FAQ - What do I need to do to get ready to sell my house?

Understanding the Real Estate Process from A – Z – A Seller’s Guide to Real Estate - Part 1

This is a series of posts in an FAQ format that I hope will help would be sellers better understand the real estate process that they are about to go through. There will be a follow-on series for real estate buyers.  

FAQ - What do I need to do to get ready to sell my house?

So, you’ve decided to sell your house. Great! Before you even get into the real estate process itself, you need to do a few things to get ready for selling your house. These next two posts will be about things that you need to do in order to get ready. While the order of doing these things could be reversed, I believe that there is great value in doing them in the order in which I will present them.

Find a good Realtor® agent to work with.

This may initially seem self-serving, since I am a real estate agent; however, most people don’t truly GOOD real estate agent; one who will work with you, and for you, weeks, sometimes even months, before you are ready to list.

understand al of the things that a good agent can do on the front end of the process, before the house is even listed. The value of having an agent list your house has been well proven over time to bring a higher sale price in a shorter amount of time; but what is the value before it is even listed? That pre-listing value does vary by agent, which is why I said to find a

What does he/she do ahead of the listing?

A good real estate agent will be willing to walk through your home and, based upon their observations, give you a list of recommendations of things that you may need to do to get the house ready for the market. Realtors look at your property the way that a buyer might and they see the things that you’ve become “nose-dead” to in the house. Not only may they be able to give you a to-do list of things that need attention, but most good Realtors can also supply some leads to tradesmen in the area who might be able to do the work, if it is beyond your DIY capabilities. A good Realtor will

be completely (some might even feel that it is brutally) honest with you about what needs to be done to get your home ready to list. They will normally explain the updates and deferred maintenance items that they see need to be done and give you some idea what the impact will be on the potential sale price of you chose not do the work.

What are the 3-C’s of Real Estate?

I use what I call the “3-C’s” of Real Estate as a mechanism to provide the advice that I usually give would be sellers about the things that they are responsible for doing to get ready for the market. The 3-C’s are:

Condition – This “C” deals with the state of the house as it compares with a house in the market area that is in an excellent, market ready state. This category covers both the deferred maintenance items that I might see and the updates, or lack thereof, that buyers will be looking for in the house. I will point out to you the things that you’ve gotten used to living with that need to be repaired or painted or replaced – the missing plug covers, the rusted old front porch light, the shabby looking front door that you never use or the overgrown foliage that started out as cute little shrubs. I will alert you to the missing handrails and the need for GFCI circuits in kitchens and baths that may not have been required when the house was built.

I will also go over with you’re the updates that may be missing from your house that will impact the

market value. It is probably not the time to put in granite counter tops or a whole new kitchen, now that you’ve decided to list; however, it might be, if the negative market value impact of not doing that will be great enough. Other things like flooring updates, new windows and new roofing can also be discussed. Usually I do not recommend major updating expenditures at this point, since the seller will not recoup the cost; but, again we will assess the negative impact of those updates being needed. Would-be buyers will almost certainly make lists of those same things and come to their own conclusions about the possible hassle and costs of making those upgrades later. They almost always come to conclusions that are higher than it might have cost you to just do it and that take those costs off their offer price. We will discuss the impact of the disappointment that buyers might have, at the price point that you will be at in the market, if your house does not live up to the expectations that they will come in with. Those expectations are set by visits to other listed homes and by people watching too many MTV shows.

Clutter – The second “C” is clutter, which almost always the biggest issue that I face with sellers, especially those who have been in the home for 320-30-40 years or more. People just naturally accumulate stuff; and that stuff is usually everywhere in the house. Walls may be full of family pictures.  Shelves are full of knick-knacks and vacation mementos. Rooms are full of furniture. Basements are full of everything that didn’t fit upstairs anymore, plus all of the stuff that the kids left years ago and some of the items that you got out of your mother’s house and all of the left over stuff from hobbies that were abandoned long ago.

My challenge is to get you to de-clutter. People need to be able to see themselves living in this house. They are not there to admire and share your family/vacation pictures. They need to be able to freely move through the rooms and imagine their stuff in them and not just see all of your stuff. They expect to be able .to open a closet door without being attacked by a cascade of your stuff tumbling out. They need to see the space in the garage for their cars, not how much stuff you were able to stuff in there. They need to be able to see how big the basement is and not just gaze at a wall of boxes of your stuff. They need to be able to SEE! So, I will be recommending that you de-clutter. Moving is a perfect time to get rid of stuff that you haven’t used in years. Don’t worry the kids will never come back for their old stuff – they’ve moved on and it is time that you did too.

Cleanliness – Even very meticulous housekeepers can probably use some advice and maybe some help with the deep cleaning that may be needed to get the house ready for selling. While would-be

buyers won’t be going through the house with white gloves on looking for dust; they will notice the corners that have been forgotten long enough to collect cobwebs or the dusty blinds or ceiling fans. When buyers see a house that is less clean they make a mental leap (right or wrong) that it is probably less well maintained too. This is an area that I can recommend that you do spend a little extra and hire a good cleaning company for a one-time deep clean prior to listing it. Hopefully the seller is still able to maintain the house clean during the listing; otherwise I might recommend a cleaning service at least once or twice a month until it sells.

In my next post I’ll go over the pre-listing market analysis work and the pricing decision that needs to be made before you list. Nothing is more important for a successful outcome that being properly positioned IN the market and not just ON the market. For now, there will be plenty of things for you to work on before we get to that step. 

Ok, I’ve listed the place. What can I do to help?

OK, I've de-cluttered, cleaned the place up and listed it.

What can I do to help with the selling process?

The 5^th in a series of 12 posts about the real estate market from the sellers’ perspective.

Answer -  Get out of the way! No kidding. Make it as easy as possible for the Realtor to do his/her job. Not only should you allow a lock-box to be placed on your house, you should make the showing instructions as painless as possible. That may mean that you must take on a lot of inconvenience.

You must be able to get out of the house on short notice and make it easy for the selling agent to schedule showings for others. The easiest house to show is one that is already vacant, although vacant houses are harder to sell (more on that later), so make it easy to schedule an appointment to show your house.

You don’t want to be there during a showing. The showing agent doesn't want you there and the buyers would feel awkward if you were there; so take a drive, go to the movies or store - just go. Let the real estate professionals do their jobs. Believe me when I tell you that all of your helpful information about the house, as you trail the showing around, is not what these people came to hear. Don’t hover. Disappear.

If you don’t already have either an answering machine or voicemail service on your phone, get one or the other. Be prepared to check those frequently and allow the selling agent to book and appointment by just leaving you a message and giving the showing agent the lockbox combo. Any time that you’re out, even to church or for dinner, check the machine or voicemail before you go home; there may be a showing in progress or scheduled for about the time that you would get home.

You really can’t help much with this aspect of the process. There are some tips for things that you can do before you leave to make the showings go better.

·         Turn on all the lights. The showing agent will not know how your house is wired and may not be able to figure out how to get the lights on. A good agent will try to turn off lights as they go, but there will be lights left on. If there is a showing after the one that you left for, leave a note for the first agent telling him/her to leave the lights on for that showing.

·         If you have a gas fireplace and it is winter, you might turn it on. I don’t recommend starting a real wood fire. There are just too many chances that something could go wrong with no one in the house.

·         If you have one or two very safe (in stable, glass containers) fragrant candles, you might light them. We've seen other tips like bake bread or pop popcorn or do other things in the kitchen to leave a nice odor in the air. We’ll let you be the judge of how much you want to do. Try not to leave bad odors in the air; however, lighting too many fragrant candles is just as bad and some people might think you are trying to hide something by masking a smell in the house.  

·         Also remember to take your dog with you and your cat too if possible. Buyers don’t really want to be accosted by your pets and many may have allergies to pets so get them out of the house. Hopefully your house doesn’t smell like a full cat box or like your dog, but if it does, deodorize the place as you leave and perhaps put the litter box out in the garage.

·         If you must  leave your pets in the house, please either cage them or place them in  small room that

can be closed off and put a note on the door advising the showing agent that the pet is in that room. That room will be something that the buyers will wonder about after the showing, since they couldn't see it.

·         It’s always a pleasant surprise for the visitors if they discover a plate of cookies that you've left for them and it reinforces the thoughts of “home”.

·         If it is winter, make sure that the drive and walk are cleared of snow and ice. A visit that starts with having to slough through snow to get to the door is not off to a great start and one where the visitors slip and fall on your icy walk is even worse.

·         In winter in particular, and in any season if you are asking the visitors to remove their shoes; provide a bench or seat for them to sit down and put their shoes back on. If you are concerned about them tracking stuff in to your foyer, put a throw rugs there for them to step on as they enter.

·         Make sure that your agent has flyers or brochures (whatever they normally use) available in the house fort visitors and put them out in some easily spotted location, like a kitchen counter or table.

           

Normally showings only take 20-30 minutes, so you don’t have to be gone that long. Agents will normally ask for a one-hour window to allow themselves some leeway on travel or other showings. And remember to not let clutter creep back into the house. Keep it clean and clutter free!    

Your agent should get some feedback from every showing and most will share that with you. Don’t get offended by anything that you read; instead try to learn from the feedback and make any changes that are suggested in the feedback or by your agent.

Finally, now that you've mastered the three C’s of real estate – Clutter, Cleanliness and Condition; you must focus upon your role in the three P’s of real estate – Price, Patience and Persistence. Hopefully you and your agent have set the price correctly (feedback will help you determine that); so you need to be patient and persistent. Real estate sales do not happen overnight, so patience is a real virtue here. As for persistence; you will need to get up every day and get the place ready to show before you leave for work or to do other things. Remember that showings can happen at any time. You've got to have the house ready at all times.