Real Estate Selling Tips

Get the most out of a showing

A real estate agent brings a prospective buyer to your home to show the house in hopes that the prospect will make an offer and buy the home.

To make sure your home has the best chance of receiving a top offer, it has to look good.  Here are some tips to make sure your home shows it's best and that a showing real estate agent brings others to see it.  Since you do not know when an agent may call and want to show your house, it is important to keep it ready at all times:

First impressions

Focus on curb appeal.  Make sure grass and bushes are trimmed, and trees branches are well off the ground.  Plant blooming flowers and make sure that toys, bikes, and other items that you use are properly stowed away. 

Keep the driveways and sidewalks swept and free of debris and obstacles.  At night, be sure to have all your outside lights on.  A dark and gloomy house does not make a good first impression, and you don't want your prospective buyer tripping on something you left in the way.

Repairs and maintenance

Make sure that everything works, but other than lights, don't leave it working when you leave the home.  Noisy dishwashers can be distracting.  People expect everything to work, and broken ceiling fans, burned out light bulbs, etc. can reflect poorly on the house. Ripped screens and broken mouldings can signal house neglect.

If something in your home needs paint or replacement, now is the time to do it.  A coat of paint, new wallpaper, new kitchen linoleum are just a few of the things that will make a home sparkle and look well cared for.

A/C and heating

Put away things like floor fans, window air conditioners, kerosene or electric heaters.  These all make great economic sense to you.  But to a buyer, they may signal that your house is hard to keep comfortable.  

In the summer, turn down the temperature to several degrees below the outside temperature, even if the outside temperature is fairly moderate.  Running the A/C shows the system to function well, you will reduce the indoor humidity, and you assure yourself that the visitors will be cool.  Even though you may be comfortable at a higher temperature, remember that your visitor may be hot, and they will have been moving around and walking quite a bit.

In the winter, keep the house comfortable, but not too hot.  You don't need your visitors leaving because they are breaking out in a sweat.

Clearing the clutter

Look carefully around your house.  Most of us keep things that we really don't need, things that are kept in stacks, we gather too much furniture, and we keep our house in a condition that is practical for us.  

You need wall-space and floor space.  If you have too much stuff in your house, necessary or not, it makes your house look smaller.  Your stuff may be of value to you, but look at it from a visitor's point of view.  Does it look like clutter?  Clutter is never attractive.  

Stow it in the attic, in the crawl space, or if you can do without it for a time, put it into mini-storage.  For the $40 per month that this costs you, it will pay heaps of dividends in a better impression on your viewer.

Clean and keep it clean

Pay attention to dirty laundry, dishes in the sink, get the windows clean inside and out, keep bathrooms fixtures and mirrors sparkling, keep the stove clean

Remove odors

Things that are normal for you might be offensive to others.  Garlic lovers often forget that others might not appreciate the smell, smokers can become immune to the smell of an ashtray, and animals that you love can leave an offensive odor where they park themselves.

In preparation for having your home on the market, define strong smelling foods that you cook and try to avoid them as much as possible.  Cooking cabbage, broccoli, rutabagas, fish, certain cheeses, curry, garlic, onions, and other aromatic spices can leave an unpleasant odor for some people.  

Remove garbage, keep garbage disposal units cleaned out, keep pets bathed, litter boxes clean, and ashtrays clean.  Have your carpet, drapes, and furniture cleaned to remove odors.  Put small mesh bags of cedar in your closet to give a pleasant smell to sometimes musty closed spaces.  This is particularly true with coat closets in the winter time as they are rarely opened.  

Put open boxes of baking soda in places where odors may develop to absorb the odors, and be sure to change them regularly.

Some people will recommend leaving potpourri pots and scented candles out and about.  However, this may backfire on you.  There are many people who are allergic to these kinds of smells and it can cut a visit short.  Others will simply smell the perfumes coming out the door and refuse to go in.  

Instead, focus on smells that are universally appealing and have almost nobody that likes them.  Cinnamon and the smell of baking bread are two favorites that you can implement quickly.  A few piece of sliced bread tossed onto a pan or a couple pinches of cinnamon in a pie plate, and put into the oven for 7-8 minutes can make a house smell wonderful.  Just be sure to turn off the oven before you leave.

Put out the niceties of life before you leave.  Be sure your regular bath towels are stowed and your guest towels are out.  Set the table with your guest china and be sure to put out cloth napkins and all the accoutrements that you would include if you were inviting a dignitary to dinner.  A nice touch is to leave a tablecloth on the dining room table as well as candles (but don't light them).

Before you leave

Prepare a checklist of things that you can do in about 10 minutes if you get a call that someone wants to look at your house.  

Run a quick vacuum, turn on interior lights (even in the daytime), close closet doors, remove obstacles in the pathway, switch out towels, stow dirty laundry, do a quick smell throughout the house, put the litter box outside, take out the trash, close the toilet lids, make the beds, and open all blinds and curtains.  Many of these things should be in a constant state of being done, but this checklist will help you merely verify that everything is in order.  

The last thing out the door, make sure that all pets are in cages or taken to a neighbor.  If you leave a pet in the backyard, be sure to tell the real estate agent that this is what you do.  That way, the showing agent can take precautions to make sure there are no problems.