Tips For Selling Your Home in Grants Pass, Oregon
Before moving to Grants Pass, Oregon in the fall of 2008, and before my real estate career began, my wife and I sold our home in Beaverton, Oregon. The broker we listed with told us some things we needed to do to make the house easier to sell, which really was uncomfortable to us at the time. He told us we needed to make the home look like a model home as much as we could. So we decided to follow his recommendations to the letter. We packed over half of our possessions and put them into storage. This included taking all photographs, paintings, sculptures, and everything of personal identity out of the equation. The think I had the most problem with were four paintings that we had purchased from the artist and they were inscribed to us. When I asked why take these beautiful paintings down, the broker said that some people might be offended by the violence of the ocean and I thought he was crazy at first, but then realized he knew just what he was talking about. Anything of a personal nature that could distract a potential buyer or divert their attention to some unpleasand memory from their past could be a deal breaker. So, even though it was a terrible inconvenience for us, we lived with the program until the house sold. Just little things like keeping toothbrushes in a drawer rather than in a toothbrush holder, colognes and perfumes that had to be put away instead of being conventiently at hand, and all of the other things you would normally not think of like memo pads near phones, magnets, notes and photos on refrigerators, toasters on the kitchen counter, wine rack on display, and so forth are all taboo. You may think your grandkids are the cutest in the world (and they probably are), but to someone not interested in children or who just lost a grandchild, you are bringing up a tremendously hurtful situation. Also, please don't talk when your Realtor is showing your home; I had it happen, and I'm sure you have too, where the homeowner was present when I was showing the home and he said to the potential buyer, "You will love this neighborhood, because there are not children whatsovever!" Of course he couldn't have said anything worse because my buyer had three children and was thinking what a wonderful neighborhood it would be because he was sure there must be lots of children there! You can never tell what a person is going to be motivated by or turned off by. So in the case of showing your home, less is best!
Here are some additional tips that will help sell your home.
1. Keep in mind that when someone is coming to your house for the first time anything that is wrong on the outside will be the beginning of the end. Whereas, if the home is pleasant and inviting outside, it has made a good first impression. You've heard the old saying that, "You never get a second chance to make a good first impression." I do not believe however that this holds true, but it definitely will be a strike against it. If the first impression someone gets of the home is negative, but they walk in and it is beautiful on the inside, they will end up with a good impression of the home. Later on as they are looking at other homes, they will remember that they really liked you home, but there was just something about it that just wasn't right and they can't remember what it was. There are a lot of homes to look at out there, and just like too much clutter inside, if you have an unkempt lawn, toys scattered about (kid and dog), untrimmed shrubs, stains on the driveway or sidewalk, weeds growing in the sidewalk cracks, etc. can all undermine a sale. Mow your lawn, kill the weeds, pick up the junk and make it look like a showplace. It probably didn't look shabby when you bought it, and if your like everyone else, you buy a home to live in, but it better not look too lived in when you want to sell it.
2. The second impression is when the door opens. You have to remember that people do things for their own reasons, such as painting a bright red wall in a home, doing multi-colored bedrooms for the children and so forth. These things we do for our own enjoyment, but they don't sell houses. If you have one of those bright red walls, or bright green walls, or anything else out of the ordinary, repaint it before you show the house. A lot of us have heard the term "realtor beige" when it comes to carpet because it seems that for so many years every new house that is every built has a neutral beige carpet. No one ever walks into a home and says I can't stand the beige carpet, because it is a neutral color (that people can live with.) But what happens if someone walks into a home that has bright orange carpet from the 1980's? Exactly. Big negative! Today the trend is no different, neutral colors such as peanut, pecan, light yellows, beige, eggshell, etc. are all colors that seem to be neutral enough that even if people don't particularly like them, they won't dislike them. The market today is difficult and a lot of sellers just want out! Take the time and spend a few dollars and repaint those walls that are custom matched to your family, paint or re-stain you wood work and trim, make sure your doors, windowsills and anything else that people can see look as new as you can possibly make them.
3. Before showing your house also go through and check sinks, your bathrooms, showers and anywhere water or mold or mildew can stain and discolor, and get it cleaned up. Home buyers even go so far as to look under sinks, around the edges of the sinks, in ovens, refrigerators, cupboards and cabinets and they'll even look down your vents for dust. They'll look behind your washer and dryer for lint dragons an they'll look everyplace you could possibly imagine because they want to see how you live. They want to know how clean and sanitary you are, and if they find spiderwebs in the corners with a six-month food supply of flies, or they see a massive nest in a lampshade that you forgot about, it is a deterrent to a sale. No matter how trivial you may think of it, and even if the people who buy your house turn out to be total slobs, they don't envision themselves that way when they're looking at your home.
4. Clean your closets out. Most closets are too darn small, so your objective is to remove most everything out of your closet, to make it look larger. Clean your cupboard and drawers out. Clean your pantry out. Clean your garage out. Nothing is worse than thinking "they've got a great home, with so much room" and walking into the garage and you can't move because of the junk.
5. Do you need all the furniture you're presently living with? Could you get by with less until your house sells? Then get rid of it for now. Put it in storage, have some friends and neighbors keep it for you, whatever you have to do get it gone! You might be impressed with your expensive piano, or your expensive collection of voodoo art from Haiti, but your objective is not to showcase your possessions, but to make it look like you've got way too much room in that house. People may leave your house thinking, "those poor people sure don't have very much, but think of how nice our furniture is going to look in here."
6. Make sure that if you have dark draperies, that they are opened whenever there is a chance the house will be shown. The best idea is to remove them completely! Put them away, you can always pull shades or close the blinds at night, but your expensive draperies make not appeal to the ideal buyer and may just kill the sale, no matter how nice they look, you don't find them in a model home, so why take a chance on displaying them in yours.
In summation, if you have any doors that squeak, oil them. If you have carpets that are dirty, clean them. We've already discussed painting, but I can't emphasize it too strongly to completely go through your home and make it as close as you can to what a brand new model home would look like when for sale for the very first time. If you have decided to sell your home, then you need to make the conscious decision to do the job right! I think a lot of people want to sell their home, but they are not ready to make the total commitment necessary. I keep hearing, well we'll put it on the market and if it doesn't sell, we can always try again later. This is not the way to sell your home. You must make the commitment upfront to do everything necessary to sell it. If you do that, and if you are priced reasonably well, the home will sell. To do it properly, you have to have the mindset that you will do whatever it takes. This total commitment involves, depersonalizing, decluttering, and deciding to paint where necessary, clean everywhere, put everything you absolutley don't need to lay your hands on everyday into storage. You need to adopt the mindset that this house is no longer your home, rather it is a property of which the only use is to create money in your pocket. Your memories you can take with you, but disconnect yourself from the house and go forward. Ask your realtor or someone who is not personally involved with your life, to do a walk-through on your home and maybe see if they would bring someone else for a third party opinion. Ask them to be blunt and truthful on what should be done to make your house more salable. Tell them not to pull any punches, but to give you an absolutely honest opinion both before and after you do your preparation. This will be the best advice you can ever get, so make sure that you get adequate consultation without bias, and DO NOT TAKE IT PERSONALLY! This is the one time in your life that you want to solicit criticism!
Best of luck in selling.
Gary Swanson, BROKER
E-mail: garyswanson@idealbrokersinc.com
Cell: 541 441-4410
Office: 541 956-5565
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