Archive for category Preparation
Get Your Home Ready to Sell Now – Spring is Right Around the Corner
Posted by Deane in Preparation on February 7, 2010
If you are like us here on the east coast, you are digging out from a record breaking snow. You are probably pining for 
spring, which seems like a l-o-n-g way off. But spring is only 6 WEEKS AWAY! So if you plan to put your house on the market this spring, you should start getting ready now.
While you are relatively housebound is the perfect time to go around your home with the inspection and cleaning check lists and the decluttering plan you got with The Truth About FSBO. Unless you keep your house in spotless, perfect condition, you probably will need every minute of those six weeks to fix, clean, paint, and declutter.
You will need to do, as my husband likes to say, get rid of the “yuck” factor. What does that mean exactly? Removing anything outdated, dirty, or cluttered. Almost every one has “yucky” areas that you have grown used to and just look past. I’m embarrassed 
to admit that yesterday I was rumaging in the closet under my basement stair case and found a pile of sunflower seeds and peanut shells – double yuck! We clearly had a mouse in the house sometime that made that area his home.
Almost every house needs the woodwork and trim repainted. A white semigloss will really pop. Repaint any walls that have scuffs or is a wild color that might put buyers off like if your teenager painted their walls black. Sort through every closet and kitchen cabinet – you don’t want a prospective buyer opening something up and having pots and pans crash to the floor or have towels and pillows land on their heads.
To be on track for spring, consider doing one room and one “area” each weekend. An “area” would mean a hall closet, garage, section of the basement, etc. When you look at it that way, six weeks suddenly doesn’t sound very long, does it? You are probably thinking, “I need 6 months!” So if you want sell your own house at the peak time, you need to get started right away.
Don’t forget to stage your home before you put it up for sale. Think about how to rearrange your furniture to make each room look larger and more inviting. Get rid of any heavy dark window treatments and replace with some sheers. Put the Pepto-Bismol in the medicine cabinet and put an attractive candle or soap holder on the bathroom sink instead. There is lots of staging advice including staging videos in The Truth About FSBO.
So don’t delay, get started today to be ready to sell your house this spring!
What Does Light Have To Do With Selling A Home?
Posted by Deane in Preparation on December 9, 2009
(As we head towards the darkest, shortest days of the year, I thought this article about the importance of light was timely. Enjoy these great home selling tips!)
Using light to help sell a home may be everything.
Real estate pros will tell you that when people are looking for a home they will nearly always say they want a place that feels light and airy. Donna Freeman says no one ever asked to see a dark and dreary house.
It’s the real reason dark wall finishes don’t work well at resale.
Buyers want LIGHT.
There are actually 3 aspects to the LIGHT problem in homes.
The first things that bring light to interior spaces are WINDOWS. When your house is for sale you want the windows to be front and center in the lookers’ eyes. How do you do it? You open all drapes and curtains. You hang all drapes and curtains so that when they are open the glass is completely uncovered. Finally you hang all drapes and curtains high, just under the crown molding and wide to make the window look bigger. Windows are the most expensive item in any house so it is important to make them look good!
The next part of making a house look lighter is to have lots of great LIGHTING and have it all on when people are looking at the house. There are 3 kinds of lighting. Ambient lighting is the background lighting that gives a room 
a warm glow all over. Many homes lack good ambient lighting. It is the kind of lighting where you want to see the LIGHT, not the fixture that produces the light. You can get it with a few can lights that wash light up the walls in dark corners, rope lighting that can light the tops of cabinets and wardrobes, and overhead lighting like the kind builders put in rooms. The next lighting you may have is feature lighting like chandeliers or eyeball lights around fireplaces, fountains, art or other special features. The third lighting is lamps and work lighting for counters, end tables and midlevel spaces in rooms. Good lighting can help make up for less than stellar windows.
The third aspect of light in spaces is the COLOR and PAINT finishes in your house. The relocation companies that help corporations sell transferred employees’ homes buy ivory paint by the hundreds of gallons. They do it so they can cover up all those paint mistakes, kid art projects, color disasters and worn walls that homeowners messed up. You don’t HAVE to go with ivory but do go LIGHT. Light neutrals with white trim always do better than dark colors at resale.
A light filled interior is something that buyers want that many homeowners fail to understand or provide when they try to sell their homes. But the magic lighting brings to homes is very important to creating a favorable image and glow in buyers’ minds. Give buyers what they want. Let there be LIGHT. It will really help you sell a home quickly.
About the Author:
Paula is a lifestyle specialists, providing others with her knowledge and insights gathered over her lifetime. She also works with her husband Ron in their mortgage note buying business. Visit their website at Selling A Note or Mortgage Buyers
Mistakes Not to Make When Selling Your Own House
Posted by Deane in Preparation, Uncategorized on October 29, 2009
Home and Garden TV has identified common mistakes to avoid if you want to sell your own home quickly and for the most profit.
- Waiting until spring to sell.
- Not understanding the real estate contract.
- Going it alone without researching first.
- Ignoring lowball offers.
- Wasting time on an unqualified buyer.
- Skimping on marketing.
- Sabotaging the showing.
- Not having your house in top showing condition.
- Over-improving.
- Overpricing.
And if you are an owner of “The Truth About FSBO”, you already know all this 
!
Thank you to “The State”, South Carolina’s Homepage” for bringing my attention to this article from HGTV.
Don’t Make This Common Home Selling Mistake
Posted by Deane in Preparation on October 2, 2009
My neighbor’s daughter is buying her first house and made an offer on a beautiful totally renovated older home. The home inspection report revealed a major issue with the heating system, one that will require holes being made in the floors and walls to correct the problem! As you can imagine she is freaking out and may withdraw her offer. The owner is freaking out, too, as you can imagine.
This entire situation could have been avoided if the owner had simply had a home inspection done BEFORE putting the house on the market and fixed the issue then.
So please learn by this mistake. When selling your house, if you have ANY doubts about any of your major home systems, save yourself a lot of trouble and possibly save a deal by having a home inspection and getting your repairs done first!
Houses That Smell, Don’t Sell
Posted by Deane in Preparation on September 3, 2009
Houses that smell, don’t sell. How is that for a subtle selling tip? Sorry to be so blunt but it’s the truth. Now that I’ve finally been able to open up the house again, I realize how much fresher everything smells. That, and allergy season, have inspired this post.
If your house ever smells like smoke, mold, kitty litter, wet dog, hamster cage, damp basement when you are trying to sell it, you need an air purifier. You’ll never sell your house, otherwise.
If a house hunter comes into your house and starts sneezing because they are allergic to your pets, your basement, or the pollen in your area, forget it! They’ll run, not walk, out the door. That is why I strongly urge you to get an air purifier.
If you don’t already have a good one, I recommend Ultra Air Pure (see the list “Helpful Products and Services” on the left of this post). They offer a 9 stage unit that is the best state-of-the-art purifier for the money. They even have a mini version for your car!
And if you or anyone in your family suffers from allergies, now is the time to beat the hay fever season. This will help.
If you have to mask odors temporarily in a pinch, try unscented Oust. That’s great stuff.
So remember to sell your house in this market, make sure your house always smells great. Baking cookies when having an open house is an old idea that really works.
It’s a Great Time to Get Your House Ready to Sell
Posted by Deane in Preparation on September 2, 2009
I’ve always thought of September as the month of new beginnings. The kids are back in school. The worst of the summer heat is behind us. Vacations are largely taken and becoming a fond memory. I remember I how I spent my son’s first day of school each year cleaning out his room. Man, that felt good!
Fall is a great time to do “spring cleaning” and work in the garden.
And for all these reasons, it’s a great time to sell your house! People are ready to get back to their “real life”.
If you want a step-by-step system to sell your house, I encourage you to invest in “The Truth About FSBO – Complete Selling System”. It has everything you need to sell your house fast. It will help you get your house ready to sell faster, too. Take advantage of the Repair Checklists, Cleaning Checklists, and room-by-room staging tips. Follow the FSBO Marketing Plan. It will help you market your house better and faster.
If you already have “The Truth About FSBO”, don’t let it sit on the shelf. Use it!
If you are serious about getting your house sold before the end of the year, now is the time to start.
How to Take Great Outside Photos of Your Home When Selling FSBO
Posted by Deane in Preparation on August 25, 2009
When you have decided to sell your own house, it will be up to YOU to take professional-quality photos of your house! The photographs that you post with your listing will be extremely important. One bad photo can prompt a potential buyer to skip over to the next listing. You will want each picture to be intriguing, showing off your house in a great light and prompting the potential buyers to click away at all photos and then read the details of your posting. This guideline will tell you how to take excellent photos of the outside of your house in order to maximize the amount of traffic that stays looking at your listing. Click below to read the rest of this article.
How to take great photos of your house
FSBO Safety Advice You Must Know!
Posted by Deane in Preparation on August 13, 2009
According to Tracey Hawkins, owner of Safety and Security Source, a personal safety products and safety training company, there are some key steps that homeowners can take to safely sell their houses on their own. According to Hawkins, “People get dollars signs in their eyes thinking about how much money they will save by not paying a commission, but they often fail to think about their safety and that of their family. It doesn’t have to be scary, but people need to be educated”. To read the rest of this important article, click below.
Safety and Security Source: For Sale By Owner (FSBO) Safety …
Do You Want to Sell Your Own House or be Stubborn?
Posted by Deane in Preparation on July 28, 2009
I met with a friend for a cup of tea recently. She told me of friends of hers who are trying to sell for sale by owner. They are very frustrated. He lost his job so their selling is fairly urgent but they’ve had no offers. My friend knows about real estate. Her husband is a building contractor. She also has a gorgeous home and has done a little staging.
Her friends stubbornly refuse to lower their price, get the house in peak showing condition, or listen to advice. They wrongly believe they already know everything there is to know about selling their own house.
The kitchen, the most important room when selling a house, needs work. The ‘fridge is covered with kids artwork and the kitchen has a huge pink Formica table that takes up the whole room, making it almost impassable. The pink table sounds like a pink elephant to me. They have two of their four bedrooms totally filled with junk.
It’s a shame, because they probably won’t sell it and it will become another foreclosure statistic. Frankly, it makes me mad.
It also makes me mad that they’ll wrongly decide or some real estate agent will tell them, “See, you can’t sell FSBO!”
Lucky for you, a Truth About FSBO reader, you’ll know better.
Don’t be stubborn, be a seller!
-
You are currently browsing the archives for the Preparation category.
