling a house. Clean behind the appliances, get little things like the cabinet doors aligned and be sure EVERYTHING works!!! Paint is easy and cheap to do, replace the carpet in a room if it's old and nasty, which isn't TOO expensive and for crying out loud clean the windows. It may not be perfect, but give the appearance that it is. |
| 2008-01-08 4:11 PM in reply to: #1143221 |
Pro 3906 Libertyville, IL | Subject: RE: Fix it tips, for selling a house. mdg2003 - 2008-01-08 3:58 PM Remove all personal items like family photos and such from view. Seeing who lives in the house can put a negative spin on the showing(odd, but true). Especially if it is an 80s-esque glamour shot of the Mrs like we saw at our first house. Gorgeous cheesy white fur of some kind. Raaaawwwr!! |
| 2008-01-08 4:17 PM in reply to: #1142927 |
Alpharetta, Georgia Bronze member | Subject: RE: Fix it tips, for selling a house. De-clutter. x2 on putting away most personal items like family photos, hobby-related items, or things that would make them focus on you and not your lovely house. Stage rooms for their original intent. |
| 2008-01-08 4:52 PM in reply to: #1143322 |
Champion 8540 the colony texas | Subject: RE: Fix it tips, for selling a house. fresh paint, good carpets, and windows that are in good condition are things I look for first after that I check in no order to see if the Roof, AC/heating look like they have been maintained well... Usually I'm looking for a piece of mind that I'm not going to be having any large expenses in the first couple of years. |
| 2008-01-08 5:38 PM in reply to: #1142927 |
Champion 4942 Richmond, VA | Subject: RE: Fix it tips, for selling a house. When we sold our townhouse in Naperville (outside of Chicago), we took a very long weekend, rented a small moving truck and got a storage unit. We removed about half of the furniture and ALL the extra stuff we were storing. It was a boatload of work and do have to admit that we ended up making a couple trips to the storage unit to retrieve things we accidentally packed away.
BUT, the house was on the market for 6 days and after 3 showings - got an offer. Granted this was 4+ years ago, but we were one of 4 of the same model units for sale and there were a total of 18 units all together for sale in our complex. Removing excess furniture and clutter can make the place feel HUGE! |
| 2008-01-08 5:41 PM in reply to: #1143221 |
Pro 6838 Tejas | Subject: RE: Fix it tips, for selling a house. mdg2003 - 2008-01-08 3:58 PM Remove all personal items like family photos and such from view. Seeing who lives in the house can put a negative spin on the showing(odd, but true). Clean and tidy is a must. Keep the yard and garage in order. Seeing things all messy sets a negative tone in the buyers mind, makes em think upkeep on the property will be too much. The fresh baked cookies is a home run, as is the lighting. Make the inside of your home as light and bright as possible for a daytime showing. Go with a more subdued tone fror evening. Put a new coat of shellac or paint on the front door and sweep the entryway of leaves and debris. Anything that shines in the kitchen should be polished and smart looking. Wow, I sounded like Martha Stewart there.... |
| 2008-01-08 5:49 PM in reply to: #1143536 |
Champion 4942 Richmond, VA | Subject: RE: Fix it tips, for selling a house. mdg2003 - 2008-01-08 6:41 PM ...Anything that shines in the kitchen should be polished and smart looking. Wow, I sounded like Martha Stewart there....
Wow! - words I live by when cooking a stellar meal wearing my expensive watch...
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| 2008-01-08 6:01 PM in reply to: #1142927 |
Elite 3022 Preferably on my bike somewhere | Subject: RE: Fix it tips, for selling a house. Okay - I'm an expert on this. Why? Because we sold our house in 1 week in Sept with multiple offers. Thats right. Sept. AND because we are looking at new houses right now. Does that make me an expert? No, not really, but work with me here... First, listen to your realtor on the PRICE. Get your ego out of the way, and listen to your realtor. We did for the most part, but we got really lucky on a few things. If the buyer had wanted to be a pain, he could have been. Hire an inspector, and fix everything on his/her list. Remember, it's a buyers market and that means you want to have your best foot forward for the showing. Remove clutter. Paint as much you can a neutral color. Ask you realtor what the hot colors are. When we moved into our old house, we painted the kitchen a deep red. Turns out deep red kitchens are hot these days. Again, we got lucky. We should have painted everything neutral. Look closely at your carpeting. Anything need to be replaced? If you need to, rent one of those storage boxes for your driveway. Put all the unnecessary stuff in it temporarily. Again, listen to your realtor. What you think the house is worth is meaningless in this market. You don't have the luxury of doing that in this market. LISTEN TO YOUR REALTOR.  No, I'm not a realtor, but I did sleep on a futon mattress last night... |
| 2008-01-09 1:07 AM in reply to: #1142927 |
Pro 4339 Husker Nation | Subject: RE: Fix it tips, for selling a house. My wife and I updated all our old flooring, cleaned the windows, and put some almond oil on the cabinets - oh baby what a SHINE! And they smelled REALLY good too. I couldn't believe the difference that made. You said your house is only 2-1/2 years old so I have a feeling you're competing with new construction. Have your agent pull some comps of new homes as well as homes that are as old as yours. There may not be a whole lot of re-sales [when people buy a new home they tend to stay there more than a couple years] so this might require some digging, even searching in a neighboring/competing subdivision. People are willing to pay more for new construction because it's new so be willing to slide the price in just below those homes. My boss always tells people that women buy houses so spiff up the kitchen and baths especially. All the other advice on de-cluttering, neutralizing, and moving excess furniture out is spot-on. We did the above mentioned things [except the house was 16 years old so I didn't have the new construction competition] and sold the house for $15,000 more than I had paid for it two years earlier. Might not sound like much, but when you start at $75,000 it's a huge return on investment. Oh- also there's a book by HGTV called Designed to Sell [based off the show] that has some good pointers in it too. Might be worth checking out! Good luck! |
| 2008-01-09 7:58 AM in reply to: #1142927 |
Extreme Veteran 363 Georgia | Subject: RE: Fix it tips, for selling a house. My sister spent a weekend decluttering, cleaning and staging her house. (my other sister the artist helped) she also planted flowers (curb appeal is essential). She sold her house in 1 week and got 11,000 more than what she had paid for it less than 2 years before. (in a podunk town no less). If you don't have an eye for staging, hire a decorater to rearrange your stuff for you. |
| 2008-01-09 8:37 AM in reply to: #1142927 |
Master 2468 Muskego, Wisconsin | Subject: RE: Fix it tips, for selling a house. Thanks for all the tips. We've already been moving stuff into a storage unit for the last week. I've been painting and cleaning. Next weekend we work the yard. I really appreciate all your advice. Thanks again, Chris |
| 2008-01-09 8:44 AM in reply to: #1142927 |
Champion 16151 Checkin' out the podium girls | Subject: RE: Fix it tips, for selling a house. Can you somehow motivate the neighbors? We looked at a few houses we would have bought, but 1-2 others on the street were really bad. You can picture the lifestyle you'd have with your neighbor having Atvs and ruts in their backyard which abuts your potential new one. We immediately dismissed a nice house. |
| 2008-01-09 8:57 AM in reply to: #1142927 |
Champion 4902 Ottawa, Ontario | Subject: RE: Fix it tips, for selling a house. We sold our house last year in about a week. My wife argued with the realtor over the selling price but eventually, she listened to reason. A few things we did to accelerate the sale:
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