HOME STAGING TIP OF THE MONTH from Kay McWhirter, of Staging Birmingham

When should you paint?  Perhaps your walls and trim just need a good scrubbing to remove scuff marks.  But if they are severely marked, banged up and/or peeling, then painting is your best option.  Or if some of the rooms are painted in colors that you love but may not appeal to the greatest number of potential buyers, then it’s time to paint.  Paint is an inexpensive and effective way to update your home. 

What colors should I select?  Select a color palette that unifies the home and allows the eye to flow easily from room to room – perhaps 3 to 5 colors plus your ceiling and trim colors.  I suggest neutral colors for the public rooms with soft colors for the bedrooms if additional color is desired.  Paint your trim and doors the same color throughout the house.   If you have crown molding, a painted ceiling can really make it pop! 

 Kay recently staged a vacant home that had been listed for nearly a year.  We had a contract within 3 weeks after staging, and the closing was July 30th!  Woo Hoo!

Contact Kay if you need a color consultation or want to discuss staging your home to sell faster.  Birmingham Real Estate sells faster when it’s properly staged and looks its best.

Kay McWhirter Home Staging and Design Consultant www.stagingbirmingham.com 205.531.8725

How to Price Your Home When You List it For Sale

Many sellers will agonize for hours over how to price their home when they’re getting ready to put it on the market.  Sellers and agents will pour over recently sold comps and analyze other active properties with which they are competing (don’t get me wrong, research is important to making an informed decision, but you have to know the other factors, too.)  The sellers and agents finally settle on a price that “sounds” right, usually ending in “something something, $500,” or “something something $900″.  And for what?  Do they, then, EVER get an offer that equals their asking price?  Not in this market!  Any price you set only guarantees a lower offer, and from that point, sellers and their potential buyer must negotiate to an actual contract price that both will agree on.  So how SHOULD sellers approach the pricing process?

At Crawford Realty, we know that, beyond the house itself, the most important marketing tool you have is your asking price.  Your price must do two things for you:  1.) It must net you a high enough offer to be able to sell for what you absolutely need to get out of it and, 2.) It must land your home in the right ballpark for buyers who are looking to buy a property like yours.  In regard to #1, you, therefore, must know how much you need to walk away with in order to payoff your existing mortgage, pay your commissions and closing costs, and make the profit you absolutely need to be able to move on, buy your next place, and relocate your stuff.  Crawford agents can help you figure out what that number is, but you can probably come pretty close on your own, too.  This, in large part, will determine what your listing price ballpark will be once you add in some reasonable number for negotiating room.   In regard to #2, understand that buyers will search in a minimum to maximum price range, based on what they ultimately plan to pay.  When you price your home to get the maximum marketing exposure, it’s really only important that you get your home in the right range…the right ballpark, so to speak, so that the right potential buyers will see it when they search the range.  They’re going to make you a lower offer anyway, so anywhere in the right range that you can price it will get their visibility. 

Two things sell homes…timing and exposure.  You only need one buyer, so the timing of getting buyer and seller together is critical, but you may have only limited control over that.  Your buyer could be the first person who sees it, or it might take 6 months or more to make the right connection.   You have to ride this one out.  Exposure…now that’s where you can be more proactive.  It’s all about eyeballs on your listing.  The more potential buyers who see it, the more likely you will get an offer.  To that end, if it’s at all possible, we recommend trying to price it EXACTLY ON one of the natural pricing breakpoints that are often choices potential buyers must choose from a dropdown box when they search.  For instance, on many real estate search engines, selections run in $25,000 increments, i.e.; $125,000, $150,000, $175,000, $200,000.  If your house falls in the range (ballpark) Between $125,000-$150,000, you might naturally think of pricing it at $149,900.  Sounds good, like, you know, less than $150,000, right?  Wrong.  Bad mistake.  For the sake of $100, you have cut your internet visibility in half.  Why?  Because $149,900 falls in the $125,000-$150,000 range, and only that range.  But if you price it at $150,000, you double your visibility, and show up to twice as many people because that EXACT number falls in two price ranges.  So now, everyone searching from $125,000 to $175,000 sees you.  You are at the top of the $125,000-$150,000 range and at the bottom of the $150,000-$175,000 range.  Voila!  twice the exposure by merely raising your price $100.  So if the price you need to get is anywhere near one of those natural break points, GET ON THAT NUMBER!  Simple enough.  It amazes me how many agents haven’t figured this out, and you will see it time and time again when you do your own searches.  The ones who miss out most often on this are usually very experienced agents who have run in their markets for years and years but who are not the least bit internet savvy.  Avoid them.  They might be less than up to speed on the other technological changes in the real estate business that dramatically drive the way it’s conducted today.

Now, there is one other big issue to consider, and over time I have looked at both angles on this situation.  I used to feel that a lower price would bring more offers.  So I would advise people to price their property as close to their actual bottom line acceptable number as possible, and then, when they received an offer, just say, “I priced this as low as possible to sell quickly, but I don’t have much (or any) room to negotiate lower, so I have to get my asking price.  Certainly that worked in a seller’s market.  However, this market has done crazy things to people, and, over the last two to three years, it has become VERY important to buyers to be able to get a “deal” on a purchase.  (Witness the number of buyers looking for foreclosures, short sales, and desperate situations to take advantage of.)  For a buyer to be happy with a deal, I’ve increasingly observed that they need to feel like the won a big concession from a seller.  Therefore, it is now imperative to build a good bit of “wiggle room” into your price, so that when you receive a stupidly low offer, you can come down, give the buyer a concession, and still be at or above your minimum number and be able to accept a deal. 

Finally, a few thoughts to clean up this subject:  first, neither I nor any other Realtor(r) on the planet can possibly KNOW the price at which your house will sell, so if anyone tells you they do, show them the door, politely but quickly and firmly.  You must be responsible to determine your asking price, and you must be the one to determine whether or not you can or will accept whatever offers you receive.  There are a lot of considerations, but remember, Right Ballpark, Maximum Exposure, and Enough Wiggle Room to throw the buyer a bone if he wants one.  (Because of Crawford Realty’s reduced commission structure, our sellers automatically have a price advantage over their competition who have listed with a full-price agency:  they are going to save at LEAST 2.5% in commission, and maybe up to 5.5%, so they can negotiate to a lower selling price and still make the proceeds they need.  Sorry for the plug, but you couldn’t expect all this great thinking without getting at least ONE informercial!)  One caveat:  even when buyer and seller agree on a deal, it’s not a deal until the appraiser and the buyer’s loan underwriter agree that the house is worth the purchase price.  If not, the buyer cannot get financing.  Either the deal dies, the buyer has to come up with the difference in more cash, or the seller has to drop the price to the appraised value to get the buyer’s loan funded.

How Reverse Offers Make Things Happen For Crawford Realty Clients

Here at Crawford Realty, we’ve always tried to build our business success (i.e.: selling YOUR home in the most efficient, flexible, and cost-effective way possible) on a lot of “Out of the Box” thinking. We don’t claim that all the good ideas are ours, but when we hear a good one, we try to incorporate it into a process that might help you sell your home faster. We think the idea of a REVERSE OFFER is pretty creative, and want to pass it on to you. We got this idea from our affiliate, Rhonda Duffy at Duffy Realty of Atlanta.

The idea of making something happen in this market (or any other) is an idea that sellers can really sink their teeth into and get their arms around. You know that we have always maintained that your listing agent won’t sell your house…YOU and YOUR HOUSE will sell your house! However, there may be an opportunity out there that we have all missed, even though it’s right there beneath our noses. One of my clients today told me that showing activity was up but still there was no offer. (Your Crawford agent has instructed buyers’ agents to call you directly to set showing appointments, so we don’t usually have a realistic idea of the level of showing activity you are getting.) I think there are a lot of fence-sitting tire kickers out there who are potential buyers but who are afraid to take action by making an offer for any number of reasons; they may be waiting for home prices and/or interest rates to fall even farther, they may have a house to sell, or they may be concerned about their own job security in light of the 24/7 gloom and doom that the media continues to spew. But there are serious lookers out there, too. All too often there may have been serious interest in a home but the interested party just never came forth with an offer, So we just assumed that that buyer must not have liked the home well enough to make an offer.

We are going to suggest something that is quite a different approach, and one that might create quite a stir in our Birmingham Real Estate Market. And we hope that, whether this works for them or not, our sellers will be grateful that we are their agent and at least we are trying to make something happen. We want all of our clients to be raving fans! So we call this a REVERSE OFFER. Here’s how it works: In a situation where a buyer has seen a house two times, let your Crawford agent know. We will call the buyer’s agent and ask if we are on their short list. When they say yes, we are on the short list but they don’t say that we are the top house, we ask what the objection is on the house. (One situation was that there was no heating and air in the basement.) We say okay and then ask; “Do you mind if we give your buyers an offer?”

This will throw the agent off quite a bit (we love that part,) but then they’ll say “okay” after thinking about it and asking us over and over if it is legal to do that. I promise you, that is going to be exactly what will happen, and it really makes you wonder why agents are so much in-the-box that they would think that something out-of-the-box would be illegal. (Of course it’s legal.)

Certainly there may be objections on the part of some buyers that cannot be overcome if a property is, in some un-alterable way, unsuitable for them. Anyway, we go to work now and call our seller to try to get an offer together based on our desire to overcome the objection and then we present the offer to the buyer through their agent. From there on the negotiation is the same as with any other offer.

Whereas the Reverse Offer will not work 100% of the time, our Atlanta affiliates are working the ones they write to a successful closing in about the same amount of time as when they get the more standard offer from the buyer to the seller. The most important thing now is that we, the sellers, are making something happen instead of sitting on our hands, and waiting for indecisive buyers to make an offer. How exciting is the idea of making the selling of your house a PROACTIVE event rather than a REACTIVE one!

As you know and–hopefully–appreciate, our business model has always been to get some aggressive marketing in place for you and then to remain sort of hands-off in the rest of the process, allowing you to control and drive the process, and letting you sell your house your way. However, if the idea of doing a REVERSE OFFER appeals to you, we will be glad to assist you in that. Please keep track of your showings, and if you get a prospect who has looked at your home at least twice, let us know. We will be happy to make contact with the buyer’s agent, discuss their objections, and manage the reverse offer process for you. Working together on this, we might be able to sell your home faster than you ever thought!

And, finally, here’s some lagniappe: we clearly anticipate that working reverse offers for our seller clients will become a permanent part of our a la carte menu of services. However, for the next few months, we will waive any a la carte fees to our clients who want to make use of our time to write and present reverse offers. We will work this process for you at no additional cost and no increase in our commission at closing. It’s FREE.

So, one more time, lets lead the pack, and forever change the way Real Estate is done in Birmingham. Hope you like the idea….

New thoughts on selling and buying strategies

Here are some ideas that a broker friend of mine shared with me. I thought you might be interested in considering them if you run into similar situations:
I just had a lengthy conversation with a seller who had used an agent from another company on their last full-priced listing. The listing expired 4 days ago. We discussed the following which I want you to be aware of:
1. The agent told him that he can not do any allowances to the buyer as the lender will not allow it. I told the seller to take a non-refundable earnest money check after due diligence and do the allowance that the buyer wanted 2 days before closing. Carpet for instance: they could go pick out the carpet or get a carpet place from Dalton to send the samples and the seller could have the carpet installed 2 days before closing. Same with paint, kitchen, bathroom etc…

2. We talked about him giving the agent and buyer a large plasma T.V. and to put up a sign where the T.V. would go.

3. We also talked about the fact that creative financing programs still exist and that he needs to find some and take down the conservative lender’s sign that is next to his for sale sign. Sellers today in certain price ranges and areas must make the deal work and that takes finding the lenders that offer 100% financing on down. They still exist, they just have to be found.

4. Then we talked about when he finds the lender to post his ad and the creative financing offer on Craigslist everyday.

Offers coming in still tend to be low. However, consider this: if you are planning to buy another home after you sell, you should seriously consider negotiating as best you can, but accepting an offer that is lower than what you would like. Why? Because if you can get freed up to sell now, you might well make up MORE than the difference in the low low purchase price of the next home you buy. It would be a shame to miss the buying opportunities out there now because you couldn’t come to an agreement over a few thousand dollars. And remember, you’re saving thousands with your Crawford Realty listing already, and if you use us as your buyers agent on your next home (assuming you’re staying in the area) you could potentially earn back 1to1.5% of the purchase price of your next home, which we would pay you out of our commission, if it’s a property that’s listed in MLS or a for sale by owner willing to pay a 3% commission. Please call us for details on this incredible program that no other real estate company in the state is offering.

SELLERS: HERE’S AN IDEA THAT MIGHT BE BETTER THAN A PRICE REDUCTION:

Reprinted with permission from Pat Zaby at www.PatZaby.com

Better Than a Price Reduction   by Pat Zaby

 

A 2% reduction on the list price of a $225,000 home might not encourage any additional activity on the home but the same money spent might attract lots of buyers if it is applied to an interest rate buy-down. Of the five marketing factors that affect the sale of a home, most agents concentrate on price. While that will certainly cure a lot of what ails a listing, terms for the buyer is another alternative.

Assuming that the current market rate is 6.5%, a seller could prepay the interest so the buyer would make payments based on 4.5% on their mortgage for the first 12 months and 5.5% for the next 12 months. At the end of two years, the payments would be based on the note rate for the balance of the term which is usually 28 years.

It is a fixed rate mortgage so the buyer will know what the payments will ultimately be. It subsidizes the payments for two years that will allow the buyer to get into the home and get settled. In the example shown, the buyer’s payment is $227.73 less for the first year and $104.00 less the second year.

The seller prepays the interest at closing. The terms offered to the buyer makes the home more attractive and will cause more activity in the form of showings. This strategy may even help the home sell for more money.

Reduced Price		2/1 Buy Down – $4,608.78
Sales Price	$220,400			225,000
Mortgage	$198,360			202,500
Rate	6.5	4.5	5.5	6.5
Payment	$1,253.77	$1,026.04	$1,149.77	$1,2798.94
Monthly Savings		$227.73	$104.00

Let’s say that you get your seller to agree to participate with $5,000 in financing incentives that the borrower can apply to the mortgage of their choice. In this example, the borrower would be getting a market rate loan but the first year’s payment would be based on a two-percent lower rate and the second year’s payment on a one-percent lower rate.

The borrower doesn’t have the risk associated with an adjustable rate mortgage but they do have lower payments for the first two years that will ease them into the new home while they get settled with their other expenses that always accompany a move.

 

DO SELLER INCENTIVES WORK?

The sad fact is that I have not seen incentives work in this market.  I have had sellers offer new in-the-box 42” flat screen TV’s, $1,000 agent bonuses, 1-year home warranties, carpet allowances, gas cards, even “price reduced” riders on their sign, and just about anything else you can think of.  All those things cost – or will cost – the seller money at closing.  Here’s why they generally haven’t worked:

• TV’s are nice, but aren’t enough incentive (they’re not very expensive any more) to sway a decision on a major purchase such as a home.
• Agent bonuses:  the agent does not make the decision on what to buy, the buyer does, so putting money in the agent’s pocket is nice for them but doesn’t help sell the home, especially since buyers are doing their own research on the internet.
• Buyers are going to ask you for (and probably get) a home warranty as part of the contract, anyway, and they know it.
• Advertising a carpet allowance (or any other allowance) up front only tells potential buyers that the home is in bad shape.
• Gas cards:  Even a $500 gas card only translates to 5 or 6 fill-ups, and that’s not enough incentive to buy a house.
• “Price reduced” signs say one of 2 things… “This house was overpriced to begin with” or “This house is failing to sell” so maybe there’s something wrong with it.

 

Of course, if they don’t work, most of the incentives cost you nothing, but they don’t gain you anything either.

However, since they don’t really work, the better strategy is to take what you would have spent on an incentive and deduct it from your price.  As a matter of fact, I believe that you should price your house as close to your bottom acceptable price as possible, then just negotiate hard to get as close as possible to that number when you get an offer.  Having listed your home with Crawford Realty, you have at LEAST a 2.5% advantage (and maybe as much as 5 ½% over traditionally-listed comparable homes because of the higher commission structure they are locked into.  In this market, other buyer requirements like bedrooms or school systems being met, price will be the winning factor.  Many people out there on the market are keeping their prices up so they have “wiggle room” to negotiate, but the fact is they’re missing the boat, because price-conscious buyers are passing them by, not even looking at their home.  Better to bite the bullet up front and get the activity if you can, because you can’t sell anything to someone who isn’t even looking at it.

 

There is only one thing that I can think of other than rock bottom pricing, and that is a “purchase money mortgage” or seller financing.  If a seller can hold a mortgage for a buyer, the buyer who might have a tough time getting a standard mortgage now might be able to buy, and an appraisal isn’t necessary.  Most sellers can’t afford to do it, so it’s a huge advantage over your competition, if you can.  Of course, if the buyer defaults, you still get your collateral…the house…back!  Talk to me if this is interesting to you.

 

Finally, it’s tough to catch a fish when the fish aren’t biting.  Of course there are buyers out there, but relatively few, with a huge selection to choose from.  So patience may be the only final alternative…things will come back, but with the bank failure news of last Friday, they were saying on TV this morning that getting a mortgage is going to become even more difficult right now, so with gas prices, oversupply of homes, too few buyers, people’s savings dwindling on the stock market, and the tough economy, we are in a perfect storm for real estate sales.  It will come back, but probably not soon. 

 

I hope all this makes sense.  I desperately wish I were a house selling wizard, and I’ve tried to get as close to that as possible, but I just can’t seem to find that magic wand…yet.

Low Cost Ways to Spruce Up Your Home’s Exterior

From “Realtor.org”

1. Trim bushes so they don’t block windows or architectural details.
2. Mow your lawn, and turn on the sprinklers for 30 minutes before the showing to make the lawn sparkle.
3. Put a pot of bright flowers (or a small evergreen in winter) on your porch.
4. Install new doorknobs on your front door.
5. Repair any cracks in the driveway.
6. Edge the grass around walkways and trees.
7. Keep your garden tools and hoses out of sight.
8. Clear toys from the lawn.
9. Buy a new mailbox.
10. Upgrade your outside lighting.
11. Buy a new doormat for the outside of your front door.
12. Clean your windows, inside and outside.
13. Polish or replace your house numbers.
14. Place a seasonal wreath on your door

How does your home measure up? What buyers want…

What’s In, What’s Out

Each year, Mark Nash of Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate in Chicago asks subscribers to his e-zine what buyers want most. His most recent poll shows:

IN

• A reduced carbon footprint: How your home and you impact the earth matters to more buyers who want a home that lets them save energy and lessen their contribution to global warming.

• Outdoor living: Massive fireplaces, outdoor kitchens, and under-patio heating to extend the season are not just for the Sun Belt anymore.

• Fully concealed appliances: That wood-printed cover for the fridge is not enough any longer; now appliances are hidden behind hinged doors.

• Floating homes: Not your father’s houseboat, these nonmobile homes are basically ranch houses sitting on stationary barges in a lake or river.

• Home elevators: Even builders of mid-priced homes are adding this essential for boomers wanting to age in place.

• Pet showers: Clean pets mean clean homes, and who wants to mess up the bathtub when this feature can be a part of the garage or mudroom?

• Freestanding bathtubs: These oversized soaker tubs, or “bath thrones,” have supplanted whirlpool baths as the must-have bathroom centerpiece.

• Bathroom suites: Whether it’s multiple flat-screen TVs or a mini fridge and cappuccino maker, you’ll soon have a whole home inside this one room.

(This information was re-printed from realtor.org)

Open House Safety

An open house might give your home the exposure it needs to find your buyer.  It’s easy to hold open houses, and I highly encourage you to do them often.  Now, I don’t want to alarm you, but there are some common-sense precautions you can and should take to protect yourself and your property and to be prepared for your open house.  Below are things that agents know and do to minimize the threat of a “crime of opportunity” against themselves when holding an open house.  These are important things to think about, because, after all, when you hold an open house, you are inviting absolute strangers into your home to wander around and see everything you have.  If you plan to hold your own open house, please be sure to follow these guidelines:

 

1. Never do it alone.  Have a friend or family member with you at your home at all times during the open house. 
2. Set up a call schedule with a friend or neighbor (one calls the other every 30 minutes) and a coded distress signal, so that you can call with a message that would appear harmless to a prospect but would alert others to potential danger.
3. Prepare ahead.  Remove from view any object that could be used as a weapon (i.e.; stow knife blocks inside cabinets, make sure guns are secured in a gun safe, scissors are not left out on the desk, etc.)
4. Do not wear expensive jewelry or carry large amounts of money.  Do not have valuables (coin jars, jewelry boxes, silver settings, pocket-sized pieces of crystal or valuable knick-knacks, car keys) in view.  Safely stow credit cards & cash.
5. When prospects arrive at your home, ask them to register on a sign-in sheet (or in a guest book.)  Get their name, address, telephone, car make & model, tag number, and driver’s license number.  It sounds like a lot to ask, but legitimate prospects will not mind, and remember…you are giving an unknown person complete access to your home.  You need to know some information about them first.
6. Keep groups of lookers together.  Do not let anyone wander around the house unattended.  Stay with them and carry your cell phone or a cordless phone with you in case you need to make an emergency call.  Don’t hesitate to call your friend, neighbor, or 911 if you become suspicious of a prospect’s behavior.
7. Always let a prospect enter a room first and follow them in.  Stay between them and the door.  Never let them get between you and the doorway.  If you need to get out of the room, don’t let them block your exit. 
8. Finish the open house while it’s still light out.  Do not hold an open house after dark. 

 

How to Sell a House

3/4/08

You want to sell.  You must try EVERYTHING.  Here are some more tactics that are worth considering.  Be prepared…you might need to spend some money to sell, and you might need to invest some time and effort.  You can’t just turn it over to a Realtor® who is going to get it sold for you, it honestly just doesn’t happen that way.  YOU and YOUR HOUSE are going to sell your house.  A Realtor® is an expert with ideas and marketing access; an invaluable asset in the process.  But unless you get intimately involved in the details, it is going to be difficult to find your buyer.  You don’t want to waste your marketing opportunities by being less than completely prepared when timing and exposure bring your buyer your way.

Re-think open houses: 

The most serious buyers are looking in the evenings and off-times like Saturday mornings.  Hold an open house THEN instead of the usual Sunday afternoons, when you will be attracted more “lookie-lu’s” than serious buyer prospects.  Make sure you get everyone’s name and number who looks at your house, and call them back within 24 hours for feedback.  Ask them what it would take to get an offer from them.  What can you lose?  Whenever you have an open house, stick out a fish bowl with a note that says “Drop your business card here for a chance to win a free lunch.”  You’ll get an email, a work number, a name…every opportunity to connect with a possible buyer.  All for the cost of one lunch…payable when you get a binding contract or actually close!  (And you really should follow through, draw a card and buy lunch…it’s great PR.)

Organize a neighborhood open house day: 

Ever notice how car dealerships are bunched together in the same area…or the bars & restaurants…or those big neighborhood yard sales?  Why?  Because that attracts bigger crowds, and everyone benefits.  You can do the same thing with an open house.  Why not go around the neighborhood and talk to the other sellers…they have the same problem you do…they haven’t sold yet, and they need a buyer.  Get all your neighbors with homes for sale together and organize a neighborhood open house day that will attract volumes of potential buyers, and split the cost of the ad.  Offer some food or drink or door prizes or drawings at each house.  (That’s how they get agents to attend those agent open houses.)  The great thing is that, as we learned in Real Estate School, ALL real estate is “non-homogeneous,” which means that no two properties are exactly alike. Real Estate is always local, and unique.  And that means that the buyer who would buy your neighbor’s house probably wouldn’t buy yours anyway, whether it’s the number of bedrooms, shape of the back yard, or any of a hundred other things.  By making it a neighborhood event you can buy a bigger ad, share the cost, and attract buyers and agents who know they can see a variety of options in one trip. 

Google “St. Joseph statue:”

You’ll find lots of places you can buy one for just a few bucks, with instructions on what to do with it.  Many sellers swear that they’ve sold their property in the past by burying the statue for good luck.  Maybe it works, probably does if you believe it, and it certainly can’t do any harm!

Participate in an agent open house:

They are usually held on Tuesdays, from 10AM – 2PM.  We don’t do them, but you can let your selling neighbors know that if their agent will set one up, you would like to participate.  Agents will “caravan” through 4 or 5 homes.  Each home provides something; first, soup and/or salad, second, lunch entrée, third, dessert & coffee, last, a drawing for a gift or gift certificate or cash.  I’m not sure this sells houses, but it does expose them to agents who might influence a buyer and, after all, you only need ONE buyer.  At any rate, if you’re going to try EVERYTHING, this is included!

Post notes:

I love this idea!  Make signs on neon-colored 3×5 cards, and post them (with removable tape) throughout your house to point out details that prospects might otherwise miss.  Is the refrigerator or washer/dryer included?  Put a note on them saying so.  New carpet?  Custom draperies?  Italian light fixtures?  Home Warranty included?  Electric pet fence?  Gas fireplace starter?  Make sure visitors are aware of everything that adds value to your home.  Are notes tacky?  Absolutely.  Do buyers mind?  They LOVE them, and will walk around looking for every one to find and read.  And here’s the BEST one:  Right inside the front door, put one that says “KINDLY REMOVE YOUR SHOES.”  Some people will, some won’t, but they will all get the impression that it’s a well maintained home that the owners have really cared about.  I’ve known sellers who have put out a basket of those blue shoe booties at the front door.  I know having those signs around will annoy you, but they work.  Remember, you don’t sell a house the way you live in it.  Buyers have no emotional attachment to your home, and you are selling a product.  They need information, so give it to them.

Get Feng Shui Savvy:

Get a book or research it online, and then arrange your furniture and accessories by the principles you’ve learned.  Your house will look better, you might sell faster, and you’ll feel more peaceful about the whole process.

Hire a home stager:

For $150-200, they will honestly and objectively tell you what you need to do.  It will probably include de-personalizing (removing an abundance of family photos, etc., religious wall hangings that could possibly eliminate someone who might otherwise have made you an offer but was offended.)  It will include “editing” or removal of a lot of stuff.  I know you don’t want to spend money on the house now that you plan to leave, but you might have to.  You might need to rent a storage unit to put stuff in for awhile.  (The garage might hold some stuff, but if you fill it up more than it already is buyers will get uncomfortable.  You probably should “edit” the garage, too.)  It could include re-arrangement of furniture, artwork and accessories.  This can make rooms feel larger, traffic flow work better, and it can help people to imagine their own stuff in your space, if it’s done right.  Another recommendation might be re-painting.  Sure, you love your chartreuse hall bath, and the jelly-bean purple master bedroom is your childhood dream.  But as easy as it is for them to re-paint, most buyers can’t see beyond what they are actually looking at to the potential of a room.  Not only that, they want the house to be move-in ready so they don’t have to launch right into renovations.  They can usually live with neutrals or earth tones, where pastels or extreme hues might rule you out.  Couldn’t you live with new bland paint for just a little while if it will help market your product…you house…to a wider audience?  So, invest in a home stager, and follow the recommendations you get.  Remember, you need to turn your house into a product. (Think of model homes you might have been in…lovely, well decorated, yet impersonal and with as broad an appeal as possible.)   You could hardly spend more than the cost of another month or two’s mortgage payments, and, in the long run, a quicker sale could save you more than you spend.

Stand out front and check the curb appeal, and hang out awhile at the front door:

Take action.  Buyers have so many choices these days that if the picture they see on the internet…or the house they see driving by…doesn’t really grab their attention, you will never get to show them the spectacular floor plan and interior drama.  WhatEVER it takes, it must look good outside.  This means new mulch or pine straw, new flowering annuals, trimmed and pruned shrubs (if they’ve overgrown the house, you MUST cut them back, unless you are trying to appeal to the curator of the botanical gardens,) lawns, sidewalks and curbs mowed and edged, mailbox painted, gutters and trim paint clean and fresh.  The single place that buyers spend most of their time is on your front porch waiting for their agent to finish fumbling around to get the key out of the lockbox.  And they are looking around.  They see everything from old rusty front door hardware (lets face it, you never even look at this…you come in through the garage), cobwebs in the corners to sickly plants in the urn to cracked mortar on the brick steps, peeling paint on the wrought iron, and faded shutters and window trim.  You know what they say about first impressions, so what will they be saying about yours?  Make sure you make this a fun, beautiful, spotlessly clean, well-maintained place.  Investing a few…or a few hundred…dollars on a new front doorknob, updated light fixture, and necessary upkeep can not only pay off…it will bite you badly, if you don’t do it.

Bake a pie.  Or a chicken.  And turn on the lights.  Oh, you’ve heard this before:

When you list, get your carpets cleaned. 

Sniff your closets…pare down the Imelda Marcus shoe wardrobe, and keep a mild deodorizer in each closet.  Put a bounce sheet in every shoe. 

When you have a showing, go all out with the good smells.  Bake something that smells great (leave out the curry, don’t bake a fish, and don’t cook cauliflower or broccoli for a day or two before the showing.)

Remove litter boxes to a faraway place outside during the showing, and clean their usual area well.  Pet odors = bad.

A mild potpourri or Aroma candles – good ones – are okay in small doses, but be sure not to leave candles burning after the showing.  You want to have something left to sell at the end of the day, and it’s easy to forget they’re lit in the daytime.

Bright idea:  Turn on Every light in the house.  Saying this goes against my inclination to be “green.”  But bright rooms appear larger and happier, so turn them ALL on, then just turn them off after the showing.  Of course, they shed light on dirt too, so be sure you have cleaned, cleaned and cleaned again.