Want to Sell Your House This Fall?

Fall often signals a slowing down in the real estate business. Meaning if you’re selling, you’ll want to do everything you can to make you house look its best. As you set out to put your home on the market and add your home sale to this year’s statistics, keep the following fall tips in mind:

  • Curb appeal. A home shopper’s first impression is everything. The moment they pull up to the curb, they’ll make an instant judgment. You’ll want to be sure it’s positive. You can begin by making sure leaves are raked, and your shrubs and bushes are pruned.
  • Make sure your walkway is free of leaves and debris.
  • Trim trees so unexpected winds don’t knock down branches that could damage your home or hurt anybody.
  • If it is rainy, be sure you have a good doormat so all potential homebuyers can wipe their feet and not traipse mud and water through the house.
  • Make sure gutters are free from debris and are draining properly.
  • If you already have snow, be sure you clear the front walkway to the door. And if you have stairs leading to your front door, make sure they’re not icy.
  • If you live in a warm region, plant a few fall annuals to give your exterior some instant color.
  • Be sure your lawn is mown and fertilized.
  • Make sure your door area is clear from bicycles and toys.
  • Hang a festive fall wreath on your door.
  • Fall is an excellent time to paint your house if you live in a warm region. If your house’s exterior looks drab and you’re in a buyer’s market, you may want to consider painting to raise your home’s appeal.
  • Keep the house cozy. Entering a cold house could leave an unfavorable impression. Instead, set the thermostat at a comfortable temperature.
  • Place a nice fall centerpiece on your dining room table.
  • Decorate the house with festive fall embellishments and bright orange pumpkins.
  • Make sure the back yard isn’t covered in leaves. Also, try to make it look as child-friendly as possible so potential buyers can envision what the space will look like for their own children.
  • If you live in a warm region and still use the patio in the fall, make sure your patio area is inviting and attractive. Clean your patio furniture and arrange it keeping the views from indoors in mind. Spruce up the area with a few container plantings.
  • Windows. Make sure your windows are sparkling clean, especially if you live in a sunny region that doesn’t get much fall rain.
  • Walls. If you’re thinking about touching up the paint on your walls before you put your home on the market, keep the colors neutral and light. A light yellow or beige will make the room feel cooler than a brick red or dark taupe.
  • Let the light in. Open blinds and curtains so plenty of light illuminates the home’s interior.
  • And, just like any other time of year, get rid of the clutter throughout your house. And get rid of any offensive odors that may come from cigarette smoke or pets.

Finally, if you’re selling your home during the fall, there’s nothing more inviting to a potential home buyer than the aroma of a freshly baked, cinnamon-laced apple pie!

Realtor.com

What Is Your Home Worth?

The Comparative Market Analysis is key to answering this question.

When you are interviewing REALTORS® to market your home, you’ll be introduced right away to a priceless document—the comparative market analysis(CMA.) This is one of the areas in which the real estate industry really earns its keep—by showing you in black and white what your competition is. But like a sword, it is a tool that can cut both ways. You and your agent will use the CMA, among other tools, to determine where your home will stand in comparison to others which are on the market, and those which have recently sold to determine the highest possible asking price. Your buyer will use it to find ways to reduce his or her offer.

CMA’s are about facts which can be qualified and quantified. The CMA is typically designed to give quick capsules of information such as number of bedrooms and baths, approximate square footage, size of major rooms, amenities such as fireplaces and pools, age of the home, property taxes, listing agent contact information and more. CMA’s can include homes that are currently for sale and those which have recently sold. They can go back in time as long ago as a year or a month or week. CMA’s can cover areas as narrow as one or two streets surrounding your home, or as broad as an entire subdivision.

What is not included in the CMA are those factors that affect perception, and that is the key difference between why one home with identical features will ultimately command a higher price than its twin. Perception alters reality, and this is a crucial consideration in understanding the buying and selling process and the value of the CMA. Much of a home’s value will ultimately be determined by the emotional impact it has on buyers. These emotions are based on subjective elements such as drive-up appeal, interior decor, colors, views from the windows, light, darkness, room flow, and hundreds of other factors.

At the end of each home’s information on the CMA report there will be a brief statement provided by the listing agent. This statement is usually a combination of fact and subjective opinion, and will generally cover selling restrictions or selling points. It could be anything from “seller’s agent must be present at all showings” to “kitchen and master bath completely remodeled in 1997” to “Charming! Must see!” (Keep in mind that Realtors are salespeople, self-employed and have individual styles of marketing and that some will be better at writing CMA reports than others.)

For privacy reasons the CMA that is offered for public viewing does not list every piece of information that has been obtained by the seller’s agent. It will give the what, when, where, but it won’t give the who (the seller’s identity) and the why (why the home is being put up for sale.) The reasons are two-fold, to protect the seller’s privacy and to keep from inadvertently giving the buyer an advantage in a distress situation.

The CMA is clearly a selling tool, but like any tool, it doesn’t work very well by itself. It takes a skilled person to be able to use it. For this reason, the CMA will always need to be interpreted by a professional or with complete objectivity by the seller or buyer. Remember that the CMA is also a buying tool; it is taken just as seriously by the buyer and his or her agent. As you and your agent are going to use the CMA to ask the highest possible price for your home, the buyer is going to use it to find reasons to either choose or eliminate your home, and to arrive at the lowest price possible.

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Don’t Neglect the Garage

This important space needs to be as clutter free as the home.

Your yard is in perfect order, the front door is freshly painted, the interior is sparkling, and soft music plays lightly in the background. Your house is ready for potential buyers. Or is it?

If you’re like other whose home is on the market, you’ve gone through the steps of making your house show well. But how much time have you spent making your garage look its best?

The garage is an important amenity for many homeowners.

Among new-home buyers, about one-fourth want garages that can hold not two, but at least three vehicles, regardless of the additional cost, according to the National Association of Home Builders’ report, “The Next Decade for Housing.” Most buyers like the extra space for storage.

So, just as you’ve beautified the rest of your house, making it open and clutter-free, you’ll want the same attention given to your garage.

You can achieve that by following these steps:

  • Get rid of all that extra stuff. What’s in all of those boxes lining the shelves of your garage? Gather all the items you don’t use anymore (this would also be a good time to gather those final items from the rest of your house as well) and have a garage sale. Once you’ve sold everything you can, take everything that’s left over to a local charity.
  • Dust the walls and corners. Get rid of spider webs.
  • Hang up heavy-duty hooks for larger items that are taking up room. This will help the garage look more orderly.
  • If you have cabinets, shelves, or ready-made storage systems, organize the contents; get rid of anything you don’t need.
  • Try to get everything off the floor and into cabinets or shelves.
  • Make sure all flammable items, tools, and chemicals are stored away and out of reach of children. You don’t want potential buyers to wonder what else you may have handled irresponsibly.
  • If you don’t already have one, install a smoke detector in your garage.
  • Make sure your garage door opener is working. Are all the extra functions operating properly – the automatic light function, the automatic reverse (this is a safety feature that reverses direction when something is obstructing the door), small opening feature for pets, emergency release, and the wall control panel.

And finally, clean those floors:

  • Wipe up any excess oil with a towel or cloth.
  • Pour some paint thinner on the oil spot, making sure it is fully saturated.
  • Pour an absorbent material over the saturated spot. You can use cat litter, sand, baking soda, corn meal, sawdust, or any other absorbent material you may have on hand.
  • Leave the mixture to set overnight.
  • Sweep up your mixture. If possible, try to use a heavy push broom with sturdy bristles.
  • Pour a little laundry bleach, dry dishwasher detergent or a concrete cleaning solution on the oil-marked concrete. Let it sit for about an hour.
  • Rinse the area off with hot water and scrub the area with a broom.

If your garage has a workbench, extra storage space, or any unique features, be sure you let your real estate agent know so those features can be pointed out to potential buyers.

And don’t forget the garage door, part of the total “curb appeal” package. Make sure it’s clean, and if it’s worn or marked up, a coat of fresh paint is an easy step that will make a big difference to the house hunters who pull up alongside the curb and will likely see the garage right away. While a garage usually won’t make or break a sale, it could be a tiebreaker and adds to the overall first impression.

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14 Ways You Can Make Your House Show Better

You don’t have to be a minimalist when it comes to your decor but if you want to sell your home, your chances improve greatly if you get rid of the clutter. While curb appeal speaks volumes, once potential buyers enter your house, you want them to be able to picture themselves in it. And they can’t do that if your stuff is spilling out all over the place. Clutter is confusion to prospective buyers and that puts you at a disadvantage right away. If you’re living in a cluttered home, you may not be able to see disarray. You see sentimental memories of your beloved grandparents, or knick-knacks from a great vacation; the buyer, on the other hand, sees chaos. They can’t separate the house from the clutter and in a market where there are more homes than buyers, you need every advantage you can get. Even if your house is clean, having stuff crammed in every nook and cranny is visually unappealing.

What to do?

  • Well, you don’t need to hire a stager, at least not initially, but you should consider renting a storage space and clear everything out.
  • Make the house neutral. Make it possible for buyers to mentally move their own belongings in. As with any type of decluttering project, make piles of things you’re going to save, things you’re going to donate, and things you’re going to throw away. Be ruthless. There’s a lot of money at stake, after all, especially if you need to sell your house fast.
  • Call a local charity to pick up your items or drop them off yourself. If you can absolutely, without a doubt have a garage sale or sell items online, you can do that as well but it might be best if you can just say good-bye to what you don’t need any more and give to a charitable organization. Yard sales, eBay and Craigslist take time and organization that you might not have during the selling process.
  • Keep what you’re going to save and store it. You’re not getting rid of it, you’re just getting it out of sight.
  • And throw things away. Really. It’s time.

Here are some particular areas you should pay attention to as you de-clutter.

  • Keep furniture to a minimum in your living areas so that your rooms look bigger.
  • Clear out shoes, coats, umbrellas and other outdoor items from your foyer or mudroom.
  • Move out big pieces of equipment, such as guitars, amps, drum sets, or exercise equipment.
  • Take down your personal photos and store them for yourself. Let the buyer imagine putting pictures of their own family on the walls, tables and shelves.
  • Get rid of old newspapers, books and magazines, recycling if you can.
  • Organize your wires in computers, printers, televisions and other electronic equipment so that it doesn’t look sloppy and overwhelming.
  • Take away those boxes of tissue, medicines, magazines and other items you might have on your nightstand and keep just lamps, clocks and maybe a book or two on them.
  • Edit your bookshelves so that you have a neat, orderly space with books and perhaps a few decorative items, like a vase, globe or other art object.
  • Remove everything from your kitchen countertops, keeping only essentials like a toaster. Add decorating items sparingly (bowls of unblemished fruit look nice). And clear off all those magnetized coupons and your child’s artwork from the refrigerator.
  • Arrange the shelves in your pantry nicely. Have everything point in the same direction so that it looks neat and organized.
  • Get rid of sickly plants and only keep a few healthy looking ones on display.
  • Make sure your beds are made and all extraneous items, like clothes, toys or shoes, are off the floor.
  • Clear out the bathrooms and spruce them up with some fresh soaps, towels or maybe flowers. Hide your razors, toothbrushes and shampoos out of sight in a cabinet while your house is being shown.
  • Clean out your closets so they aren’t packed to the rafters.

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What To Expect After Listing

Selling a house can be a lot like remodeling –- it takes longer, costs more and is more emotionally draining than you thought but in the end was worth doing. Knowing what to expect when your house goes up for sale can be half the battle of getting through the transaction. Most people are a bit excited when they put their house on the market. Hopefully, they are moving up to a better home or off to new challenges in another city. Unless you’re the rare homeowner who gets multiple offers above the asking price days after listing, the sales process can be an emotionally challenging time. Here’s a look at what you can expect once you sign a listing agreement:

The first thing your agent will likely do is place your home in the local Multiple Listing Service (MLS). This notifies all other agents in the area that your home is for sale. It will also likely appear on the Internet at realtor.com. Soon, a for-sale sign will appear in the yard and a lockbox will be attached to your house, most likely the front door. The lockbox allows local agents access to the house when you aren’t home.

It may seem unsettling but it’s important to allow agents to show your home when you are away, especially in a slower market. If you don’t have a lockbox, many agents will put you at the bottom of their client’s list of homes to see because it’s a headache to track down your agent, who must track you down to find out when you’ll be around, which may not fit into the buyers’ schedule. Plus, unless you’re in a hot sellers’ market, there will be plenty of other houses to see.

Open house

Your agent will want to have a couple of open houses as soon as possible, which is why it’s not recommended to list your house until everything is ready for a good showing. This means you’ll likely be swamped with last-minute touch-ups and clean-ups to get the house ready

The agent will likely have a brokers’ open house, which is during the week, so area agents, hopefully with clients looking to buy, can see the property. Next, traditionally on a Sunday, will be the public open house.

It is best if you are not present during open houses because buyers want the freedom to look in closets and make comments. That’s difficult for most people to do it you are present. When potential buyers come for a viewing, try to step outside while they tour your house.

Whether you have additional open houses is between you and your agent. Many sellers incorrectly think that multiple open houses are needed to sell a house. In fact, few houses are sold at open houses but there are many good reasons to have one for the public and another for agents.

Traffic patterns

You should get the most traffic the first two to three weeks your house is listed. Anyone looking for a house similar to the one you’re selling will want to see your home. Don’t fret when the traffic dies down.

The average days on market (DOM) can be 60-90 days in a normal cycle, depending on the area of the country. In a slower market buyers can take their time and they usually do. If you have buyers come back a second or third time it usually means they are seriously considering your home and you’ll want your agent to keep in contact with their agent. Any offers, even one you consider low-ball, is a chance to begin negotiating, which often leads to a sale.

Neat freak

Keeping your house in tip-top shape, especially if you have kids and pets, is one of the more difficult parts of selling your home. But remember, buyers will walk into your house and try to picture living there.

Most people don’t have the vision to look past toys scattered throughout the house, dishes in the sink or pet food spilled on the floor. It doesn’t matter that they probably live the same way.

Changing course

Sellers usually hit the wall at about six weeks. The initial excitement of listing has waned, you’ve tired of keeping the house looking like a model and are irritated at yet another looky-loo coming through the front door.

Unless you are in a very difficult market, if you have not had serious interest in six weeks, it’s time to meet with your agent and discuss sales strategy.

Markets can change quickly, so you need to consider price and any physical changes or improvements that could enhance the home. This doesn’t mean you have to remodel the kitchen, but maybe realizing the garage should be cleaned out or the pink bedroom walls should be repainted can make the difference.

When you sign the listing agreement, you can generally expect a three-step process to begin: Getting ready, showing it off and responding to the market place. If you are prepared, especially for the last one, you can avoid getting that prescription for sleeping pills to get through the process.

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Sellers: Don’t Let Emotions Get In The Way Of Your Sale

In addition to preparing your home for sale, there is another thing sellers can do to get ready for when that first offer comes in. Come from a place of reason not emotion when it comes to pricing the home and responding to that first offer:

Most people love their homes. It’s where they’ve lived, loved, laughed, created happy memories, raised their family. But when it comes time to sell, it’s important that they distance themselves from those emotions. Failing to do so can wind up costing money in the end.

This is a really important part of your Realtors job — to bring objectivity into what is an extremely emotion-filled transaction.

First, it’s crucial that the price is based not on what the owner “feels” the home is worth, but rather on what is going on in the local market. Overpricing the home from the start often leads to longer time on the market and ultimately a lower sale price.

Similarly, some sellers want to reject an early offer, “hoping” that a better offer will come in. If the home is priced right, an educated buyer, that is, someone who’s been looking for a while, will know it. Homes that are new to the market get the most activity in the first two weeks. If an offer comes in during that time, it is unlikely that a higher offer will come in later.

It’s also important that sellers do not take personal offense at an offer. Sometimes the initial, emotional reaction may be to reject an offer because it is too low. But its the Realtors job to remind the seller that it’s not personal, and that a counter-offer, rather than a rejection, is more productive for reaching their ultimate goal – the sale of their home.

While selling a home is, in the end, a business transaction, it is also an extremely emotional process. It requires a careful balancing of the emotions and objectivity.

Realtor.com

Specializing in properties in South Hampton Roads, Virginia.