The art of home selling

I like to think of selling a home as more of an art than a science. Last week I wrote about looking inside mom’s refrigerator and how I discovered it was time for my parents to move.

They owned a small condo and it took awhile to move their belongings out. My goal was to sell the condo as quickly as possible so that I would not have to be responsible for it and like all sellers I wanted to get the most money possible for it. Almost immediately a family member suggested pricing it higher so that we would have room to negotiate.

That is a bad strategy because it almost guarantees the home will stay on the market longer and the longer it is on the market the less likely it is that someone will pay the fair market value for it.

I have a lot of experience selling homes which really helped because I knew what to do and was confident that I was making the best choices. Once I got the place mostly cleaned out I replaced the thirty year old carpeting with new carpeting, replaced the flooring in the kitchen and painted the bedrooms, living room and dining room.  I stored furniture and boxes in the garage so that they were out of the way and could be dealt with while the condo was on the market.

There were a couple of repairs that were needed too and I had them done. The front door had peeling paint on it and was repainted before the for sale sign went up and I had the furnace and AC unit inspected and some repairs were made and I had a plumber fix a faucet in the bathroom. Buyers have a tendency to want to pay thousands less if there are hundreds of dollars of repairs needed.

The condo was “dated” but fairly neutral. I was concerned about the fact that the bathroom and kitchen both had wallpapered walls. I decided that if the wallpaper proved to be a problem in selling the unit I would have it removed. In general I did not want to spend money unless I had to and only if I could expect a reasonable return on the dollar.

I ended up spending around $5000 dollars but it was worth it because we got more money for the place than I had expected and it sold fairly quickly. I left a few pieces of furniture in it and some plants and chairs on the private patios. I used professional photography to market the place, and did all of the marketing on the internet because that is where the buyers are and because of the location of the condo I put up a flyer box and kept it as full as I could.

We got multiple offers in less than a month. A condos with the same floor plan and a lot of nice updates was sold earlier in the year for about 15K less than what ours sold for.

In most cases I can look at a property and tell owners just what they need to do to sell it. Often the owners have ideas of their own. Selling a home isn’t a science. It really is an art. Sometimes I work with sellers who have a flair for how to decorate and how to present a home and when I work with them I try not to interfere or over think it and focus on how I am going to market and advertise their home.

Photography is the most important part of real estate marketing today because home buyers are looking on the internet and the internet is visual. A carefully staged home will attract more buyers and get more offers if the photographs market the property and attract buyers.