I Need to Fill You In

Hello, beautiful house. Dig that porch--it goes all the way around!

So, we've been very busy for the past few weeks. We found a house and are now under contract! In retrospect, we are Very Happy that the first house fell through, as what will soon be our new home is perfect for us. Lesson to buyers: everyone finds their perfect house. It might only take a weekend, or it might take several months, but your perfect house is out there. Just as I tell sellers to attract the right buyer, for one house, you are the right buyer. So, if you're having a hard time, don't feel discouraged. Know that your house is there, and shop for it with intent.

To sellers: now more than ever I suggest using a Realtor. Unless you have been around the block many times or are a Realtor yourself, now isn't the time to sell without representation. The house we are buying was offered For Sale by Owner, and after going through this whole experience (we close in two weeks), we realized (with insight from our amazing Realtor) that they had really just been testing the waters. When we made our initial offer, they were actually quite taken aback. As the process moved along, it became obvious that the sellers could have benefited from being represented by a less emotionally invested third party--a Realtor. I know that when we sold in Florida, we relied heavily on Paula and appreciated her cool head and keen insight. And more recently, during the shopping/offer/negotiation process, Steve's professionalism has been invaluable.

At any rate, I do apologize for not keeping up with posting here. I guess my excuse is that we are buying a house! Before I go, here are some items for you sellers to keep in mind, based on some observations that I made while continuing to shop and eventually making an offer and signing contracts. Most of these observations do not pertain to our new house. The sellers had it beautifully staged.

• Do whatever it takes to have all of your belongings packed up and out of the house the day before closing. You want the house to be completely empty, because the buyers will be doing their final walk-through and need to be able to see the whole house. After closing, the house is no longer yours, and if your stuff is still in the house, it belongs to the new owners. To avoid any sticky situations, just have all of your belongings out the day before.
• In your face religious iconography is a turn off. I'm sorry, but it's true. We went into one lovely home, and they had a religious music station on the television as well as religious artwork on every wall of the house. I think it's wonderful that you have the strength of your convictions and your faith, but just know that not every potential buyer believes what you believe, or in exactly the same way that you believe it, so tone it down to keep your pool of buyers as broad as possible.
• Buyers like candy. Have a candy dish out so prospective buyers can have a treat. Chocolate is always good, although we enjoyed the Jolly Ranchers that our sellers had available!
• This may sound elementary, but please clean your carpets before you start showing your house. Paying someone $150 to clean all your carpets could keep you from losing $2000 in "carpet allowance" during negotiations, so don't be cheap and make sure the carpet is pristine.
• If your painted railing at the front of your house is peeling, please scrape and paint it. I don't care how cute your house is. If your railing looks neglected, I'm going to just assume that the rest of your house has been neglected, too.
  

And the Saga Continues

It looks great now; just patch the holes once you take it down.

It has been about two weeks since I last posted. I apologize for my absence; the house hunting saga continues, though. We did put an offer on a house, but the negotiations fell apart. The sellers were holding firm to 99% of their asking price. As a seller, I certainly understand that you want to make the most money possible on your most expensive investment, but you also have to understand a bit of psychology. Everyone is well aware that it is a buyers' market right now, and buyers are on the lookout for really good deals. As a seller, you absolutely have a right to make as much profit as possible, but you also have to build some cushion into your asking price.

This can be a bit tricky, because you don't want to price your house $20,000 above all the comps in your neighborhood figuring that you will settle for x-$20,000. A buyer will most likely not even look at your house--it could be out of their price range. What you have to do as a seller is to walk a fine line between building in 3-4% cushion without alienating potential buyers. For example, had the sellers of the house we had wanted priced their house maybe $4000 more than they did, they would have had more room to "come down" to our price, and we would have perceived them as willing to compromise. As it was, we perceived them as folks who really were not serious about selling.

We are continuing to look at houses. We saw two on Saturday--one that was more-or-less well staged and one that was horrible. The horrible house just had an air of neglect about it. The carpets were stained; there were leaves all over the carpet in the living room. Yes. Real leaves. From outside. There were large holes drilled through the bedroom wall and into the closet to accommodate a flat-screen TV. There were patches on the wall that had been spackled over but not painted--the whole thing was just bad. The other, nicely staged house, still had a couple of issues. Two of the rooms were painted in stripes and polka dots for their children, in eye jarring color combinations of green & purple and peach & red. Our first thought was, "How many coats of paint will it take to cover that?"

So, sellers, keep your eyes on the prize: build in enough of a cushion into your asking price so you are seen as someone willing to make reasonable compromises. It could make the difference between selling and not selling. We are living proof of that. Our Realtor will be keeping an eye on that house, just for curiosity's sake. It will be interesting to see when they sell, and for how much.

And The Winner Is.....??

Good job with the carpet. Now just lose the guns, please.

Well, we are making an offer on a house! It will be official on Monday, but we're "All Systems Go," so there you have it. Let me talk to you a minute about how we arrived at our offer price. First, I looked at the 5 neighborhood comps and what they sold for versus what the asking price was. In Realtor-speak, this is the SP/LP% (sale price/list price %). I took the average of the 5 and got one price based on that number. Then, I looked at the sale price per square feet (sp/sf) and took an average of the five. I based another price on that number. Then, I averaged the two together, and arrived at our magic number.

Now, we would like the seller to pay closing, so I added x thousand dollars to our magic number to cover closing. And there you have it. I shot this adjusted magical number to our Realtor and our loan person (of course). Our Realtor recommended offering a bit lower than the magic number so that we could negotiate up to it, if need be. Our loan person said that it was right in line with the other homes that had recently sold. Of course it was; I have a calculator!

Okay, so there you have it. We will hear in a few days whether the sellers will accept or counter our offer. So, I will let you know what happens. Until then, I want to talk to you as a recent seller/current buyer: make sure you have priced your house so that it is in line with your neighborhood. If your price is either much higher or much lower than an average range for the area, buyers will say "I don't think so!" in the former case and "What's wrong with that house? Are they desperate?" in the latter case. Work with your Realtor on coming up with a number that you are, if not over the moon about, at least satisfied with. Know that you will most likely have to come down in price, at least a bit, so build that cushion in to your asking price.

I'll leave you with a couple of more observations about some houses that we recently saw: personalized door knocker (Our thought: Oh, great, they'll take that with them, and we'll have stupid screw holes in our door). Broken, cheap, builder-issue doorbell (Seriously? Spend $15 and get an upgraded ringer at the home improvement store). Dirty--really dirty--white carpet (Again--seriously?)

I've Been Searching, and It Hasn't Been Pretty

Welcome?

We looked at ten houses yesterday. Some were staged very nicely. Some others? Not so much. As sellers, you absolutely have to remember that no part of "you" should be visible in the house. Of course, I don't mean you can't have a microwave, clothes in the closet or a cross stitched pillow on the couch. You need to live as comfortably as possible while you are engaged in the selling process. What I should NOT see and what you should NOT have in your house is anything that points to who you are as a person. Yesterday, we learned that one home owner has a mouse pad business, another is a Physician's Assistant and yet another is a big fan of huge, gas-powered model airplanes.

This third person actually carved a room out of half of the 2-car garage so that he could keep all his airplane stuff. Guess what? It's no longer a two-car garage, and any owner who wants to use it as such is looking at some serious demolition. Ridiculous.

Here are some other things we noted during our tours. First, the good:

• Clean, uncluttered counter tops
• Staged dining room tables
• Freshly cleaned carpets
• Mowed lawns
• Open blinds; lights on
• Beds were all made with extra pillows
• Toys contained in "kid areas."
  

Now, the not-so-good:

• Air freshener that was so potent we could barely breathe.
• Liberal display of religious iconography
• Odd paint color choices--mind-bending fuschia comes to mind
• Over-staging: a child's tea party setup in the corner of a loft that could have been more effectively staged as a small reading area.
  

And last, the downright awful:

• Dogs left inside in a downstairs room with a note saying not to go in there. There went 100sf we couldn't see.
• Closets crammed with all kinds of stuff that needed to be in storage
• Obviously dirty underwear on a shelf in a walk-in closet
• Half-finished bottle of Sunny D on the front porch

Sometimes, it's better left alone. This tiny TV looks
silly in the large cabinet.

There are no words. Wait! There are four: Buy a laundry
bag.

If you see yourselves in anything in this post, please take the time to depersonalize your space. It truly could be the difference between selling and not selling. With the glut of houses on the market, you have to find a way to stand out from the crowd. The good news is, there are still plenty of folks who are doing it wrong, as we found out yesterday. Narrow the field and increase your odds by doing it right.

For more information, or to order a copy of my ebook I CAN Sell This House: Secrets to Selling Quickly in a Buyers' Market, please visit. I CAN Sell This House.

A New Perspective

So, my husband and I are now in the market for a house! It's very cool, because it's definitely a buyers' market, as it was when we sold. Being on the other side of the equation gives me a whole new perspective, of course, and I've been trying to look critically at the houses that we have been seeing so I can pass on my observations to you all, as you are staging and selling your houses. I know that you have lost a bit of leverage, since there are so many houses on the market right now, but there are still things that you can do to help your house stand out. And frankly, I've been a little amazed at how some of the sellers whose houses we've seen haven't done those things.

First and foremost, and this may sound like a little thing (but it's not): Keep your infotubes full! I cannot stress this enough. When we are driving around and see a house that's for sale, we immediately stop to look for "words." If the tube is empty, our immediate reaction, fair or not, is "They don't really want to sell this house." A neglected infotube could be just an oversight, or it could be a sign of greater neglect. Either way, we don't even consider those houses. So, if you are still in the house you are selling, for goodness sake, keep that tube full! And if you're not in the house, make sure that your agent keeps the tube full. It makes a difference. Remember, I am now your potential buyer, and you've already lost me!

Depersonalize, please! I consider myself to be a fairly sophisticated buyer--one who is able to look beyond the stage at the bones of the space, but many potential buyers just see what they see. They see the pictures, not the walls behind them. They see the carpet, not the floor underneath. Make sure that what these buyers are seeing is the most tastefully generic stage you can possibly set. We went into a lovely home last weekend--2300sf, soaring ceilings, lovely staircase, immaculately kept. It truly was a lovely home. We didn't like the layout; it wouldn't work for us, so we passed. But the people who live there and are trying to sell have written off a large portion of their potential market. There were family photos all around the house and a lot of art--everywhere--that was very personal to them, because it was all religious art. Whether the art was Christian, Islamic, Hindu or Zoroastrian, it makes no difference. Many people will walk into that house and walk back out because they can't see beyond the stage. I'm not saying you have to be Peter and deny your religion, but you do have to be sensitive to the fact that not all buyers will believe the same things you believe, and many might actually be put off.

As we continue our search, I will continue to bring reports of what I'm seeing out there. I hope that this new phase in our lives will help to focus your resolve as sellers as you get your house sold!

For more information, or to order a copy of I CAN Sell This House: Secrets to Selling Quickly in a Buyers' Market, please visit I CAN Sell This House.

View Your House Through Buyer-Colored Glasses

If you've lived in your house for a long time and have raised your children and created wonderful holiday (and everyday) memories there, there is a good chance that you will not see your house clearly when it comes time to stage it to sell. Just as we see our beloveds through rose-colored glasses, minimizing the negatives while maximizing the positives, so we see our home. But when it's time to sell, it's time to take off those rose-colored glasses. Put on the buyer-colored glasses and really look at the house as an asset to be liquidated, not as a warm and personal home-environment.

This can be a difficult exercise, but I believe it is a necessary one if you are going to be able to dispassionately assess the strengths and weaknesses of the house and stage it neutrally but effectively.

Here is a handy list of items that we might overlook as happy homeowners but really need to focus on as determined house sellers:

• Keep the lawn trimmed and leaves raked
• Clean up bed lines
  
• Bleach or pressure wash the driveway
• Sand and repaint trim
  
• Wash the walls if necessary (You might even see that you need to paint)
• Polish or change out door knobs
• If you have wood floors, make sure they are in good condition
• Keep entry way swept and clean at all times
• Clean scuff marks off floors
• Clean and seal all grout
  
• Polish countertops
• Polish faucets and bath fixtures; change out if they are dated
• Make sure all window treatments are in good repair, not faded and dust/dirt free
• Corral kids' toys in one contained area

These are just a few ideas, based on some of the things that we did when we successfully sold our house. For more information, please visit I CAN Sell This House.

Home Staging for Dummies

The Dummies series are fantastic resources. They are written by experts in their fields, and they are written in plain language that not only tells you what to do, but how and why to do it. Written by two renowned experts in the home staging world, Christine Rae and Jan Saunders Maresh, Home Staging for Dummies is a book that you need. I am not, nor do I plan to become, a home stager. I staged our house successfully for sale because I knew I had to. I read some information on the Internet, and I consulted with my Realtor about my best course of action. Of course, our house was on the market for less than a month, and our whole selling journey went very smoothly.

For those of you who are having some difficulties, or for those of you who need a little more inspiration and how-to guidelines for staging, I am certain that you will benefit from the information in this book. Do not get me wrong: of course I'd like you to buy my book, but I CAN Sell This House, Secrets to Selling Quickly in a Buyers' Market provides a how-to manual from everything from pinpointing your reasons for selling to finding a Realtor on through to what to do at closing. Although there is a helpful chapter or two on staging, the stage is not the focus of the book. So, I cannot in good conscience say, "You will be an expert home stager after reading my book," I can say, "You will be an expert after reading Home Staging for Dummies."

Whether you buy it because you need to stage your own house or because you want to stage other peoples' houses, do buy it. You will not be sorry.