Home in Historic Marietta SOLD in 5 days!
I was recently pulled aside at the gym by a woman who found out I was a REALTOR in the metro Atlanta area. "Can you please come see my home?" she begged, "it's been on the market for TWO YEARS and hasn't sold!". It had just expired, so I agreed to take a look at it.
When I drove by, it seemed cute enough. It was in the Historic section of Marietta, near the Square, and was a nice ranch with a two-car garage, a rarity in that neighborhood. So I went home to look up the expired listing on FMLS. OMG. Here is what I saw:
The mystery was solved! Unfortunately, these sellers had been victims of BAD MARKETING. Turns out, while trying to be helpful, that the husband had taken the pictures of the home on his cell phone, and delivered them to their agent--who proceeed to load them onto FMLS! Now, these pictures might be fine for texting to a friend or family member, but were certainly not of the quality to be posted to a professional real estate website. And the sellers didn't know--it was the agent's reponsibility to get good pictures taken and posted--ones that would draw in a buyer, not prevent them from ever wanting to see the home!
Was the home perfect? No. But it was a really darling, great home that just needed some fine tuning.
I brought in Kathy Nielsen, a wonderful home stager in Atlanta who owns Georgia Interior Solutions. She re-configured the living room, which had awkward furniture placement, suggested some alternate paint colors in some rooms; and went room by room to help them tweak their accessory and art placement. I also had them update the master bath with a new vanity and light fixture.
Then we brought in Iran Watson, an incredible real estate photographer in Atlanta --not inexpensive, but hey, pictures are what bring the buyers into the home! Here are a few of the "after" pictures:
We then put the home back on the market at same price it had been listed before and made sure it was posted EVERYWHERE on the web.
The happy ending to this story? We had it under contract in 5 days--with a bidding war between two buyers, and two other agents that were preparing to write offers when we went under contract. The owners are ecstatic, and I'm happy that I was able to right another real estate agent's wrong.
It's a no brainer--a home that is staged correctly, priced comptitively, and MARKETED WELL--will sell.
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