You Just Can’t Over-do Super Clean and Tidy!

It’s showtime! But where do you start?

So, You’ve decided to sell your house.

It wasn’t a fast decision, you have always known where and what you would be looking for when the time came to move to a bigger place. You’ve also had great advice and always watch the market and have always kind of known the right moves to make: you’ve saved for moving expenses, closing costs and money for some new furniture. And even some extra “What if” money. You’ve interviewed several agents and have settled on using a seasoned pro that you feel comfortable and confident with and you enjoy being around. You have sat down with them and looked at the market trends, the comparable sales etc. and have come up with realistic best case and worst case sales price scenarios. You have met a Mortgage Lender, have already provided all your documents and have looked at all the options and are now PRE-APPROVED by the loan underwriter.

You have worked hard to get everything in order, to understand your situation and your choices and now you are ready to sell your existing home and move your family into a larger, more modern home. You know that in the next few days, in order to reach the timelines you have set you need to put your home on the market and get into escrow quickly and start looking. You’ve always felt comfortable about how your home compares to others, so you used the “best case” scenario for projecting the down payment on your next place… yet the more you think and ponder, you realize you do not have a crystal clear picture of how you might best pull that off. It’s like, you know what NEEDS to be done – you just don’t feel confident you know HOW TO MAKE IT HAPPEN…

Where Do You Start?

Staged, Decluttered, Repurposed

Clean like nobody’s business!

It’s the one tried-and-true trick that’s proven to reduce your home’s time on the market!
A study by the Real Estate Staging Association found that homes staged before listing sold 90% faster than those who either did not stage or waited until realizing the home was not going to sell at asking price… and staged in an attempt to make the home more appealing after it sat unsold.

Clean, decluttered, simplified and touched up means money. Sometimes BIG MONEY!

Remember, there are actually 3 Keys To Selling fast and for top dollar…
Yet, with all things being equal, there’s one thing…

Inner Neat Freak Clean

Picked up, touched up, new finishes, decluttered and simplified

What Do The Homeowners Do That Consistently Win?:
Who are the homeowners that sell for the top dollar to happy, urgent,eager and easy to deal with buyers? You know, the ones with the most perfectly conditioned, winning presentations that help create urgent and aggressive, happy buyers?
They Get Competitive!! They work, clean, touch-up, re-do, polish, scrub, re-paint, straighten and put on the finishing touches that condition their homes to out-perform the other homes on the market in their price range. PERIOD. That’s it. End of story.

Think Clean

Think Tidy

I think they somehow reach into themselves and find the Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners that they have always wanted to be! (that’s kind of a joke, but, there is a lot of truth in that joke!)

Scrub and polish and clean

The rest of the story I have borrowed directly from From Dave Ramsey: (By the Way, if you know Dave’s ELP program, I have been an ELP for over 10 years! A very hard program to be a part of and to continue in, I have been with Dave as long or longer than anyone else in the Sacramento Area!)

REMEMBER, SIMPLE IS NOT ALWAYS EASY

It even looks newer

“If your budget’s tight, you may think you can’t afford to stage your home. There are definitely ways to make your home well faster and for far more. And ways to do it that take a little time and work, but are not expensive at all..

Kitchen and bathroom counters
Fireplace mantels
Windows
Laundry room shelves
Tabletops
Magazine racks

No decluttering advice would be complete without a call to streamline your closets. “If your closet is crowded, I’m going to think my stuff won’t fit,” Dawn says. Wow buyers by showing them how much space there is for stuff—not how much stuff there is in the space.

Closets that are clean, organized, tidy… Somehow seem larger, buyers often say it means something about how things have been taken care of…

2. Rearrange the Furniture

Once all the clutter’s out of the way, take a step back and look at the big picture. Does your home invite buyers to sit and stay a while? Can buyers flow freely through your home without bumping into things? If not, you’ve got work to do!

beautiful

Start by putting bulky pieces in storage and moving furniture away from the walls. “Oftentimes, the room is arranged so the children can play in the middle of the room or the TV can be seen easily from every chair and sofa,” Dawn says. Buyers want to walk in and see an open—yet intimate—space that inspires conversation, not channel-surfing.
An experienced agent (one like me) can lend a fresh eye and help you reimagine your home. “Go to different rooms and see if there are pieces that you can repurpose for the living room to get the effect you want,” Dawn suggests.

Just decluttered and one larger piece moved

Another way to look at staging is this: Plan on everyone in the family spending a couple weekends full of nothing but cleaning, tidying, and removing, and then if there is still time and maybe some money, spend it on the curb appeal, landscaping, entryway (entrance to the house) and the first room as you come in the door AND the kitchen.

Source
Good Selling!

By Forth Hoyt, CRS (yes, the guy who wants to sell your house.)