In a down market where most houses stay unsold, in order to get the house sold successfully, there are 3 important steps for sellers to prepare themselves and the house ready for sale.
I.
Treat The House As A Merchandise
Psychologically,
sellers need to get emotionally detached from the property and
treat the house as a merchandise by making it available for showing
as much as possible.
II:
Hire A Good Agent
Seller will also need to hire a good agent who is a neighborhood
specialist. A good neighborhood agent shall be able to perform
2 tasks.
1.
Price the house correctly
Houses with pool and/or view worth about 5 to 10 % more depending
on the neighborhood. Houses sitting on the t-junction or bordering
the main artery route may sell up to 10% less. Does you agent
has that level of market understanding? Will your agent be able
to articulate the correct value by supplying comparable to substantiate
the claims?
House will not be sold if it is overpriced. Most houses for sale will sit on the market for 6 months until it is expired. After 6 months of down market, it may be huge financial lost for sellers since home value dropped about 25% to 45% in one year depending on the area.
Therefore, it is very important to pay close examination of the value the agent is advising and make sure it is calculated by adding and subtracting the pool, view, t-juntion, main artery route factors into the calculation to ensure accurate assessment of the true market value.
2.
Market the house correctly
Check the agent's marketing efforts with his/her other listings.
Does the agent take good picture of the house? Is the photo of
the houses showing only part of the house but not the whole house?
Are the interior photos very dark and make the house look ghostly
and undesirable? Does the agent makes good marketing flyers that
are informative and pleasant to look at? Compare the marketing
efforts of the agents (photos, flyers...) and see which agent's
promotion makes more sense to you as a buyer. House will not be
sold with poor marketing promotion. Therefore, it is very important
to look at this aspect closely when picking the right agent to
market your house.
III: Dress Up The House Like A Model Home
Sellers need to depersonalized the house by dressing it in a desirable
decor very similar to what they do in the model homes by performing
the followings:
1. Paint the house with stong color such as red, blue, green, yellow, black walls to neutral tones such as white, beige, mocha and chocolate colors. It is the same for the carpet as well.
2. Remove the clusters on any counter surface. Leave only couple of decorated items.
3. Maket the house as bright as possible during showing by roll up all the blinds and turn on all the lights.
4. Use a shopping cart test to see if you can push an imaginary shopping cart through the house, remove those excess furniture to the garage that is blocking the hallways so the house will look spacious.
5. Fix all the defects of the house and modernize the faucets and light fixtures. If budget allows, hardwood floor and granite countertop will also be a plus. Those are small upgrades that can bring sellers higher selling price.
One of the houses I sold in 2009, the seller put in $2000 upgrades and sold the house for $30,000 more than what their previous agent was listing the house for. Painting, woord flooring and countertop upgrades are always very good investment when it comes to selling of your house. They works wonders on increase the value of the property.
Once seller is ready to let go of the house emotionally, hire a good agent to price and market the house correctly, and dress up the house like a model home, the property shall sell itself the moment the buyers step into the house!
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