Prepare your House (or Cut its Price)
November 11, 2009
When you want to sell your house, you have two rational choices: Prepare it properly for sale to maximize what you sell it for, or cut the price below comparable houses to entice a buyer who isn’t looking for perfection.
If you neither prepare it for sale nor cut the price, it will be overpriced for the market, and you should expect that it will be waiting for offers for a long time. Many buyers won’t make offers on overpriced houses – even lowball ones. If you want to get the most for your house, you will choose to prepare it properly for sale, which will preserve your equity.
What does “prepare your house” mean in today’s market?
6 Essential Steps to Prepare a House for Sale
1. Repair: To get top dollar, your house must be in tip-top condition – outside and inside. Important components that should be in good repair include the roof, gutters, exterior siding/paint, foundation, deck, front door, windows, weatherstripping and insulation, floors, woodwork, ceilings, and the heating, plumbing and electrical systems. If defects are known, you will have to disclose them; and if they are not known, they will likely be discovered in a home inspection.
Why bother to do the repairs? Because relatively few buyers today are looking for a fixer-upper, and because repairs will generally cost you less to fix than the buyer will demand in compensation. Most of today’s buyers are looking for a house in move-in condition. They neither want to do a lot of work, nor finance the cost of repairs. So, to appeal to the broadest market, your house must be in good repair when you show it.
2. Update: To get top dollar, your home must be appealing to younger buyers, typically in their 30’s. Most want a modern home with an open plan that they can show off to their friends. Homes with dated wallpaper, dark wood kitchen cabinets, colored bathroom fixtures, poor lighting or dark and claustraphobic rooms, heavy draperies, worn carpeting or paneled family room should be updated. Updates don’t need to be expensive. There are many cost-effective solutions that will pay off in a higher price and faster sale.
3. Declutter: “Clutter eats equity.” Buyers want spacious rooms, spacious closets and lots of storage space. Clutter makes rooms look small and also distracts a buyer from seeing the attractive features of a house. So pick up and pack up.
What is clutter?
- Too much furniture, making moving through a room difficult – in fact, more than a minimal amount of furniture in any room constitutes clutter when you sell because the excess will make the room feel smaller.
- Collections of all types are clutter, even though they may be valuable and unique. They are distractions that should be packed up for your new place.
- Anything that makes a room look crowded or messy is clutter, including things on the floor rather than being put away in their places: toys, clothes, pet bowls, boxes, and so on; stickies and magnets on the fridge; and fake greenery over windows, to name a few.
A buyer wants to know the purpose for each room and also wants to be able to visualize his own belongings in the room. It is essential to pack up, throw out or sell off all the excess things that interfere with the buyer’s ability to think of himself or herself living in your house.
4. Clean: When you have sold your house and are ready to find a new house or apartment, will you be happy with a place that’s dirty and looks like it hasn’t been well cared for? Nor will your buyer. Every room of your house must be thoroughly cleaned. The kitchen must be spotless, and baths must look like they’ve never been used. Clean your driveway; sweep your walkway; pick up laundry; vacuum pet hairs from furniture – every day while your home is on the market. Eliminate smells by cleaning, washing, airing – and sometimes by repainting. Selling a house is without a doubt inconvenient for you, but a dirty house is a real turnoff for a buyer.
5. Stage: Staging is an art that highlights the best features of your house, minimizes its problems, and helps a buyer see your house as his own. It typically involves rearranging furniture to highlight a focal point or making a room seem more spacious, and adding accessories to make a room harmonious. In addition to staging, a professional stager will also review all the elements in a house to identify barriers to a sale, including items visibly in need of repair, updating, decluttering and cleaning (yes, steps 1-4). Stagers identify other issues, too, like lack of curb appeal, walls that should be repainted, poorly lit rooms, crowded closets, even dirty switchplates; and they make recommendations to improve the likelihood of a sale. Stagers act as advisors to sellers, telling them tactfully but straightforwardly just what they need to do to sell their house. They also can accomplish any of the tasks in steps 1-6.
6. Take photos: When the staging is done, when every room looks great, when the house is ready to show and entice buyers to make offers, it should be photographed and the photos posted on the web so potential buyers will want to visit. A house that hasn’t been updated, decluttered and staged will turn buyers off when they search, and they will never visit and never make an offer. See our article on photographing a house for sale: “On-Line Photos Sell Your House”.
You can sell you house quickly, even in a buyers’ market, if you prepare it properly, price it right and market it well. A house that hasn’t been well prepared will get less traffic and will wait much longer for an offer.