Selling a house for the first (and last) time!

[lindacat]

I wonder if all of you can share any tips you have about selling a house....or what is the one thing that you did NOT do that, looking back, you wish you had done?
I plan to sell in early spring sometime....I am assuming I will need to do my own home inspection before listing, just to make sure all is OK - what about that? Also plan to sell alot of my stuff as I am moving to a smaller apartment now. Any advice would be appreciated!
Thanks!!

 

[webdiva]

I haven't sold a place but have bought and mom is a RE agent. I've spend years going to open houses...my fave thing to do as a kid!

1. Get the inspection done. Fix anything the next owner will bring up as a sticking point. You want to make the transaction go as smooth as possible. Plus, it's cheaper to get it fixed when you're not under the gun to close. You also want to get a video sewer inspection if your home is older.

2. Repaint inside and out - this makes SUCH a big difference. Not sure what your price range is and what your house is valued at compared to your neighbor's houses but this makes a huge difference. People have no imagination and want move in ready. Treat your own place as a flip and make it move in ready. Especially doors, baseboards, etc. Get someone with a fresh eye to point out things that need to be done. Have scuffed up wood cabinets/trim/furniture? Restore-a-finish is magical to fix those items! It even takes out water rings with you use super fine steel wool with it.

3. Make it move in ready. Remove all personal items. Stage it - borrow items from friends if you need to. Thrift stores are awesome for cheap decor you can spray paint white or black to add accent items. It's better to have less larger items and a bunch of small nick nacks.

4. Make it smell good. Or like nothing - many people get turned off by any smell. Open the windows prior to an open house/showing - for at least an hour. Put out pots of vinegar to soak up smells each day.

 

[MsP]

Webdiva gave great advice...

I was always prepping homes with my parents... homes they were renovating, renting, selling, or we were moving and selling. Don't think, "there is no sense in painting over this sage green walls with a fresh coat of white white... the future owner can do it...and then they will do it whatever color they like". THEY WON'T. Because they won't buy the home. Same thing with fixing cabinets, outdated light fixtures. Few people can see through heavy decorations/outdated style. My parents are talking about moving... they currently have a medium/dark chocolate and heavy patterned window treatments in the main living area. It's lovely and stylized but it' doesn't scream fresh and new. They've been looking at not only painting everything just off white (and glossy white trim), but also replacing the window treatments with something completely neutral. The massive oriental rugs will be rolled up and the carpets cleaned. It does look boring... IMO... but it's a clean slate. And that's the idea.

Silly tip... consider replacing your doorknobs if they're outdated. Repainting and then putting old hardware back on will be obvious.

 

[Haven]

I've never sold a home, but I looked at over 70 houses with DH when we bought our first home together. The advice you've been given about removing personal items and making it look as move-in ready as possible is spot-on. If a home had even a little bit of clutter, we had a difficult time considering it. Staging is so important. A clean, well-maintained home also sends a message to potential buyers that you've cared for the home well over the years. True or not, it's a message you want to send!

Good luck!

 

[iheartscience]

It always surprises me that people have such little imagination that they can't look past paint color and personal items, but it does seem to be true. Every time I watch HGTV and people are looking at houses I hear comments about the paint color, decor, etc.

I would also check out the comparable houses for sale in your area to make sure your price is realistic. Realtors aren't always realistic themselves when pricing. When we sold our house we priced it well and it got a ton of interest and was under contract almost immediately. When my parents sold their house, they priced it too high and it took almost a year to sell.

And if you're the superstitious and/or Catholic type, bury a St. Joseph statue in the yard! I did and we had 3 offers within a month.

 

[bunnycat]

Webdivas given some great tips. I third the part about paring down personal items (put in storage) to make it more neutral is very helpful. People like to be able to imagine their stuff in it right away. Painting in neutral tones does help in a lot of cases, I think, with modern homes. Unless you live in a funky older home where people may expect more eclectic color schemes I'd stick to some neutral shades (not necessarily cream/tan).

The house we bought last year had been painted neutral and old (country blue) wallpaper removed and some (nasty) carpeting replaced with laminate. We happened to find a video of someone's house hunt that showed this house before they "made it over" and it was atrocious. I'd have never given it a second thought (at their asking price anyway). As it was, it still needed multiple thousands of renovation on top of that. I also felt like it helped that it already had an inspection in the past year that was available to look at, so I knew the "bones" of it were fine, just the aesthetics were stuck in the 80's and needed revamping.

Do research similar homes and asking prices and what is reasonable for a house in your area in similar condition and upkeep, because yeah, RE agents are sometimes reaching on those if you ask me.

Don't forget your yard too! A few spots of potted color staged around make it feel homey. New mulch in the flowerbeds is an inexpensive way to make outside pretty too.

 

[bunnycat]

It always surprises me that people have such little imagination that they can't look past paint color and personal items, but it does seem to be true. Every time I watch HGTV and people are looking at houses I hear comments about the paint color, decor, etc.

I would also check out the comparable houses for sale in your area to make sure your price is realistic. Realtors aren't always realistic themselves when pricing. When we sold our house we priced it well and it got a ton of interest and was under contract almost immediately. When my parents sold their house, they priced it too high and it took almost a year to sell.

And if you're the superstitious and/or Catholic type, bury a St. Joseph statue in the yard! I did and we had 3 offers within a month.

I think it's true for a lot of people and to some extent depends on how "bad" the color/decor is. For example, we looked at houses that were nicely decorated, that had something like pumpkin colored walls, and I was fine with it. (I would have changed it, but I could see past it). It was a modern color scheme that fit well with their decor and it looked good. As opposed to some places we looked at that had country blue walls and printed floral wallpaper that looked like it had been put on 20 years ago and then never messed with again....That's the kind of decorating that seems to be harder to get by. Even I have trouble with it and I have a pretty good imagination.

I also don't think you have to whitewash everything. But that's just my personal opinion. If you research a little what color schemes are most up to date (for instance I would consider soft sage green a modern neutral color) then you might be able to use variants on that. We went with sage and taupe when we repainted the house we bought because lots of other houses we saw were using similar colors right now and it really suited the overall atmosphere in the house anyway. I decided not to fight that. (My previous house was a 1920's bungalow that was painted every shade of exciting I could think of inside. Quirky suited it.)