How did this home sell in 10 days in this "cooled" market?

I’ll tell you.  The seller took my advice and finished the home, rather than letting an investor have it to finish.  Fear was put aside, he pressed through, and it rewarded him with $45,000 more net than he’d have earned by "dumping" it unfinished. 

What can you do?  First rule of thumb, if you’ve felt it’s something that needs to be done, DO IT!!!  Do it for them, though you never did it for yourself.  Ready your home for the market the way you would if you were selling anything!  Would you put a used car in the paper and then let people come to test drive it still filthy and unpolished?  No way! You’d clean out the BigMac wrappers, have it detailed, waxed, put in a nice CD for ambient music when they turn the ignition… and make sure that the CD player works and the blown back speaker is replaced, right?! 

Homes that are spiffed and polished, painted and groomed…those show well and sell more quickly.  As for your stuff:  remove 1/3 of it.  Pack, rent storage space, and follow the adage "less is more" with decor, furniture, everything.  Put bright bulbs in every light fixture, wash windows, leave all curtains open and lights on when you leave for showings.  Fresh flowers (no nasty water, wilting leaves, please!) in big planters, in vases, make it "look like a magazine!" 

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 8th, 2006 at 10:22 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.