It’s a little scary these days, the idea of selling your home. You’ve heard that the market is not great, and that buyers are being aggressive. You wonder how much you can get for your home and how long it will take to find the right buyer. Here’s a suggestion to help answer both the "when" and "how much" questions: Think like a buyer.
Sound easy? Not really. Because buying a home has as much to do with psychology and emotion as it does with finance and logic. Can you think back to when you bought your own home? When you first walked through the door as a potential buyer, did you have an emotional reaction? Did the home "speak" to you? Your job now, as a seller, is to recreate that experience for the buyers.
We all know that – fair or not – first impressions do count. When you meet someone, you form an opinion in the first few seconds. The same is true when a buyer sees your house. If the yard is cluttered, if the front door is faded, if the living room is littered with dirty dishes or old newspapers…well, you can see what kind of impression that makes.
Your Realtor® can help you see your home as others do, so be open to suggestions. The first will often be to clean up the clutter so that the house looks more spacious. Once you clear up the clutter, the first impression needs to be CLEAN. Whether it’s a matter of steam cleaning carpets, stripping and refinishing floors, having windows cleaned – whatever it takes will be well worth the investment of time and money.
Your aim is to help buyers see how this could be their home. That could be difficult for them to imagine if you have a wall that is bright orange or carpet that is deep purple. Even if you love orange or purple, paint it over or rip it out if you want to move the sale along. All buyers will see is the cost and effort to get the home into the condition they would want.
If you have torn screens or dripping faucets or lights that don’t work, fix them before you start to show your home. What you see as minor will look like a major problem to buyers. Worse, they may think there is more damage that they cannot see, and simply walk away. Buyers often over-estimate the cost of repairs, and then use this as a bargaining point to get a lower price. When you pay for minor repairs first, the question doesn’t come up.
Use your own senses to see, hear, and smell your home the way a buyer will. When it’s clean, neat, calm, and fresh, you won’t have to speak to the buyer…your house will do it for you, and what it says will be, "My new home!"
The "Special" Ed Haraway team can help you get your home ready with advice based on our many years in real estate working with Maryland homeowners. We really are the "The Realtors Who Treat You Special!"
