A few weeks ago we kicked off a new series: How-To: Sell Your Home in a Down Market with an overview of the important factors that home sellers must address if they want to succeed in selling their homes in today’s market:
- Pricing
- Marketing
- Cleaning
- Extras
Rather than tackling these in the above order of priority, we’re going to hit them in chronological order. Therefore, today we’re going to take a closer look at the first thing you should do when you decide you are serious about selling your house: cleaning.
If you really want to sell your house, you’re going to have to do a lot more than just vacuum the floors and dust the shelves. A proper pre-sale cleaning is a thorough deep-clean of the inside and outside.
Here’s a good starting checklist for your pre-sale cleaning:
- Steam-clean the carpets and/or buff/shine the hardwood floors.
- Take everything off the walls and wash them.
- If it’s been more than a few years since the interior has been painted or if you have any walls that are “bold” colors, put on a fresh coat of paint in a neutral color.
- Pressure-wash the roof (edit: use caution or another method if your roof is asphalt shingles).
- Put on a fresh coat of exterior paint or pressure-wash the siding.
- Manicure the landscaping: pull the weeds, mow the lawn, prune the bushes & trees, kill anything growing in your driveway or sidewalks, put down some fresh mulch around the bushes and flowers.
- Clean every window, inside and out.
- Clean out the gutters.
- Thoroughly clean inside and out any appliances that stay (oven, fridge, etc.)
- Take down and wash any light fixtures with dust / dead bug buildup.
- De-clutter and simplify every room.
You can do these things yourself, or hire a professional. Either way you will probably be spending between a few hundred and a few thousand dollars, but by presenting a high-quality product you will be reducing the buyer’s ability (and desire) to negotiate a lower price.
Pay special attention to maximizing your “curb appeal” through pre-sale cleaning. The first impression your house makes on the potential buyer will set the mood for their entire viewing. You want a house that says “you would be proud to live here” from the moment they drive up.
It is also impossible to over-stress the importance of de-cluttering. A lot has been made recently of “home staging” to improve a home’s chances of selling. Paying a professional home stager is the easiest way to de-clutter your home, but you can accomplish much of the same results by doing a few simple things on your own:
- Take down all personal decorations: family photos, etc.
- Eliminate any furniture that looks old or “eclectic”
- Sparsely furnish each room, making sure that all furniture and decor fits the overall “feel”
If you’re the DIY type, the best way to prepare the interior of your house may be to go through the house one room at a time and completely empty the room, clean the floors, paint the walls, then “stage” it per the suggestions above.
The end result of a thorough inside and out deep-cleaning will be a house that looks great in pictures, and makes potential buyers say “wow” when they see it in person. If you truly want to get the best price possible for your home, do not put it on the market until you have achieved the “wow factor.”
How-To: Sell Your Home in a Down Market
Categories: Features
Tags: advice, buyer's market, cleaning, how-to, sellers, staging
We spend a lot of time on here with posts directed toward helping home buyers to do their research and make smart decisions, but the housing market is made up of buyers and sellers, so let’s turn our attention toward home sellers.
Just a few short years ago, the home-selling process went something like this:
- Put your home on the market in any condition.
- Receive multiple offers within a month for 10-20% over asking price.
- Profit!
Sadly for you (the home seller), it’s not quite that easy any more. Average days on market for sold homes has gone from the mid-30s at the height of the bubble to the upper 80s today. Meanwhile, thousands of homes continue to sit on the market month after month, as the average time on market for unsold homes has climbed to nearly four months.
If your home is one of those that are sitting on the market unsold, or if you’re thinking about putting your house on the market, don’t just sit on your hands and hope that buyers will want to buy your home. The housing market is a competition, and you need to be proactive to grab the attention of a buyer pool that is much smaller than it was during the bubble.
In order of priority, here are the things you need to focus on and get right when you put your house on the market:
- Pricing
- Marketing
- Cleaning
- Extras
The first three are critical, and make up the absolute minimum requirements for what any home seller should do if they really want to sell their home for a fair market price. Unfortunately, many sellers only tackle #2 (i.e. – list it on the MLS), and then wonder why their home isn’t selling.
We will go into each of these points in detail with dedicated posts in the coming weeks, giving sellers the tools they need to appropriately price, market, and clean their homes to attract a buyer.
For today, I’d like to hear from anyone who has recently been successful at selling a home. What tips do you have for sellers that are watching their home sit on the market for months? What should a potential seller do before they list their home?
How-To: Sell Your Home in a Down Market
Categories: Features
Tags: advice, buyer's market, how-to, sellers
By The Tim on September 2nd, 2008 at 12:56 PM · 76 Comments
So now that Puget Sound counties have been in a “buyer’s market” for around a year, there are probably some good deals to be found out there. But how do you find them?
To be clear, my personal opinion is that we’re still in for another year or two of declining prices. However, I’m sure there are some that see the drop we’ve had so far as “good enough,” and just want to buy a home now even if prices drop further. If that’s you, here are a few suggestions of how to start.
Look for houses that have been owned for a long time. Sellers that bought their house in the last 4-5 years are likely to have unrealistic expectations of price appreciation, while someone that bought in the pre-bubble years is more likely to accept a price that reflects 3-5% yearly appreciation. The bigger the equity cushion the seller is sitting on, the lower they can afford to drop their price.
Look in the weakest neighborhoods. The NWMLS publishes “neighborhood” data for King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties. You can also spend some time looking on Redfin, where they are now publishing nifty stats by city, neighborhood or zip code (full details on this post).
Look for houses that have been on the market longer. This one’s pretty obvious, but a lot of “casual” buyers tend to write off homes that have been on the market for a long time, even if they’ve had significant price reductions. Especially with the NWMLS recently allowing cumulative days on market (CDOM) to be published on public sites, it is difficult for a seller to escape the stigma of being on the market for a long time. If they really need to sell, they’re likely to take a lower offer.
If you are using an agent, be upfront about what you’re looking for. Some agents are happy to help you make lowball offers on as many properties as you want, but others will consider such a buyer to be a waste of their time. It’s better for both of you that you be forthcoming at the start about what you’ll be asking them to do. This goes for discount brokers like Redfin, too.
Those are some basic strategies I would use if I were actively in the market right now. What tactics would you suggest? What about those of you that are out there now or have recently bought? How are you finding good deals in what is still largely an overpriced market?
Categories: Features
Tags: buyer's market, how-to
