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7 tips for first-time sellers
Memo to first-time home sellers: This is not your father's housing market.
Today's buyer-take-all bonanza is a boon for fence-sitters and buyers with great credit and deep pockets. But sellers are steeling themselves to new realities that include paying at the closing table, providing extras to sweeten the deal and spending more time and cash making the home camera-ready.
For first-time sellers who have never been through the process, it's a different world — one where the value of the house isn't measured in the profit made on the sale but by the enjoyment the owners had living in the home.
Here are seven things experienced sellers would tell you
"Your largest number of showings will occur in the first two to three weeks," says Mark Ramsey, a broker with the Ramsey Group/Keller Williams Realty in Charlotte, N.C. One reason: "The (multiple-listing service) systems and the Internet tend to drive the majority of showings," he says. Many buyers are plugged in electronically. So the minute something new pops up that meets their criteria, they want to see it.
Take advantage of that sweet spot by pricing the house competitively right out of the gate, Ramsey says.
Want to sit with a house that won't move? Insist on getting the appraised value, the tax assessor's estimate or whatever you paid a few years ago.
"It seems like there's no relationship between your assessed value, taxable value and the actual market value of our house," says Pat Vredevoogd Combs, past president of the National Association of Realtors and vice president of Coldwell Banker AJS Schmidt in Grand Rapids, Mich. "There doesn't seem to be any correlation."
The truth is that your house is worth what buyers are willing to pay, and not a penny more.
One question to ask as you interview real-estate agents: How will you reach the home's target market?
"You have to consider who your most likely buyers are for what you're selling and cater to that group of people," Ramsey says.
Targeting 20-somethings who live on their smartphones? You must access the networks your buyers are tapping to find their next home. One big trend: QR, or "quick response," bar codes that allow smartphone users to access property information electronically, he says.
The typical starter home also can appeal to empty-nesters who are downsizing, Ramsey says. To serve their needs, you also might want to have a phone number that instantly reaches someone who can provide details and answer questions, he says.
And don't neglect the modern version of curb appeal: using lots of photos in your online home listings. However you market your house, you need a good number of clear, well-lit, professional-quality pictures that show your house at its best.
"It's not a typical thing in a lot of houses," James Foltz says.
So they offered to sell the washer-dryer set, as well as a few other items that would be difficult to move, like the two wall-mounted, flat-screen TVs.
While the couple hoped these perks would bring a little extra money to the table, it didn't work out that way. But it did sweeten the pot for the buyer, who agreed to buy at full price if the Foltzes included those items.
Keeping your house clean is important in every sale. But first-timers are likely selling smaller houses, and clutter can mean the difference between cozy and cramped.
The last thing a new homeowner wants is another to-do list, Ramsey says. So get the home move-in ready before it hits the market so the buyer can start fresh easily.
That means making all the repairs and replacements that you would demand if you were buying the house today. If you have to walk single file up the walkway, trim the bushes. If the garage door is dented, have that fixed or replaced, Ramsey says.
If you want to spend some money to make your house memorable, ask someone who knows what will improve the market value, Combs says.
She remembers one $90,000 starter home that the owners wanted to stand out from the pack. They completed an expensive kitchen upgrade with lots of high-dollar extras. Unfortunately, it was an older home "in a market that was never going to be above $90,000," Combs says. "So the money they put in, they lost."
Conversely, the Foltzes followed their agent's recommendation to paint their stylish blue kitchen tan to match the walls of the adjacent open living room and attract more buyers.
"The cheapest thing you can do for a house with the biggest bang for the buck is to paint and replace carpet," Ramsey says. His recommendation: soft neutrals, which are easy on the eyes and have mass appeal.
Fresh carpet and that new-paint smell are also buyer bait.
"I have never, ever seen a buyer get emotionally attached to a carpet-allowance sign," Ramsey says. "What they fall in love with is the new carpet in the house."
