Post by wanderingenough on Mar 12, 2015 9:14:48 GMT -5
Our house is getting listed on Sat and the realtor is having an open house Sunday. I am not prepared for this! I've never sold a house before. Any tips? I already removed all family photos, plan to remove all bathroom clutter from the showers, and the house is generally organized. We have no wild paint colors or anything, and only one room without anything in it really. Anything else to make the house appealing to buyers?
I always had a bowl with bottled water and snacks on it for days we didn't have open houses. When the realtors left their cards after a visit, they could have a snack. The people seeing the house also got a chance to have a snack. I would include things like individually wrapped packs of peanut butter crackers and pretzels. I would get text messages that we had showings all throughout the day, so I would typically restock this each night.
I left the curtains open to leave as much light into the house as possible.
I cleaned a little each night. Those last minute showings weren't going to catch me off guard! I vaccumed, made sure clutter was gone, dishes put up, etc. DH made the bed after he got up too.
We made the rooms as bare as possible in terms of (accent) furniture and decor. We put a lot of things in our garage. So even though we were living there, it helped people to envision themselves better in the house.
I put up all of our valuables in a safe place. (You have strangers in your house.) I even packed up our China/Crystal so that way nothing breakable was out in the open.
One more....since I'm thinking about it. Have a home inspection done yourselves on the house. This way you can have something fixed that could potentially come up in the buyer's home inspection beforehand. It will help with future negotiations. You don't have to do it THIS WEEK....but at some point when you don't have a showing scheduled.
Good point about the valuables! I was thinking I might get a safe deposit today in the bank in my office building. I have some of my grandmothers diamonds and I'd be heartsick if they went missing. I had one in college while living in rentals, but never got one after moving/buying a home. You also reminded me I should just store my milk glass so it doesn't get broken.
Post by luv2rn4fun on Mar 12, 2015 12:20:30 GMT -5
MrsMB hit it right on. Good luck- when we sold our condo our realtor had an open house that first weekend...we ended up with 5 full price and beyond offers. Praying you have similar luck!
MrsMB already covered basically anything I would say. I will just emphasize de cluttering, even things that don't really seem like clutter when you live there. For example, we took basically everything off of our kitchen counters- toaster, knife block, spice rack, stand mixer, etc. on my dresser, I removed things like jewelry boxes, lotions, perfumes, etc. lots of things like that, which I never found cluttery, but looked a lot cleaner without them.
Cleanliness is definitely key. I really can't believe how many people put their house on the market, and have it photographed, dirty and with tons of clutter. Potential buyers mark it off their list before they ever see it in person.